Working With Color And White Balance And Using Gels

On this video Daniel Norton from Adorama demonstrates how to use gels to achieve a correct white balance for video work.

When you are working with light sources that have different colors (for example daylight and tungsten like Norton is using) you need a way to adapt the lights so they will match. One method is to use color correction filters such as the Rosco Color Correction Filter Kit which Norton uses. Of course sometimes you do want a warmer (or colder) look in some parts of the image so you don’t necessarily need to match the colors exactly although in most cases very big differences in color temperature in one shot might look unnatural.

Norton goes through several different shots either next to a natural light source (window) and in the second part in an interesting shot where it is still daytime and Norton want to achieve a much cooler nighttime look for his shot. Underexposing and using cooler lights and gels is one of the best ways to achieve the nighttime scene look as can be seen in the end of this video.

We have already looked at how photographer Joe McNally and Mike Brehaut use gels for their photographic work on “Using Gels to Change the Scene” video.

You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.