Water Colour

Alex Mustard · Issue 42, May/Jun 2008 · pp. 38–40

Products mentioned: Inon Z240, Ikelite DS200, Ikelite DS125, Lee 444 Eighth CT Straw Filter, Subtronic strobes, Nikon D2X, Nikon 105mm VR, Magic Filter, CC50Red, Wratten 22, Auto-Magic Filter

illumination. When you adjust white balance in the RAW converter you are doing the same thing. Since different strobes require different white balance settings (therefore affecting the colour of the water in your images) – strobe choice on digital is comparable to film choice on slide. To run through an example, if we use warm strobes then the foreground subject will appear to the camera (or to us white balancing the RAW file in post processing) as too warm and the white balance will be used to cool the image (the Kelvin value will be lowered). Importantly this adjustment is applied to the entire image. Cooling the white balance results in a correct looking foreground and bluer background. If we use cool strobes then the foreground will be too cool and the camera (or us) will attempt to warm it up with the white balance. This will again result in a correct looking foreground and a less b…