probably the biggest tip i should pass
on is never throw away your offcuts of
gels because i've got loads of them and
they're all really useful hello i'm
gavin hoey and you're watching adoramatv
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photographers and this video you might
have guessed it it's all about colored
gels i'm going to show you two very
different ways to use them one where we
gel a background turn it into a nice
bright color and the other where i put
gel light onto a model for a really
dramatic effect that's going to be a
load of fun now it doesn't matter
whether you're an experienced user of
gels or whether this is your first time
here's three really simple tips number
one make sure the gels you use are heat
resistant because flashes at full power
really do throw out a lot of heat number
two make sure you fully gel your light
no white light needs to mix with the
gelled light otherwise you'll really
dilute the color and number three unless
you have a really big studio and clearly
i don't the choice of background will
make a difference
to get the maximum color to appear on
your background you need a dark
background i find grey is the best
choice for my small home studio also i
want to try and avoid light bouncing
around in my studio too much so i put
these black curtains up here to try and
help a little bit i'm going to get a few
things set up whilst i'm doing that you
should be clicking on the subscribe
button and the bell icon so you never
miss a video right here on adoramatv so
let's get a model in let's get some
lights set let's get shooting
to help me out today i've got the
amazing chloe
chloe is going to be the model for this
shoot and i've got a few things set up
already i've got a gel so let's pop that
onto my flashpoint evolve 200 which is
going to be the light for the background
the first thing i actually want to set
is my camera
aperture shutter speed and iso because
if i get those right now they'll never
change throughout this shoot so i'm
going to use my flash sync speed for me
that is a shutter speed of 250th of a
second but yours might be slightly
different and an iso well my native iso
is 200 for this camera so that's what
i'm going to use aperture f8 middle of
the road so i'm going to take a picture
at those settings but without any flash
firing at all and it might seem like a
weird thing to do but this is really
important because what i've got is no
flash no picture and when it comes to
gels you're only going to see the color
of the gel in the shadows in your shots
and this picture is basically so far one
big shadow there's one other thing that
i've dialed in as well that's not going
to change and that is the white balance
of my camera now if you have auto white
balance there is a reasonable chance
that as your colors change in your shot
your white balance can shift and you
won't get consistency to the color of
your gels so stick to a white balance
i've used the flash white balance and
then you're going to be okay
i don't know the right power so i'm
going to set the background light to 1
32nd power and that's the only light in
the shot so chloe's going to come out as
a silhouette chloe you're going to look
in that direction silhouettes always
look good in profile here we go let's
see what 132nd power looks like
and what we get is
light in the background but the thing
about gels is you don't always get the
same color from the same gel so here's
what i'm going to do i'm going to take
the power for that light up by two stops
so it's at one thirty second power one
sixteenth power is one more stop of
light one eighth power two more stops of
light passing through the colored gel
okay chloe here we go
and when i do that we have a much more
defined red color
and just for fun let's take this up
again to one half power so that's
another two stops of light coming
through that gel
so now we have a very different result
it's almost pink in the middle but it
sort of graduates out towards the edges
so we have very different looks simply
by changing the amount of light that we
pass through the gel
and not all red gels are the same so
this red gel
is different to this red gel it looks
different it should project a different
type of red light onto the background
and yeah that is a much more intense red
which with a silhouette i think looks
really good
so i'm going to give chloe a prop there
we go have a hat
and if you're ready
let's take a few shots like this
here we go
[Music]
with gels it's actually best to get your
background set correctly which seems
backwards for the way you would normally
work but once you have your background
color dialed in you can then concentrate
on getting the light right on your
subject so i've got a flashpoint explore
300 in a little soft box here and this
is the light that's going to light chloe
the position of it well i've put it back
here where i'm going to stand so it's
nice and close to me because that's what
we do as photographers is this the best
place
not necessarily i've already meted this
out for f 8. let's just take a test shot
and see how this goes here we go
chloe so i've got nice light on chloe
