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I use the Photovision Calibration Target (http://www.photovisionvideo.com/) every time I set up my studio strobes (Elinchrome D Lights) and create a custom white balance.  Every 30 minutes or so (or more frequently if I'm changing things up) I re-calibrate.  Usually I find some slight deviations in the color temperature that I attribute to ambient light. 

Changing the WB in camera saves me a major headache in post because I find it real tricky to get it just right in Lightroom when I use auto mode. 

I was talking to a light tech for a stage about this just yesterday and he told me that with his Tungsten lights they are almost never the same.  The older they get the more they deviate.  Obviously we are talking about strobes and not hot lights but all the same it was a fact I thought was worth noting.

Mat

Nobody does?. WOW, thats naive, Poor Photographers, How did they survive for 125 years before Digital and Photoshop?. I do nail it sorry. I have to.  The Scanned painting images are from print's due to most were taken with film before digital. I cataloged every Painting I did [571]  The prints are all that remain and the ones recently shot are downsized because I do not want buyers making huge prints from my work for pennies, I also Downsize everything else to 3400 Longest side regardless and that has nothing to do trying to hide something. My Paintings were exclusive to my Theatrical agent for 8 years for rental to Film and TV production. I had no idea I would ever be submitting them to penny stock because there was no penny stock.. I haven't painted for 12 years. 90% of them were shot for catalog purposes only. Thats why you see Cano scan.And the remaining pieces were shot 6 months ago when I got the rights back. if I thought ahead I would have shot everything on 4 X 5 Of which about 75 were.

I shoot Jpg for stock, I shoot Jpg/Raw for clients because They Might want the raw file. Not one ever has BTW.  I teach because I can share 50+ years behind a camera, We write books,Do group workshops and lectures because we can. I don't have another Job, Never have. I've made a very Nice Living my whole life on being creative,Being a promoter and a pretty good business person. And I will never apologize for seeing any opportunity regardless of where it comes from and using it to my advantage. Period. Also....You can say anything you want about me I just consider the source but I find it extremely insulting that you or anyone thinks for a second that I don't offer good advice about technique or equipment and even More insulting to my friends and former students who put there trust in me to help them along the way to getting More out of this craft we love than this silly business can offer and one that is decaying rapidly. Thats what I teach, and Im always booked 3 months in advance and only 25% have even heard of stock.

When I joined this business, I saw an Business opportunity, There was no way I was gonna be the guy with 30,000 Images, What I saw was a 100,000 people that needed help, That was my focus, Not how many isolations I could crank out or how many Business Images I could take. Andres and others had that covered. And what I do shoot, I shoot for me because theres so many more ways to use your talent than Penny stock.....If you have it, and are willing to go for it.

I get out of this business exactly what I put in. if I didn't you really think I would do it? Im not that stupid.

In conclusion.... Shoot whatever way you want. I don't teach that anyway is better than another way. The end result Is the story, The Image. And from where I sit. Most go right past it.  Do I play and manipulate? hell yes. when Im trying to create something or be artistic. My job as an artist is not to determine the value of my work. my job is the keep it mine, And Keep the channel open. There is no satisfaction and in that is what keeps us marching and different from the rest.

Im not interested in the socialites in stock. Im interested in some newbie with a $300.00 camera That sees. And Im proud as hell at the hundreds if not thousands I've helped get accepted and go on to a real Life in Image making and will Long after this business is no longer viable. Thats a photographer, Not a STOCK photographer.

I have a woman friend here in Beverly Hills thats 83 years old that has a 30 yr old Kodak Instamatic with duct tape holding it together that has her film done in a drugstore, never had a computer and to see what she does and what she see's brings tears to my eyes. Her vision and her ability to tell a story and communicate visually is so far above 99% of anyone I've ever seen on any stock site and trust I've seen pretty much all of them. Thats what turns me on. Sorry.

To bad this site turned into a pissing contest most of the time. It was a very unique place and I still read occasionally But this is why I don't post. You guys think you know my motivations, You don't have a clue what Im about. And I wish I could be perfect like some of you.

Ok. Back to the critique forum to find the next artist. And BTW My daily Rate is $1250.00 Plus assistants and expenses. And thats inexpensive for my town.

Have fun , And remember It not about what you did in your Life, it's about what you didn't do or were capable of.

so you DO NOT NAIL IT on camera! you do heavy post-processing, so leave all the big photographer crap about I nail it on JPG, if you do 10h of post after! nobody asked your daily rate, what a ridiculous post of you, maybe I am starting to understand what many talk/say about you, not saying you aren´t a great photographer, artist, painter etc but hell what the heck was this post? are you bipolar?

Sigh.  

Yet another thread that started out interesting and informative turns into a rant mechanism for insecure photographers incapable of believing some experienced photographers might actually know something they don't. 

