What is your go to gels?

D

Derrick_SA

Veteran
Hi there,

I'm wondering what gels (eg. lee filters) you guys always carry along.

I mean, 0.3, 0.6, 1.2 ND's?
what CTB's, what CTO's and at what strength?
diffusion, etc...

I guess I'm asking what filters to you use most?

thanks,
Derrick
 
Don't spend money on ND gel for your lights, that's what scrims are for.

Gels differ vastly from setup to setup, and will really depend on your need, and what lighting effect or concept you are trying to create. However, some basic gels I would recommend always having are your basic colour correction gels which consist of the following.

CTO 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, Full
CTB 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, Full
+ GREEN 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, Full
- GREEN 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, Full

Some common diffusion types are-

250 Half White Diffusion
216 White Diffusion
Hampshire Frost Diffusion
Opal Diffusion

For these and more gels and descriptions check out www.leefilters.com and www.rosco.com
 
thanks andrew,

thanks for the tips so far.

The whole reason I'm asking, is that I went tot leefilters.com, and there is so many filters, and so much information.

I thought I would ask you guys which ones you find yourself using mostly out there.

So I'm hoping people could mention what they use mostly like you did.

thanks,
Derrick
 
-1/8 CTO (a lot of it)
-A little bit of the other grades of CTO (1/4, 1/2, 3/4, full)
-A bit of each grade of CTB
-1/8 minus green
-A couple sheets each of Opal, 216, Cosmetic Highlight, Tough Spun, 1/4 White Diffusion
-Lastly, Andrew is right and wrong about the ND, depending on what kind of lights you're using. If you're shooting with Totas in a bag, or non-dimming flos, or Rifas, or Starlites (or Chimera version), or any other lights that don't have a place to put the scrims, get some ND - a few sheets of each grade. I carry around .15, .3 and .6 with a few sheets of each.
-I also have, but don't always carry around a bunch of party gels including 1/8-1/2 green, Rosco 30 Red, Rosco 30 and 60 Magenta, and some others I can't think of right now.

Of the list above, the stuff that comes out most is the 1/8 CTO, 1/4 CTO, 1/2 CTB, Cosmetic Highlight, Opal, and 216. Mind you, the bulk of my work is Documentary-style shooting where I'm trying to make stuff look good but inconspicuous at the same time. Other people doing other kinds of stuff will want/need different things.

In general, a good basic gel package would be a couple of grades of Warm and Cool gels and a few grades of ND and Diffusion.

Good luck, Derrick.

~~Dave
 
What's this cosmetic highlight gel? I'm familiar with everything else, but I've never heard of that.
 
Cosmetic Highlight is a diffusion gel with a hint of warmth. The Rosco number is 188. Lee offers it as well but I'm not sure what their number is. For a lot of people, it warms fleshtones nicely (and naturally), and it's easier than pinning separate sheets of diffusion and 1/8 CTO on the same fixture. Also, to be honest it's a different sort of warming than CTO, more on the peach side. Pick up a sheet and try it out sometime. It's pretty nice.

~~Dave
 
Andrew Brinkhaus said:
Don't spend money on ND gel for your lights, that's what scrims are for.
Although I agree that ND on a light is a one of the last resorts for knocking down a light, as opposed to scrims, especially if the light accepts scrims.
EVERY grip truck carries ND. Especially for knocking down windows .
What would you use most often...? Most people have already come up with the standard fair of gels to keep on hand. I use at least 5 different diffusion gels/fabrics regularly, and I like to occasionally use the color, STRAW.
Click to expand...
 
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You can stack CTO and CTB, so having a lot of 1/8 allows you to go anywhere from 1/8 to full (and more) in 1/8 steps. Very useful to adjust different lights, like when there's ambient light and your lights, then you stick piece after piece of 1/8CTO on your lights until they match the ambient.

I never tried Cosmetic Highlight, but I'm an avid user of Cosmetic Rouge. I always carry a piece for my on-camera light, because the halogen lamp is really neutral white, it doesn't mix well with tungsten ambient lights. You could also use a 1/4 CTO, but the Cosmetic Rouge works wonders on skin tones (although I also add diffusion most of the time).

Another nice discovery I made recently is Lee "light gridcloth". It is a medium strong white diffusion cloth that I think is very versatile. When you fold it in multiple layers the light is super-soft, it's also very easy to handle because it's soft cloth.

If you need a really nice red effect gel, Rosco "Fire" is worth looking at. It's red with some orange-ish tone that really "burns", kind of :)
 
The DPs I work with tend to like Opal, Hampshire, and Brushed Silk for diffusion. As aside from from the color correction gels already mentioned, CTS is also a popular one. It's not quite as warm as CTO but gives a nice warm tone over the subject.
 
All good advice, to which I'd add this about diffusion....

Many people don't fullyl grasp that diffusion, applied to the barn doors of a hard light that is some distance away, DOES NOT make the light significantly "softer" on the subject. It acts as ND or scrim, and it spreads the beam wider, that's it. You can "diffuse a light like this all day long and it won't get softer, only dimmer and harder to control the spill.

This is because softness (ie., shadow wrap) is determined mainly by the apparent size of the source. First, you need a big piece of diffusion (subjective, but let's say 24x24", for instance.) THen, you need to place the diffusion close to your subject (a matter of taste.) Finally, you have to fill the diffusion as fully and evenly with light as possible (by backing up the light source and using the barn doors to control spill. That, incidentally, is the essense of the design of a chimera softbox, and what makes flouro fixtures "soft."

Different grades of diffusion cause subtle differences in effect, but only if you grasp the basic setup I described above.
 
sunporchmedia said:
All good advice, to which I'd add this about diffusion....

Many people don't fullyl grasp that diffusion, applied to the barn doors of a hard light that is some distance away, DOES NOT make the light significantly "softer" on the subject. It acts as ND or scrim, and it spreads the beam wider, that's it. You can "diffuse a light like this all day long and it won't get softer, only dimmer and harder to control the spill.

This is because softness (ie., shadow wrap) is determined mainly by the apparent size of the source. First, you need a big piece of diffusion (subjective, but let's say 24x24", for instance.) THen, you need to place the diffusion close to your subject (a matter of taste.) Finally, you have to fill the diffusion as fully and evenly with light as possible (by backing up the light source and using the barn doors to control spill. That, incidentally, is the essense of the design of a chimera softbox, and what makes flouro fixtures "soft."

Different grades of diffusion cause subtle differences in effect, but only if you grasp the basic setup I described above.
Click to expand...

Well, of course the size is the most important factor for a soft light - but there are 1.) lights that often need some diffusion because their beam is uneven (i.e. PAR eng lamps, or on-camera lights) and 2.) lights with relatively large barndoors where the size of the light source can almost be doubled with strong diffusion fixed in front of them.
Even with the barndoors of an on-camera light you can often enlarge the light source pretty much by sticking diffusion gel to it. It has to be as far away as possible from the source but with as much surface as possible. As I said before, the larger the barndoors, the better.
As soon as you stick strong diffusion on the barndoors, these of course become useless for flagging, because the new light source is now the back-lit gel.
 
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