Anyone play around with Gel Filters?

[SchnitzelReef]

Just ordered some on eBay. I've been reading about them for awhile, they seem to really help with taking pics with your phone.

Here's what I just bought. $9


Here's a couple example pics




Everyone's tank lighting is a little different, that's why there's a few options. You gotta play with each one and see what looks best.
Supposed to be able to snap a pic and upload it. No editing or Photoshopping needed.

I'll update the thread when I get them in. Supposed to work with DSLR as well

 

[BeanMachine]

They work surprisingly well. But for overall tank shots they don't quite look like what you see with your eyes. For individual pieces they work great to show the color. Although not 100 percent accurate, better than a blue led photo that you can't see what is even in the picture.

 

[bobbychullo]

that makes sense. we use them in the film business to color balance lights on camera, i.e. to bring lights of varying color temps into the same degrees kelvin range so they look the same in a shot, usually on lights that we cannot move within a location liike flourescents and we still want to use them in the shot. some times we just turn them off and bring in our own lights which still may be gel'd if we need to balance with previous scenes. if you can figure out the exact kelvin temp of your bulb combo you could feasibly get a filter that should put it in the kelvin range you want. like Cody said, it may be difficult since the color temp of our tanks is different than the color temps the filters are usually meant to adjust for. im not a camera guy but tungsten lighting is usually 3200k, its really red/orange i think. so we bring it up to 6k with gels if it needs to look like daylight. with film it can be balanced for tungsten or daylight but with HD video i have no idea how that works, i went to film school before that was used lol. theres other factors too like the color balance of the film but its pretty irrelevent here

if youre interested, these gonna be more expensive but you can by in sheets or rolls and should be high quality (and possibly a bit of overkill lol but they have a large range of choices) google:

lee filters

rosco filters

buy at:
studio depot in hollywood or film tools in burbank.

 

[SchnitzelReef]

that makes sense. we use them in the film business to color balance lights on camera, i.e. to bring lights of varying color temps into the same degrees kelvin range so they look the same in a shot, usually on lights that we cannot move within a location liike flourescents and we still want to use them in the shot. some times we just turn them off and bring in our own lights which still may be gel'd if we need to balance with previous scenes. if you can figure out the exact kelvin temp of your bulb combo you could feasibly get a filter that should put it in the kelvin range you want. like Cody said, it may be difficult since the color temp of our tanks is different than the color temps the filters are usually meant to adjust for. im not a camera guy but tungsten lighting is usually 3200k, its really red/orange i think. so we bring it up to 6k with gels if it needs to look like daylight. with film it can be balanced for tungsten or daylight but with HD video i have no idea how that works, i went to film school before that was used lol. theres other factors too like the color balance of the film but its pretty irrelevent here

if youre interested, these gonna be more expensive but you can by in sheets or rolls and should be high quality (and possibly a bit of overkill lol but they have a large range of choices) google:

lee filters

rosco filters

buy at:
studio depot in hollywood or film tools in burbank.

I researched it pretty quickly, but it seems that some of the newer lights in the photo industry are leds. Leds are typically bluer then a standard bulb. So some of these gel filters purpose is to make blue lights look less blue. Not sure if that makes sense, but one of the gel filters I was looking at, said it was specially for led lighting. Now obviously they aren't using 20k blue like we do, but another reefer from another forum said to just double up some of the gel filters if your tank is really blue.

 

[bobbychullo]

I researched it pretty quickly, but it seems that some of the newer lights in the photo industry are leds. Leds are typically bluer then a standard bulb. So some of these gel filters purpose is to make blue lights look less blue. Not sure if that makes sense, but one of the gel filters I was looking at, said it was specially for led lighting. Now obviously they aren't using 20k blue like we do, but another reefer from another forum said to just double up some of the gel filters if your tank is really blue.

not sure if doubling them up will do anything besides cut more light out but I am not sure, thats a guess. if you get one of rosco's or lee's swatch book you will see there are quite a bit of filters to choose from, you could experiment. you may be able to get away just using the swatch book if you have a small camera lens and you just place it over it. The swatch book is like $2 at a photography store.

EDIT: I assumed you were going to use the same color gel lol It may work using two different gels to cut more wavelengths out...

 

[SchnitzelReef]

They def helped a lot.




Here's the same pic with no gel filter

 

[Mark405]

Damn Nick looks great. Thanks for sharing

 

[BeanMachine]

Looks nice bro... maybe I should take the crown now for the worst pictures on the net LOL

What color gels did you use for that and what lighting was on at the time?

 

[SchnitzelReef]

Anyone play around with Gel Filters?

Looks nice bro... maybe I should take the crown now for the worst pictures on the net LOL

What color gels did you use for that and what lighting was on at the time?

I'm not sure which one I used. It was one of the shades of orange or brown. I haven't played with it much, just took it out of the package and started snapping pics. Those pics were taken with my iPhone and uploaded strait to this forum. No editing with other iPhone apps. For $9, I can't complain.

Lighting was radions set to 20k and 6-blue +. So about as blue as you can get.

 

[dodgerblew]

Excellent Nick. Thank you. Ordered. How long did it take for you to receive and have you tried it on top down shots?

 

[FDAWG]

So it just sticks over the lens on phone?

 

[bobbychullo]

So it just sticks over the lens on phone?

you can do that or if you have a big enough sheet you can gel your entire light....

 

[SchnitzelReef]

Excellent Nick. Thank you. Ordered. How long did it take for you to receive and have you tried it on top down shots?

Maybe 3-5 days. I ordered it, forgot I ordered it, remembered I ordered it, checked the mail box and it was there. Hahaha

No top downs yet. I've been super busy lately, I will soon though. I'm sure it will be even better with a DSLR.

 

[SchnitzelReef]

So it just sticks over the lens on phone?

Yes. It's a 3" square. Stick it in front of a camera or a phone camera. It's as simple as it looks.

 

[theblennyman]

Good to know this. I'm gonna try and order this.

 

[Farmreefer]

Very cool, thanks for sharing

 

[bobbychullo]

here's something if you wanna dive deeper into it. Every gel color you can imagine...

http://studiodepot.com/collections/gels-and-lighting-filters

 

[thirst]

With my radions, i generally just change the temp to snap pics.. then change it back when i finish taking pics.