Help me pick out some gels?

HBlack

HBlack

Underage Member
I'm getting some gels relatively soon, and have to figure out exactly what I need. I would normally talk to the people at the store when I go (which specializes in lighting), but I'm sending my dad over to pick them up and need the exact types written down.

What I want:
Something for night time. This would be a CTB, but I'm not sure what strength. I'd probably want 3 of these.

Something for low power natural light (candles, fireplace, flashlight, dim bulb, etc). I'd probably only get one of those, because they would be for matching practicals (usually fire) and there's generally only one source of that in a scene. This would be a CTO, but again, I don't know what strength to get.

Then there's the ones I'm not sure about. I'll probably need something to match daylight coming through windows, or gels to match colour temperatures between my lights and practical light sources. Any recommendations on what to get for this? I'd probably want a few low strength CTBs, but I'm not sure.

I'd like to only get around 7 if possible (3 night gels, 3 gels for day and light matching, and an orange one). Basically, my question is what strength to get of each.


The lights I have access to: Three 1k redheads, 5 750watt fresnels, and I'm probably picking up some china lanterns with 300watt bulbs eventually.

Then, there's the issue of dimming. 1ks are pretty damn bright for my purposes. I've usually been using a reflector or clipping paper to them, which works decently, but the paper starts burning relatively quickly and needs to be replaced. Any suggestions on this? I was thinking of using a few layers of wax paper, because I figure if it can withstand an oven it should be okay with some lights.


Thanks in advance.
 
For your CTB and CTO might be best to get 1/2 or 1/4 and then just double it up if you need something stronger.

For matching daylight with your tungsten lamps you can either CTB your lamps (and shoot daylight balance) or CTO your windows (and shoot tungsten balance). It's generally expensive to CTO your windows unless it's a small window and you don't have a lot of them so CTB'ing your lights might be a cheaper way to. That said CTB will suck up a lot of light on your tungsten fixtures (2 stops on a Full Blue).

Instead of paper get some diffusion gel - 216, 250, Opal are the common types - 216 being the most amount of diffusion.
 
So would 1/4 be good for daylight, and 1/2 be good for night? If that's the case I would just get 6 1/4 CTBs for light matching and daylight, doubling up for night?

Or, would 1/2 not be enough for night? It seems like it would need to be more blue for that.
 
You probably need 1/2 to Full to match daylight and for night it's entirely depending on preference. Though in both these cases it's entirely dependent on what you're after.

You can also cheat your white balance to get more a blue tone. For maximum versatility I would get Full, 1/2 and 1/4.
 
So right now I'm thinking 3 full CTBs, 3 half CTBs and 1 full CTO. Can't afford to get more than this at the moment, so any changes you would make within that?
 
Yeah, come to think of it that seems like a better idea. I can't think of any situations where I would need more than full CTB for natural lighting. Thanks.

If anyone else has any input as well, that'd be great.
 
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