REVIEW: Rogue Flash Gels - Color Correction Kit

The makers of the awesome Rogue Grid and Rogue Flashbenders have heard feedback from people like me who loved their Rogue Gels, but wished they had more of the gels we care about (color correcting) and less of the dazzling colors (which are fun, but not what you use everyday). The product is the ExpoImaging Rogue Flash Gels Color Correction Kit which contains 18 gels in 3 Sets of 6 Gels. Here’s the six LEE Filters UK gels that are included:

3x - 1/2 CTB (3200K to 4300K)

3x - Full CTO (6500K to 3200K)

3x - 1/2 CTO (6500K to 3800K)

3x - 1/4 CTO (6500K to 4600K)

3x - Plus Green (cc30 Green)

3x - Full White Diffusion (1 Stop)

Why you should care about gels…

Many of my readers probably aren’t familiar with gels, so I’ll say up front that this isn’t a tutorial (although I hope to do one in the future). I will say that the reason why you use filters (also called gels) is primarily for correction so that you can do things like balance the color of the flash (using a CTO gel) with the tungsten lights in a room to create a consistent color that is easily white balanced across the image instead of a mixed color scenario (subject hit with the flash is one color, and the ambient background light is another color – which is near impossible to correct with white balance alone). Here’s an example:

Notice how the white of the text seems nice and white yet the background lights are very orange. This is an in-camera jpeg without any corrections (beyond cropping) to illustrate what you would get if you just fired your flash with no gel. Now, let’s see what happens when we use Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw’s White Balance tool and click on the text to get a white balance with the RAW file:

At first glance to the untrained eye you might think – wow, that’s much better – the orange cast is gone and all looks well. However, you should take note that the light under the cabinet in the background still has a strong orange tint to it.

Now let’s shoot the same shot with a full cut CTO gel (orange gel):

What you’ll notice now is that the background is really orange, but when we set the white balance on the raw by clicking the eyedropper on the white text look what happens:

Notice how the light in the background no longer has an orange tint anymore? Now mouse in and out of the image below to see the white balanced versions of the shots with and without the CTO gel to see what a difference this makes:

Mouse Over to see with CTO correction
Mouse Out to see Bare Flash

Notice how much better the CTO gel corrected version looks? This is even more noticeable when you use people as subjects in a large room with tungsten lights.

Here’s what you get…

At the heart of the Rogue Lighting Filters for flashes is this new Rogue Gel-Band which also comes in threes (which especially handy if you are using three flashes at one time that need color correction). It’s special an elastic band that is designed to hold the specially cut gels onto any size flash head as shown at the top of the article. Here’s picture of the kit with the three gel bands:

Conclusion

I take my Rogue Gel kit with me everywhere, but I’ve feared losing a gel since I don’t have duplicates. The nice pouch and dividers make it easy for me to keep track of them, but the stress of not having backups has bothered me. That issue has been resolved as the only ones I really use 99% of the time are the color correcting gels. I can now leave my creative gels in my bag for when they are needed, but my color correction kit will be front and center for my jobs.

I know some argue that with a sheet of gels that you cut yourself and a rubber band you can do the same thing, but look at the comments on my Rogue Gel review. A pro photographer who poo poo’d this product quickly became an evangelist for the product after taking my advice to try them out.

As photographers we typically have a lot of stuff to keep track of and few of us are super organized, so being able to find your gels quickly and have a place to put them when your done really does help. These are high quality LEE filters and any pro photographer will easily pay for them in the first 10 minutes of any job they where they are used. Times are tough, but these things are definitely worth the money and this new color correction kit gives you exactly what you need – nothing more.

Oh, and send this link to your spouse as these and other Rogue products make excellent stocking stuffers!

Special Offer

NOTE: You MUST provide your credit card info before the Redeem button will work!

My blog already has a discount coupon code in place for existing ExpoImaging products like the Rogue Flashbenders, Rogue Grid, ExpoDisc, and RayFlash, but I’m pleased to announce now that you can also save 15% when you use the coupon code ronmart09 to order your gels.

Codes change so check the discount coupon code page for the latest code if this code doesn’t work.