Mat

Thanks for the nice words.

Laurin, As mentioned, my intent was not to call you out.  My intent is to keep it real.  There are newb photographers here and elsewhere that don't know when you are posting just to provoke conversation - as you have said in the past you do relatively often.  There was no need for a Charlie Sheen- Like rant.

Things take time and there are appropriate ways to learn how to do things.  Putting things on "auto mode" in a camera isn't the correct way to learn things - I think we can agree on that.  When an image is rejected at the agency you review for because of white balance issues, people are going to want to figure out what thye are doing wrong.  When you state that you take a picture, in jpg, and upload that directly to the agency after a levels adjustment, and you've promoted yourself to the point where people believe you without examining your work can be misleading and discouraging to other folks.  To discount OTHER people's experiences in order to pat yourself on the back or promote your classes isn't helpful either.

As you say, let's help out the new folks.

P.S. - I would LOVE to see a copy of an invoice reflecting that billing rate because I have a real tough time believing a photographer that has the capability of making 2.5 million per year (2050 x your claimed hourly rate) is spending time reviewing images, submitting images, or teaching.

Peace

Just re-read Laurin's rate.  He says "daily rate" not hourly rate.  $156/hour for an 8 hour day is a reasonable rate.

My apologies.

one thing always to remember is that if shooting in raw the settings on the back of the camera do not effect the file - only the way it displays on the back of the camera. Setting one strobe at a lower setting than the other can also at times create a slight difference in colour in the image one part to another.

PS. My day rate is cheap. I recently shot a pole dancer just for the stock rights to the images and I will even hold the reflectors for free on a Pirelli calender shoot.

Hi everyone, this is my first post here, and this seems to be the right place to ask a question on strobe color tint.

I have been working with a few speedlights for years, but today finally I got my first studio strobe, a Jinbei Digital Pioneer III 600. The thing that is noticeable about the color temperature is not the actual temperature in Kelvin, but the tint, that's to say, the green/magenta balance. It's much more pinkish than my Nikon hotshoe flashes. If I shoot a white seemless or graycard and set the gray point in ACR, the temperature settles on 5500, which is exactly what the manufactorer promises, but the tint is on -21 which is a lot of correction. Seeing that I couldn't find a single information on this issue on the web, I don't know if this is due to bad quality or is it common or intended? I have to say, the skin tones actually come out slightly better than with the Nikon flashes once the WB is set accordingly. Same softboxes of course. Anyway, the problem is that I can't use the device together with my speedlights or in combination with daylight.

So my actual question is what approximate green/magenta tint your strobes produce. There's a lot written on color temperature, but the thing is, you can have 5500 Kelvin, but still too much green or magenta. RAW shooters will be able to see some numbers. In ACR I have to add a lot of green to get neutral gray and in Capture NX with the setting "flash" the tint has to be on +1, which is quite a noticeable step.

Thanks! 

Sandeel are you mixing your light sources?

If the only light is the new unit, it will be correct with auto white balance. Otherwise you need to know the correct color temperature of that unit.

Doesn't matter, except in some extreme cases, if you have a slight tint to the light, as long as ALL THE LIGHT is the same. The auto WB should compensate.

If you are getting a cast or tint, and with only one light source or all the same, there's something seriously wrong. With mixed light sources, it will make you crazy because you have two or more whites and you'll never get just one.

This is where custom white balance beats setting it to 5500K for example. Even Auto WB will adjust.

I still don't understand how you can get a tint with a correct WB setting? Even if you have full spectrum lights vs less of the visible. By definition the WB should make things White.

Easier said, the lights should not have a tint or produce one, after you set the WB to that particular light. Something is wrong. Either with the lights are reflecting off something else or your WB settings are set for some other source?

Yes your different Mfg. units may be different colors. Most Xenon flash tubes are close to the same unless there's some added coating to the glass, or coloration of the glass tube itself. The color of the electrical arc through Xenon, is a constant color.

Do you have some modeling lights staying on? (producing the tint)  Are you shooting lowest power which made drop your color Temp. down to 4700K?

As a general statement, mixing strobes that produce different colored light, whether the difference is in color temperature or tint or some combination of the two, will give you a white balance problem that no amount of color correction can fix.  That's (one of the reasons) why we have gels: to change the color of a light to match the others in the scene.  Unless you can isolate the effect of one light and color correct just that part of the image, you're kind of screwed.  Don't try to combine lights with different color temperatures unless that's the result you're going for.  Otherwise either find a combination of gels that will correct the color or limit yourself to a consistent set of lights.

By the way, in some cases it's not the light that's the problem but the modifier.  Passing light through a modifier (soft box, umbrella, etc.) can change the color of the light.  Usually the amount of change is small enough to ignore, but it's real.