Warming filter for outdoor wedding photography?

All,

 

I've read about (and been told) that a good way to overcome blue

shading on outdoor wedding photographs is to get a warming filter -

something like an 81D to push the color back towards red a little.

 

The pictures will be taken outdoors at about 4 in the afternoon, and

I plan on placing the subjects in the shade and using fill flash

(can't afford an assistant to hold a reflector!).

 

Does anyone else do this? Is the filter really necessary? Is there

one that doesn't make the pictures too red?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Andrew

I would think that the 5500K fill flash will eliminate any sky blue on the faces.What film are you shooting?Chrome stock,you sometimes need to mess with color temp with people pix.Neg stock on the other hand,a good lab will print for the flesh tones and might negate any in camera filtration anyway.I have never heard of using filts for warming at a wedding,(which doesnt mean someone might do it).Most wedding shooters just trust their flashes & pro films and the lab to smooth out the speed bumps.

I used to use an 81A for all my event shooting including weddings in the days that my stuff was printed on agfa, which is a pretty cold paper. I now get Fuji pro paper and the filter has been sitting in the cupboard for a while..

A fill flash will certainly overhelm any need of a warming filter. However, the fill flash will

also allter the look of the background: it will work towards making your

backgrounds...darker. This is because fill flash has a faster light falloff due to the Law of

Inverse Squares than ambient natural light.

 

A better solution for this fill is to use silver light discs of 36" or 42" size. You should have

2 of these so that you can fill evenly. Should you leave a "hole", an unfilled place, you will

see blue coloration there from the blue sky.

 

Once you fill nicely with light discs, and I would recommend Flexfill, you can use a

warming filter or nothing. The fact is, if you don't use the filter, the lab will compensate

for you. However, using the warming filter is a nice option that is, in my opinion, more

technically correct here.

 

Now, you don't say what film you will be using. If you are using color negative, then you

can use the filter or no. If you are using slide film, you must use the filter. If you are

using digital, the camera can switch to the proper color temperature compensation.

 

The reflectors can be placed on the ground. But I would hold one to strike them with light

directly from the camera. What I like to do is to use something called "fhi018" which is a

silver mylar vinyl canvas which is about 54" wide. I have bought this for about $11 a yard,

and I use 4-6 yards worth. I can place it from my camera position directly running to the

couple; or I can place it across our path to the couple. As a result, I have like a "pool" of

reflectivity which does a great job of filling in while I have no assistant. You can get this

from www.ahh.biz and search for "fhi018" on google.com for a look at this stuff.

 

To be exacting, you could use a color temperature meter. Got an extra $900? Since you

might not be in the market for this item, using color negative film and a slight amber filter

will do the job. If you are alittle off in your color compensation using the filter, the pro lab

will go the rest of the way with compensation to give you a nice print.

 

Another little problem that will spring up is that the Bride's white dress will turn alittle

bluish when you are completed. The reason for this is that Ultra violet light from the blue

sky will react with whiteners in her dress to make her dress bluish in the shadowey areas

of her dress. If you try to filter this out using any method, such as a lens filter or using

the pro lab to compensate, you will turn their faces more amber color as you filter out this

UV derived bluishness. There is nothing that you can do but live with this bluishness

unless you want to give them really flat light with your reflectors. This will wipe out the

shadowey areas of her dress.

 

So, in conclusion, you need some silver reflector material.

Timber,I use matrix balanced fill flash.This measures the ambient,and fires a "kiss" of fill that goes almost un-noticed(I use a 2/3 stop lower than ambient compensated fill).Backgrounds going dark in fill flash situations,went out with Kodacolor 80.

You will not see the effect of mild color correction/warming filters with negative film because of color balancing done during printing.

 

If you have a flash meter, and know what you are doing, you can have the background match, be lighter or darker relative to your subjects with fill flash. To match the background you meter the background and set the camera to that exposure and then set your flash level so that the combined ambient/flash exposure matches the background reading. To get the background light or dark, over or under expose for the background level and adjust the flash level to match the exposure you have the camera set to. Reflectors give a pleasing look to the light because reflectors are very big relative to a small flash, and so gives a softer light. To keep fill flash from looking hard and flat, get the flash off the camera and use an umbrella or soft box (wind permitting). The greater the proportion of the light that comes from the flash, the more important the quality of the light from the flash is.

Hmmm -- I use a Soft Warm #1 filter. I have for years. I did so because I had a look at my mentor's work in the same venues and lighting and hers looked warmer... She told me about the filter. Big difference in the work. <p> No Timber - the lab did not color correct my prints. I tell them I'm using a filter and they know I like my color shots warm. <p>As to fill flash -- Interestingly enough - I recently acquired a new lens and thought I put a soft warm filter on it but I didn't! I shot a wedding and realized something was not right. I was noticing (since I shoot the same scenes with two to three cameras/lenes/film) some of the group shots and other outdoor images where I use fill in open shade - were just not the same results I was used to and I didn't like them. Absolutely on the cool side. The coolness of the film in shade is important to me to warm up -- I love my warm soft filters!!

This would be a good question for any of our resident lab people.I think that any on camera filtration used to alter the color temperature,has its effects cancelled out when the lab color corrects?

If you get auto machine prints made you won't see any difference, because it will get balanced out. (I once did a series of shots with different filters and all the prints looked the same.) If you get custom prints, or where the balance is set on the first print and not changed for the rest of the roll, there will be a difference.

Steve,

 

What you are doing is scientifically tight. The "kiss" of extra fill will result in a darkner

background, but it is so unnoticable, that the viewer can't tell. The viewer can't tell

because the viewer doesn't have any other choices to compare with! Your backgrounds

will only be darker by a fraction of an f stop in other words. And I like your close

tolerance technique.

Steve,

 

Let me qualify that a "fraction of an f stop" is nearly nothing in this situation.

Steve,

 

I am not going to tell the readers to try to duplicate what you do. The reason is that the

reader's equipment and abilities and patience vary. I would rather tell the readers to

overexpose alittle and to be consistent indoors or out with exposure. In this way, they

won't have failures and lose a friend of the bride. What you are doing is so precise that I

wouldn't want someone to have failure by making a small error of underexposure. I am

writing to a general audience here. Sometimes I get perfectionistic and throw out ideas in

that vein; othertimes I get conservative and keep the reader in a "safe zone" that I know

they will have success in even if they make some little errors. Now you know.

I came across a solution for these outdoors shots, and a solution for decreasing the

sunlight on the couple, and for warming up the light of the shot; all at the same time:

 

Use a polyester net in black or white or tan to reduce the direct sunlight. Then, sewn to

this netting is another piece of netting. This additional netting is in white color. Cut a

hole through the netting for your camera lens. What you have is a 2 color screen. On the

one side you are reducing light from the direct sun; on the other, you are filling in. The fill

side could also be some sort of diffusion material instead of white netting.

 

I shopped for the materials and netting sells for about $1 a yard.

Wasnt the question about warming filters