Color cast with Elinchrom Deep Octa

Hi all,

 

I just bought the Elinchrom Deep Octa 70 cm. I really like the quality of the light but I was surprised to find that the fabric of the

diffusors have a slight yellowish tint which translates to a warm/yellow color cast in the images. It's quite visible with only the inner

diffusor in place and very obvious with both diffusors. No big problem to correct for as long as I only use the octa...the problem occurs

when I want to use it together with other pure white modifiers.

 

Is this a typical quality of Elinchrome modifiers...or of the Deep Octa...or did I just get a bad egg?

 

Please enlighten me if you can!

 

Lars Forsberg

<p>None of my Elinchrom modifiers have any sort of warm cast to the diffusion material, I've found it quite neutral. Some modifiers I've used are of lower quality and use some sort of optical brightener on their diffusion fabric, which gives a less pleasant color than the Elinchrom gear. I've got 5 different Elinchrom modifiers and haven't had any issues.</p>

<p>Do you have any example photos of the diffusion panels or of images shot with the softbox? What other softboxes are you comparing them to?</p>

Hi Sheldon, that's good information. Could it be that my other modifiers are too white? The octa is the first higher

quality modifier I bought. I've been using one older Falcon Eyes box, a quantuum beauty dish and a few low price boxes that do look very white in comparison with the octa.

 

But should I really expect to get a lot varmer color balance from using a quality modifier compared to using the bare

flash head (or head plus reflector) cause that's what's happening with the octa. I would love if it only affected the

quality and not the color of the light. This seems to be the case with my low price boxes...

 

Btw I use Elinchrom RX300-heads.

 

Will try to post some samples in the beginning of next week!

 

/Lars

<p>I had some gear already set up so I did a quick test myself. I used a 39" Deep Octa with and without the internal diffusion fabric to compare bare flash vs single diffused flash. I used the same power setting on the strobe and an Xrite Colorchecker Passport grey card to set white balance in Lightroom. The bare flash is about 150 degrees Kelvin cooler than the flash through the inner diffusion fabric on the octa.</p>

<p>The diffusion fabric does give a subtle warming if you directly compare the two images A vs B back to back. I've never noticed this before or considered it an issue or a color cast.</p>

<p>Do you get roughly the same difference between bare flash and through the inner diffusion fabric on your 27" Deep Octa?</p>

Thanks a lot for your effort Sheldon. I don't own a color meter myself but 150 degrees sounds about right judging from

the adjustments I have to make in the color balance. And I would add at least 150 degrees, but probably more, for the

second diffusor. I don't think of myself as a perfectionist but I do find it difficult to balance this properly with my other

gear. Perhaps I'd better save up some money and get a few more Elinchroms...:)

 

/Lars

<p>No problem, glad to help. I don't have a color meter either, just shot a grey card for both images then used the eyedropper tool to set white balance on the RAW file, and noted the difference in Kelvin temperatures that resulted.</p>

<p>Adding a couple more Elinchrom boxes sounds like a good solution to me. I've got the 27" Baby Deep Octa on the way too. ;-)</p>

<p>Where you using speedlights, or regular flash ? Sometimes I have that problem with my Cheetah softbox but only while using speedlights. The problem becomes more pronounced if I have some Tungsten lights ON inside the room. </p>

Thanks for your response Harry. I use elinchrome studio strobes (rx300 monolights) and have only noticed the color

cast when using the deep octa softbox...

 

/Lars

<p>I was going to post a question about color temperature differences between Profoto b1 and b2 when I saw this. I was using a B1 with Rotalux Octa 39"(diffuser off, inner diffuser on) and noticed the light from my b2 heads were noticebly cooler compared to the light from the b1+octa.<br>

IIRC, the light from the Profoto 1x3 striplight with b2 as a rim light was a tad blue compared to the light from the b1+octa. </p>

<p>From your description, the most likely cause is a warmer cast to the diffusers. BTW, as diffusers age, are used a lot, or are exposed to environmental effects ... they get warmer and warmer. In major production studios, diffusers are swapped out because of this ... the older ones are sometimes kept for shooting people since a warmer cast is often a desirable attribute.</p>

<p><strong>Other considerations:</strong></p>

<p>Harry makes a good point ... ambient light can contaminate color temps depending on shutter speed used. I avoid this in situations with room lights by using a leaf-shutter camera and higher shutter speeds.</p>

<p>Also, if the strobe is older, the aging bulb may effect color. Then there is the effect of the glass dome ... some are clear, some are UV. In fact, depending on the make of strobe, you could balance out discrepancies in color temp by changing the glass dome of the cooler unit with a minus temp glass dome. </p>

<p>I have a long history of using Elinchrom modifiers, even after switching to Profoto strobes ... they yellow with age, use, and exposure to environmental effects. This yellowing cannot be washed out ... trust me, I tried. </p>

<p>Hope this helps a bit ...</p>

<p>- Marc</p>

<p><em>BTW, here is an example of color temp differences ... before I corrected it in PS.</em></p>

<p>This was one of many commercial shots done for a Pilates Studio where I created a graphic sort of feel for their brand personality.</p>

<p>Two strobes were located on either side of the backdrop behind the subjects ... one was a Hensel monolight and the other a Profoto B1. For modifiers, I used 14" white translucent balls from Lowe's and Gorilla glued speed-rings to them ... I bought the balls separately, and not until I had them together did I notice a different subtile color cast to each. If you look closely at the black seat of the Pilates machine ... one end is a different color temp then the other end. </p>

<div></div>

I have the 39" and found that it warms your light 700K, but I also found this is very common for modifiers and I have mixed several in the same shot with various warmths from 300-1300k and found it doesn't really matter, so I wrote a bog post about it....

 

Should photographers care about modifier color temperatures when shooting portraits?

 

Hi all,

 

I just bought the Elinchrom Deep Octa 70 cm. I really like the quality of the light but I was surprised to find that the fabric of the

diffusors have a slight yellowish tint which translates to a warm/yellow color cast in the images. It's quite visible with only the inner

diffusor in place and very obvious with both diffusors. No big problem to correct for as long as I only use the octa...the problem occurs

when I want to use it together with other pure white modifiers.

 

Is this a typical quality of Elinchrome modifiers...or of the Deep Octa...or did I just get a bad egg?

 

Please enlighten me if you can!

 

Lars Forsberg