Have Fun Using Flash Gels!

Let’s have fun with gels! Keep reading to learn more.

Flash gels are a very interesting, useful and inexpensive tool for flash photography. In this article you’ll learn what are flash gels, and two ways to use them.

“Flash Gels”? What Do You Mean with “Gels”?

Flash gels are pieces of colored, heat-resistant plastic that you can place in front of your flash in order to change its color. They are very simple pieces of gear and very affordable.

I actually bought a set with 20 different gels (Adorama, Amazon). This kit comes with a carrying pouch and 3 attachment bands that fit almost any flash. The only flashes that I had trouble attaching the gels to were my Godox TT350s but I’ll just use a regular rubber band instead of the ones in the kit. You just place the attachment band around your speedlight’s head, then insert the gels between the band and flash, and you’re ready to go!

Neewer 20 pcs Gel Kit

Color Temperature Correction

The most common use for gels is to correct the color between the environment and your flash.

For example, if you’re shooting portraits at sunset, your subject may look a bit off compared to the sunset behind her/him. In that case you need to use a light orange gel on your flash to match the color temperature of the environment light.

Portraits at Sunset

I actually ran into this problem while shooting Andrea’s portraits a couple of months ago. I didn’t have any gels back then, so I decided to correct the image in post and it worked fine. However, using gels would have saved me time in post-production.

Creative Control

Of course, you can get creative with gels! During my latest shoot with Frida, where I tested flash systems, I also tested colored gels on the flashes. I started with a red gel on a Godox TT685 flash pointed towards the background, which was white. Voilà! We now have a pink background!

Pink background

I then tested with two flashes. One had a red gel, the other a blue one, both were behind and at each side of the model, pointing at each other. There was another flash without gel in a shoot-through umbrella, lighting Frida. There you have it! Slighty colored background!

Pink-Purple Background

My final tests were with two gelled flashes pointing and the model, diffused using an umbrella and an octabox.

Red Main Light and Purple Background
Underexposed Purple Light

Considerations

If you use modifiers like umbrellas and softboxes, the light coming from your flash will lose power and you’ll need to adjust either the power setting on the flash, or ISO or f-stop.

Well, the same happens if you place a piece of gel in front of your flash, so you’ll also need to make adjustments in your camera or flash. Fortunately, many gels come with documentation that indicates how much power your flashes loses, so you don’t need to guess.

As you can see, flashes are pretty simple to use. They do require you to practice in order to master their usage, just like any other piece of gear.

I hope you found this blog post useful, informative and entertaining. If so, share it with your friends!

These are some ways to use gels but if you’d like to suggest other setups, share them in the comments section.

I really hope you found this post interesting, informative but also entertaining. If that is the case, please leave a comment below and share this post with your friends! But most of all, please remember to Stay Safe, Keep Learning and Keep Creating.

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