Cold-filtered strobes and manual white-balance?

Have been playing around with warming filters on my Inon strobes, I'm very happy with the results, finally I'm getting that nice blue water!

Now, I was thinking about doing something, well, different and wanted to hear if any of you guys tried this out already?

My idea is:

Manual white-balance to give pleasing colors of the reef which cannot be lit by strobes, then using a filtered strobe with a blue filter to light the foreground.

Without the blue filter on the strobe of course the foreground would be very very red.

I guess that the deeper I go, the colder I would have to make the strobes to balance the colors.

Could this be a way of getting reef-scape pictures with everything in the "right colors"?

-Morten

Not really a reply but a question I'd like to add: where can I buy colored gel filters that I can cut to size? I'm playing around with the same concept, only in green water.

--Rob

Have been playing around with warming filters on my Inon strobes, I'm very happy with the results, finally I'm getting that nice blue water!

 

Now, I was thinking about doing something, well, different and wanted to hear if any of you guys tried this out already?

 

My idea is:

Manual white-balance to give pleasing colors of the reef which cannot be lit by strobes, then using a filtered strobe with a blue filter to light the foreground.

 

 

Without the blue filter on the strobe of course the foreground would be very very red.

I guess that the deeper I go, the colder I would have to make the strobes to balance the colors.

 

Could this be a way of getting reef-scape pictures with everything in the "right colors"?

 

-Morten

Since that would mean you were heavily de-emphasizing or attenuating the blue and green in your white balance selection, and Bayer arrays have only, what, 1/4 red filtered pixels, I think you'd be sacrificing a lot of light sensitivity overall. Plus the 'white balance' of the part of the reef that's not strobe lit is continually changing with distance, getting less and less red.

Granted high-ISO capability of modern cameras is pretty bloody amazing these days, so maybe the sensitivity issue isn't what it would have been, but I'd be tempted to believe that since everyone currently does it the opposite way (trying to provide the warm light), there's a reason....

Not really a reply but a question I'd like to add: where can I buy colored gel filters that I can cut to size? I'm playing around with the same concept, only in green water.

--Rob

I've found them on eBay, but of course most big photo online places like B&H will also carry them. I followed Alex Mustard's article and found a good sized sheet of Lee 1/8th Straw (444) for I think $16 or so shipped via eBay. Just cut them and shove them in between the white diffusers and the face of the Inon z240s.