I have been shooting with Ikelite DS125 and now DS161 strobes for a few years now. I currently shoot mostly WA and for which I like the warm temperature of the Ikelite strobes. Now I am starting to shoot some macro and I find the warmer temperature of the Ikelite too harsh for macro and everyshot requires post editing to remove the yellowish tint the Ikelite strobes add to ther image.
Now I know that people that own Inon Z240 and similar strobes add a warming filter (slight yellow tint filter) to them to decrease the temperature for WA work. So on the reverse side is there a suggested filter to add to the Ikelites to increase their temperature (e a slight blue tint) for macro? I know I can adjust temperature post edit but I prefer an easier option to reduce workload and to get the best image possible stright out of the camera.
Any ideas much appreciated.
Regards Mark
Inon makes blue diffusers for canon cameras that tend to have too much red and especially yellow. The nikon you shoot has got no real issue of colour cast. I have the same camera and I have done some tests comparing auto white balance and balancing on a lab tested slate and the results are very very close. I would think your best option is to either use a color temperature setting to match the strobe or even better shooting a grey card at close range to set the white balance. You can store this in one of the WB presets
For WA, a warm colored flash is an advantage because you get a very nice blue water in the background (the auto white balance corrects the warm colors from the flash which leeds to cold blueish colors of the background). Hovever, I do not see a reason for a special flash color in macro photography, because you (or the camera in "auto" mode) can correct the color with the white balance setting.
I don't really see the point of adding a cooling filter for macro photography has it is very easy to adjust colour temperature in post processing but if you really want to do it use the Lee Mired Shift Calculator to figure out what colour filter you need. It's what most people used to use to calculate the correct warming filter for Inon strobes before Inon put out their own warming diffusers. It should do the same job in reverse to suit your needs:
Reversing my calculation for a warming filter for my Inons (resulting in Lee 444 - 1/8 CT Straw) gives the nearest result as Lee 218 - 1/8 CT Blue
I've been experimenting with colored filters for my DS51 strobes lately. I started with the Nikon SJ4 filter set and next plan on experimenting with the Lee CTB filters. Whereas I've been using multiple filters to get more stylized shots, I bet you could just use 1 in each strobe to get the desired effect.