You can also purchase Rogue products from B&H, Adorama, and Amazon.

Other Articles You Might Enjoy

• ExpoImaging ExpoDisc (Color Balancing Tool)
• Ray Flash: The Ring Flash Adaptor
• Rogue Gels
• Rogue Grid
• Rogue Softbox and Diffusion Panels
• Pocket Wizard Mini TT1, Flex TT5 and AC7 (Features Rogue Gels)

Disclaimer

I was provided a copy of the Rogue Filters to test at no obligation from ExpoImaging. I may get a commission if you purchase this product via Rogue or my other partners.

Enjoy The Fall Colors Especially When Its Wet And Overcast

Model Juliet Dang

I had a client in town for private training with me this weekend and my original plan was to go out and try to shoot the fall colors with a model. When an unexpected rain and overcast day arrived we shot in the studio for as long as week could and only saved 2 hours (90 minutes after drive time) for the outdoors. What a mistake – the fresh rain had cleaned off the foliage making them nice and saturated to the camera and the clouds acted as God’s soft box. The net result was a wonderful shoot with mouth watering color. Moral of the story – don’t let a little rain and clouds keep you indoors – especially in the fall, there’s always something out there to shoot.

This photo was taken with Canon 1D X using my favorite lens, the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM set to 135mm and f/4 for 1/200 sec at ISO 400. Light was provided by a Lastolite Joe McNally Ezybox Hot Shoe - 24 x 24" (61 x 61 cm) with Canon 600EX-RT flash triggered by a Canon ST-E3 with a 1/2 cut CTO Rogue Gel inside the softbox. The in-camera JPEG (standard picture style) was cropped and slightly enhanced using only Lightroom 4.2.

This is a shot that I set up and my student took with me holding the soft box. If you are interested in hiring me for a private lesson like this, contact me.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission.

B&H REVIEW: Pocket Wizard MiniTT1, FlexTT5 & AC7

I’m tired of spending money on Photography gear (or should I say broke) so I’ve been very reluctant to buy wireless radio transmitters. B&H was nice enough to send two sets of Pocket Wizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 (for Canon ETTL-II System) radio controlled flash controllers for me to demonstrate during my recent workshop. They also sent the AC7 RF Shield for the FlexTT5, but I never got around to using any of them due to the fast pace of the workshop.

I own three Canon 580 EX-II’s for my flash needs. When my flashes go off camera I use either one of those flashes or my ST-E2 to trigger them. I’ve only had one case where the Canon system failed miserably, but I know the limitations of the system so I never put them into a situation where I knew I was asking for the impossible. As a result I have limited myself from doing some of the cool things you see in Joe McNally’s books The Moment It Clicks or Hot Shoe Diaries. After attending his Flash Bus Tour I decided to join the world of the Strobist minions give the radio triggers a shot.

I used the MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 units as well as the classic Plus II at the Bryan Peterson Workshop and at the workshop I actually had a preference for the Plus II because it allowed me to use Nikon SB-900 flashes remotely with my Canon camera. However, I had a feeling I’d miss not having E-TTL after reading Speedliter's Handbook by Syl Arena so I decided the MiniTT1 and FlexTT5’s were the way to go.

Why Do I Need Wireless Radio Transmitters?

This shot would not be possible without wireless transmitters
Canon 1D Mark IV and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM at 100mm
f/3.5 at ISO 320 for 1/125 sec
Dutch Angle done for fun

One of the questions I get from my students is why do I need wireless radio transmitters? The answer is simple – because they allow your off-camera flash to still fire when it doesn’t have direct line of sight with your camera. Here’s a good example of environment where direct line of sight is not possible:

Notice how both flashes are in separate areas blocked by walls

For this shot I need the green to fill the background, but if I get any spill from the main light it will wash out the green Rogue Gel from the rear flash. To avoid this problem I tucked the 580EX II with the FlexTT5 in the alcove so the walls would act as flags. This takes care of the background, but I still need to put light on my model so I elected to use an umbrella with another 580EX II on a FlexTT5 that was stuffed into the children's playroom at the bottom of the stairs. To avoid lighting up the column next to the umbrella I just used a little gaffers tape and taped the black umbrella cover on so that it would cover the left half (as shown above).

