Color Me Frugal
Gelling your light sources for color accuracy (matching your flash to that tungsten light bulb in the room) or effect (giving a background a slight touch of blue, for example) can be the difference between a good photo and a great photo. In fact, Strobist already has two of their four articles on just this subject (here and here).
They cover using gels in order to match light sources that are too warm, like tungsten, or just plain hideous, such as fluorescent. They mention all sorts of gels, like CTO (color temperature orange) and minus green, but they don’t mention the cost of those gels. Wouldn’t it be nice to get them for cheap? How about a penny?
Well, ok, how about two pennies. Rosco, makers of fine gels in various sizes (mostly for your large monolights or pack and head kits), understands that you don’t always know exactly what color you need. I mean really, can you tell the difference between straw, amber, and CTO? They all look orange to me. So Rosco made a swatchbook, much like you would see with carpet samples or tile books.
B&H has these swatchbooks available for a penny each (here and here). In fact, in their description, they even mention that these swatches will fit a hotshoe flash. You have to pay shipping, but instead just stack them onto a current purchase (like a big roll of gaffer tape). And just so you can see the idea in action:
Just gaffer them right on (you do have gaffer, right?) The best part is that Rosco throws in every color known to man. There are colors I’ve seen here that I didn’t know existed in reality. They may not, but Rosco threw them in, just in case. But wait, somehow it gets better. The people at Rosco knew we might not understand the properties of Storaro Red or Tough Plusgreen. So what did they do?
Each swatch comes with a small paper that explains the transmission percentage (how much light you lose using the filter), and either a blurb explaining it’s use, or a chart that maps it’s transmission by wavelength (I’ve no idea what I just said!).
And it’s just two cents. Do yourself a favor and get them, even if you never, ever, ever imagine using them.