A stranger fixed my lighting setup with one sentence 5 years ago

I was at a small convention in Portland back in 2019, struggling to get good photos of my friend's booth art with this ugly yellow wash from the overhead lights. Some older guy walked by, barely glanced at my setup, and just said "put a blue gel on your speedlight to cancel that out, kid." Didn't even wait for a thanks. I tried it the next day and the difference was insane, my photos finally looked like the actual colors. Anyone else ever get a tip from a random person that totally changed your workflow?

2 comments

2 Comments

felixb254d ago

So @scott.grace, how long did it take you to actually try flipping that manual white balance after someone told you about it? I'm asking because I sat on that blue gel tip for a full day before I bothered testing it out, and I still kick myself for not doing it sooner at the convention. The yellow cast was so bad I was just cranking the saturation in post to compensate, which made everything look like a cartoon. I bet the engine bay shots you were getting before were all glowing orange like a sunset, right? Because that's exactly the kind of junk I was dealing with before that random dude walked by.

scott.grace4d ago

Oh man, that's the kind of magic I live for. I once had a stranger at a car show tell me to just flip my phone camera to manual white balance and suddenly my engine bay photos didn't look like they were taken in a nuclear reactor. Still probably the best five seconds of advice I never paid for.