Using the Lee 285 for flash fotography

Using flash together with ambient light is easy and difficult at the same time:

Fill-flash with tungsten light will often end in a brown background and white foreground, but seldom in the coherent colour for fore- and background.

If you eliminate the ambient light by shortening the exposure time, you have no problems with the colour, but only the foreground is correctly exposed, as the flash becomes dimmer with the square of the distance.

The solution: Tune your flash to the colour of the ambient light, and set the WB to the colour of the ambient light - you can use fill-flash with no colour problems and end up with a well-exposed background.

The following pictures were taken with the EOS 10D (except the last one which was taken with a 20D) and use the Av-setting to include a well-balanced amount of ambient light into the picture. WB was set to tungsten, and a Lee 285-filter was attached to the flash.

Click on the pictures for Exif information

Cows of Prague Did you know that Prague is virtually plastered with artfully designed cows? My friends considered my obsession with cow-shots somewhat weird, but I love these cows :-) This was taken with fill-flash in Av with orange street illumination - I liked the colour and set the WB to normal 3200K-tungsten, altthough the light was way beyond 3000K. Shooting whis picture with a flash would normally result in a neutrally coloured cow and a brown background.	Sightseeing in Prague These cars are for rent with a tour guide - the Av with Lee results in a very neutral exposure.Watch out for the showroom illumination: It looks a little bluish as it was a little hotter than 3200K, an effect which fits the decoration well in my opinion.	Czech folklore The czech people are really serious about their puppets, although these were more of the kind for tourists. Shot while I was standing in the doorframe. The puppet was about 1m away, while the wall was about 5m away - Av did the trick for good lighting of the background, and the Lee made for good balance between room light and flash. I	Uta and Helmut at Papa's Uta was about 80cm away, the wall about 6-7m (20-23 ft for you americans ;) In P or M, the wall would be dark and nearly invisible. Btw: The red color in Helmut's face is not caused by the lighting but by the reflection of the wine in his glass ;-)))
Uta at Papas Nothing really new, but I like the shot :-)	Just two cows :-) Helmut and Uta considered my cowmania somewhat weird (did I mention that? ;-) but stood at something like attention anyway. Again, fill-flash with Lee - the streetlights were colder than 3200K, giving just the right amount of warmth	Even more cows Nothing more to be said - the housewall was painted beige, the representation is neutral.	Neutral color rendition This has no artistic value, it shows just the color rendering of the combination. The room was lit by a dimmed 300W-tungsten light in the corner. behind the plant. Av as usual - this time with the 20D.