In the the photos above and below you can see where I’ve put black markers where the model needs to stand. If you look below you’ll see that camera is located in the kitchen dining area next to the bar where there is no line of sight to either of the flashes. Radio transmitters are the only practical option in this case as direct line of sight is impossible and running PC sync cords would be a mess.

Notice how the camera (where the MiniTT1 fires) has multiple walls blocking it from the flashes

The last thing you’ll notice in the shot above is the reflector that I used to throw some additional light on the dark side of the model’s face. This allowed me to get the light I needed without introducing another flash which would have caused challenges with light contaminating the background color.

For this test I used E-TTL for the flash on my model and manual for the flash with the gel. I felt this worked best for my scenario as I didn’t want the flash with the gel to change power yet I was happy to let E-TTL do its magic for the flash on my model. I even experimented in another test with a on-camera flash on top of my MiniTT1 using E-TTL and that worked fine also.

Using the AC7 Accessory

The AC7 accessory is designed to provide better performance of the FlexTT5’s (up to 500% longer distance) when used with Canon flashes. It’s first purpose means you don’t need to use the included sock and you’ll get a longer shooting range and its second purpose is to give your flash a better shooting direction into the umbrella.

The way you’d think that you use the FlexTT5 is like this:

This works, but RF interference can cause occasional misfires and reduce wireless distance

However, you’ll get much better performance if you use the RF sock like this:

The sock improves performance,
but notice how the flash doesn’t hit the bottom portion of the umbrella in this configuration

The AC7 increases range by up to 500% over the configuration shown above and it acts as a better umbrella adapter so that your flash fires in the center of the umbrella as it should:

The AC7 allows for a better center hit of your flash into your umbrella

Here’s another view of how your flash inserts into the AC7:

580 EX II flash shown inside of the AC7 with a FlexTT5 attached

In case you are wondering, the AC7 does work with battery packs. You’ll notice the bump in the top in the photos below where the included adapter goes to allow for battery pack attachments. You can also rotate your flash head and point it at a 90 degree angle if you want to use the AC7 without an umbrella.

While this device is designed mainly to deal with the RF interference issue with Canon flashes, it is really the improved performance in umbrellas that makes it worth while.

Additional Resources for Off-Camera Flash Fun

Joe McNally’s books The Moment It Clicks or Hot Shoe Diaries have lots of great photos which show off the cool things you can do with off-camera flashes and gels. It is very Nikon biased so Canon shooters will also want to look at Speedliter's Handbook by Syl Arena to learn how to do the same things with their Canon flashes. I’ve also reviewed Off-Camera Flash Techniques which is a great resource to show you how to put the lighting principals of Light, Science and Magic (a must read) into practice.

The hottest place on the web for more info on this is also Strobist.com or if you prefer to watch videos then KelbyTraining.com (discount on this blog).

Conclusion

The MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 worked great and I never ran into any of the problems I’ve seen reported on the web even when I didn’t use the included sock attachment. The AC7 offered a better solution for use with umbrellas and better performance, so they seem like a worthwhile accessory.

Overall this system worked as expected and I had the confidence of knowing that they’d flash every time without fail. While E-TTL makes a lot of sense when the flash is on the camera, I felt it was less useful when it was off the camera so I’m not entirely convinced that I need these over the cheaper Plus II. As a result, I’m in this odd limbo where I liked these, but don’t really have enough need for them in my work to justify buying them. I’m also not sure I’d spring for the extra cost of these over the Plus II or MultiMax 32.

For now the built-in Canon wireless system works well for my needs (see the Speedliter's Handbook by Syl Arena for usage tips). If I really need a better solution I’d probably use my Elinchrom Quadras which feature built-in radio triggering and have many advantages and better light modifiers than I get with my flash guns.

My advice is that if you want to do E-TTL work and trust the PocketWizard brand, then give this product a try (B&H has 30 day returns now). I don’t think they will let you down and they are quite fun if you are into off-camera flash work. If you are the type who will use manual flash settings anyway (and/or shoot with a mixed flash setup where E-TTL isn’t possible) then save your money and get the Plus II or MultiMax 32.