and the background well it's red but if
you compare it to a shot where the front
light the key light didn't fire you can
see just how much redder and richer that
background was before i added in the key
light at the front
to try and maintain that rich red color
that i had before i've moved the light
so now it's much closer and i'm going to
take advantage of something called the
inverse square law or light falloff we
have videos about that right here on
adoramatv if you want to learn more so
i've moved the light i need to re-meter
the light so chloe i'm just going to pop
this near your gin
and i'm going to get this back to f8
little test shot
so that's great now i have light on
chloe yes it's coming in from an angle
and it's a little bit more edgy but i
quite like that but the background has
stayed that rich red color
right so that's everything set we've got
the lights the background set let's take
a few shots like this chloe are you
ready okay here we go
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
i'm gonna move the key light behind
chloe for two reasons firstly it avoids
any light washing out the background
color and secondly the results look
fantastic
[Music]
this time i'm going to change it around
so rather than lighting the background
i'm actually going to put coloured light
onto
chloe and i'm actually going to use two
different gels to do it so the first
thing i want to do just like before is
set the background illumination which
isn't this i'm going to let the
background drift to black it's actually
an edge light all the way around chloe
now there's lots of ways you could do
this but i'm going to use a couple of
strip boxes so i've got one here and
i've got another one which we'll bring
in over here i'm going to try and put
them roughly equidistant between chloe
something like that both of these have
got gels inside and they're very
carefully attached so none of the white
light can spill past the gel i get the
pure orange color reaching chloe
let's just take a test shot i'm not
going to meter this i'm going to do it
by trial and error i'm at 1 64th power
on both of these two flashes which are
both a pair of flashpoint evolve 200s
let's just see what we get here we go
chloe
and at 1 64 power well i'm getting light
it's definitely orange but there's not
much else i can say about it
so i need to come up quite a bit let's
go up two stops 1 32nd power 1 16 power
and we'll try that
and that's great so now we have orange
light on chloe we have a black
background and we have some shadows and
remember you can only add color to the
shadows of your picture
so now i'm ready to light chloe i've got
a blue gel firmly attached to the inside
of this softbox and i've taken off the
outer covering because i want it to be a
little bit more specular in its lighting
which is another way of saying shiny and
well that's the whole purpose of this
shoot so that's going to go up there now
the position of this light is really
important because remember we can only
light the shadows with color so this has
to go where the shadows are and because
we got the lights around the outside
giving edge lighting this light has to
go in the center that's where the
shadows are now i could take a meter
reading for this but this isn't the kind
of shot where you want to be exact you
want to really look at it and judge the
results on what you see so let's do
exactly that
let's start i don't know around about
one quarter power let's see how that
goes
okay chloe here we go
now one quarter power i'm going to say
that is correctly exposed on chloe but
not the look i'm going for that's not
the idea so i'm actually going to take
that light down let's go down two stops
let's go down to 1 16 power and see how
that feels and this really is about how
it feels rather than actually how it
meters and that is looking pretty good
i'm looking at the specular highlights i
want those shiny little highlights to
come through and if it's all too bright
we don't see them
okay so everything is set so let's take
a few shots like this chloe are you
ready
okay here we go
[Music]
so my shoot might be over but the work
isn't because there's a bit of
post-processing to do on that last set
of images so i took them into adobe
camera raw or lightroom and gave a
little bit of an increase in contrast
and then really dropped the texture down
for dramatic effect a tweak in clarity
a bump in saturation was required as
well and then it stepped back and look
at the images and they needed a little
bit more of a lift in the highlights and
there you go final picture completed
there's a whole variety of gels out
there from just square sheets to
ready-made pre-cuts they all do the same
thing they can all transform a fairly
drab gray background into something
truly exciting and colorful i've got
loads of gels in the studio i wouldn't
be without them now if you've enjoyed
this video or you've got any questions
leave me a comment below click on the
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right here on adoramatv and of course
remember to click on that rather
colorful subscribe button i'm gavin hoey
thanks for watching