Combining Custom Ambient light filters and Lens Red filters

[aviator8 15]

I am looking to try out the latest techniques as mentioned in the thread title but would like to find peoples experiences with the actual filtering. I have a WA UWL-100 that I can fit with an Ikelite 6441 style red filter for ambient light shooting in shallow(ish) water. I also have YS-D1 strobes and a pair of 12K video lights. I understand that Keldan makes dome ambient Blue filters for their lights for different depths but they will not fit on my video lights. I am interested in doing a DIY route for the strobe and light filters and would like to hear how others may have created custom blue filters with single or layered gels from Rosco or Lee. Also if there is a better lens filter option I am open to hearing about that.

 

Thanks

[Interceptor121 662]

The key to this technique is to be able to obtain good color rendering in ambient light shots with custom white balance in camera and to use a filter that removes the spectrum at least from aqua to blue and maybe green if you work in green water

 

As far as I recall from my RX100 Sony cameras fail custom white balance or produce weird tones in most situations

 

 

By good custom white balance means you don't touch the raw file you use the image as is

 

Can you obtain good custom white balance in ambient light shots? If not the rest of the steps makes no sense

[aviator8 15]

achieving CWB on this camera at those depths is a no go

[Interceptor121 662]

In that case its better to get a wider lens and get closer to use the power of your strobes and leave the filter off

 

 

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[aviator8 15]

for the sake of discussion and for when I can get into a camera that does handle CWB better how do you go about creating your filtering for the lighting?

[Interceptor121 662]

For the sake of the discussion it doesn’t work like that as the ambient filters depend on the lens filter it is not something you can work in isolation. Keldan filters for their video lights can be used without lens filters in combination to their 5600K lights with canon. When I tried with Panasonic the results are average.

Currently I only support magic filter and keldan -2 spectrum filter. I actually use sometimes something different myself but as am not making a business of this I don’t want to end up with support requests on how this works better than that etc

In terms of cameras the filters above tend to work well with nikon, Olympus, panasonic not so well with Sony (as it won’t white balance), Canon that pushes reds too much. Other brand I have no idea.

Also I have not concluded my work in Green water or blue/green water

I think a good starting read is here

http://www.magic-filters.com/need.html

Years later what Alex Mustard and Peter Rowlands write there remains true despite what some others may think filters have an edge already from 3 meters

Once you have worked out the right ambient light shots you can move forward. In your case I would probably start with the ‘auto’ magic filters and see if you have decent results once you get there you can start experimenting with the rest. The sony cameras have probably the worst color accuracy on the market as they push blue very hard so the experiments may be dissatisfactory anyway and it won’t be a platform I will advise keeping my recommendations limited to Panasonic Nikon and Olympus for now

 

 

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[Interceptor121 662]

Hi Aviator8 I may have some news for you following discussions with Keldan. I am waiting for some feedback from Dr Mustard then maybe I am going to shoot a video tutorial

[aviator8 15]

sounds good, looking forward to it.