NOTE: Nikon users will need the MiniTT1 for Nikon and FlexTT5 for Nikon.

What about RadioPoppers?

RadioPoppers refused my numerous requests to participate in this article so I have no data to share about their product. If that changes in the future, I’d be happy to review them as well.

Other articles you might enjoy (Added July 3, 2012)

• Pocket Wizard Mini TT1, Flex TT5 and AC7 (I do recommend these, but they don’t work with the 5D Mark III yet)
• First Look: Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT Flash
• Canon 600EX-RT Wireless Real World Test
• Ask Ron: Canon 600EX-RT Radio Wireless and High Speed Sync on Sunny Days
• REVIEW: Canon ST-E3 RT Speedlite Transmitter
• PocketWizard Plus III Review

Disclosure

I was provided units to review from B&H that I returned when I was done. I may get a commission if you make a purchase using the links in this article.

REVIEW: Rogue Lighting Filters (Gels)

This is a review of the new lighting filters (aka gels) by Expoimaging under the brand name – Rogue. They are the makers of the Rogue Grid and Rogue Flashbenders that I use, so when I heard about their new lighting filters product I was pretty excited to see what they came up with.

I should make a disclaimer that I am using pre-production units for this review so what you see in the photos might be a little more heavily worn and unpolished than what you’d get if you purchased them.

This also isn’t a tutorial on how to use gels, but I do briefly demonstrate the usefulness of correction gels as well as what effect you may get using the colored gels.

With that said, let’s take a look at these new products and why you might want them.

Solving a problem as old as the flash

Gels have been used for quite some time with constant lights for video production (i.e., movies & TV) so naturally someone got the idea of how cool it would be to use those gels on a flash. However, the age old problem here has been – how do I attach the gel to my flash and for most the answer is usually something like this:

Gaffer’s Tape Gel Attachment

Rogue Lighting Filter Attached

Of course many nervous nannies don’t want to stick tape on their flash so all sorts of concoctions have been invented, but until now I’ve not seen an affordable solution that doesn’t require something stuck to the flash (like Velcro).

Why you should care about gels…

Many of my readers probably aren’t familiar with gels, so I’ll say up front that this isn’t a tutorial (although I hope to do one in the future). I will say that the reason why you use filters (also called gels) is primarily for correction so that you can do things like balance the color of the flash (using a CTO gel) with the tungsten lights in a room to create a consistent color that is easily white balanced across the image instead of a mixed color scenario (subject hit with the flash is one color, and the ambient background light is another color – which is near impossible to correct with white balance alone). Here’s an example:

Notice how the white of the text seems nice and white yet the background lights are very orange. This is an in-camera jpeg without any corrections (beyond cropping) to illustrate what you would get if you just fired your flash with no gel. Now, let’s see what happens when we use Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw’s White Balance tool and click on the text to get a white balance with the RAW file:

At first glance to the untrained eye you might think – wow, that’s much better – the orange cast is gone and all looks well. However, you should take note that the light under the cabinet in the background still has a strong orange tint to it.

Now let’s shoot the same shot with a full cut CTO gel (orange gel):

What you’ll notice now is that the background is really orange, but when we set the white balance on the raw by clicking the eyedropper on the white text look what happens:

Notice how the light in the background no longer has an orange tint anymore? Now mouse in and out of the image below to see the white balanced versions of the shots with and without the CTO gel to see what a difference this makes:

Mouse Over to see with CTO correction
Mouse Out to see Bare Flash

Notice how much better the CTO gel corrected version looks? This is even more noticeable when you use people as subjects in a large room with tungsten lights.

Here’s what you get…

At the heart of the Rogue Lighting Filters for flashes is this new Rogue Gel-Band which is included with the Universal Filter Kit. It’s special an elastic band that is designed to hold the specially cut gels onto any size flash head as shown here:

Rogue Gel Band Up Close

As you can see, it’s a simple but effective design that works quite well. If you click the image above you can see that these filters also feature the LEE Filter™ name of the gel printed on the side. Not shown on the other side is the amount of light loss printed at the opposite edge.

 Rogue Universal Lighting Filter Kit for Flashes (left)
and the Lighting Filters for the Rogue Grid (right)

Each kit features a generous collection of 20 dynamic color and correction filters in the form of 14 color effects gels, 5 color correction gels, and 1 diffusion gel inside a nice compact storage pouch with quick reference dividers to keep the gels safe, organized, and easy to grab when you need them.

Here’s an example of what the kit for the Rogue Grid along with the gel inserted:

As you can see the gels are nicely labeled and feature notches to help them slide in nicely into the grid system. As a result, there’s no band required for use with the grid and the perfect fit ensures no unfiltered light spillage.

Examples

The following sample shots were taken by simply doing a straight handheld shot into white seamless paper (although black is generally better for background lighting). As you can see, when done properly these gels have no spillage issues and you get great edge to edge uniformity:

Canon 1D Mark IV
1/125 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100, 95mm using the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens
Some jpeg compression artifacts and dust spots shown
Deep Purple Filter using a 580EX II in ETTL

Here’s another example using the same camera, lens and flash with the Rogue Grid:

Rogue Grid Example
1/125 sec at f/11, ISO 1600, 70mm
Just Blue Filter

You control the tone, so your color palate is huge

Like any gel, you can combine filters or simply adjust the power of your flash or your camera settings to get drastically different results. For example, using the Moss Green filter below I get two entirely different results simply by changing the ISO from 100 (top) to 400 (bottom):

Moss Green Filter
1/80 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100, 70mm
Flash Exposure Compensation -1 2/3

Same as above at ISO 400 instead

This means with a little effort, you can pretty much get whatever color you want using this wide set of filters.

The Competition

Honl Photo makes a competing product that uses their expensive Speed Strap ($9.95 at B&H on 8/22/11) that I’m not a fan of because they fall off the flash and are easy to lose. They offer a color correction filter kit, color effects, Hollywood, and Autumn kits each of which cost $19.95 (+ $3.35 shipping at B&H on 8/22/11) and includes 5 colors (2 per color) for cost of about $3.99 per color (or $2 per filter). They also offer a sampler kit which is a little better as it has 10 colors (x2 of each).

With the Honl solution it that to get 20 colors and a speed strap you’d spend about $90 to get what is offered in the Rogue Lighting Filters Universal Kit for $29.95 (or $60 if you bought two to have 2x of each). Of course there are other expensive solutions like Sticky Filters which are $50 for 5 and the Nikon SJ-3 Color Filter set which are $23.95 for only 8, but the Rogue solution seems to be the value and variety leader.

Conclusion

This is a great solution that is more effective than the competition. They are well designed and durable filters created from LEE Filter™ gels, so the quality is good. The gel-band works well and is easy to use once you get the hang of it. I really loved the case that organizes the filters and the fact that they are all well labeled so I know FOR SURE if I have a half cut or a quarter cut of orange. I also love the wide selection of colors.

These are nice kits that are reasonably priced and should hold up for quite some time. I highly recommend them and feel that every photographer should toss these in their bag for the correction filters alone.

Go to B&H or ExpoImaging (see discount below) to purchase these products. At the time of this article, only ExpoImaging has them in stock, but they will be offered elsewhere (i.e., Amazon, Adorama, B&H, etc… ) in the near future.

Special Offer

NOTE: You MUST provide your credit card info before the Redeem button will work!

My blog already has a discount coupon code in place for existing ExpoImaging products like the Rogue Flashbenders, Rogue Grid, ExpoDisc, and RayFlash, but I’m pleased to announce now that you can also save 15% when you use the coupon code ronmart09 to order your .

Codes change so check the discount coupon code page for the latest code if this code doesn’t work.

Disclaimer

Like most of my reviews, I was provided a copy of the Rogue Filters to test at no obligation from ExpoImaging. While I may get a commission if you purchase using the discount from this blog or at one of my partners like B&H, it would take a hell of a lot of grid sales to pay for my son’s diapers <g>. I won’t be getting rich off you using the links, but every little bit helps to support this blog so I appreciate when you do use the links!