A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an interesting product from Rosco Labs, the Rosco Strobist Collection Kit. While this does not have to do directly with Entertainment lighting, it is still worth a mention as a designer we must document our work for our records and our portfolio. Rosco Labs was kind enough to send me a sample of the Strobist Kit to test out the color corrections and write a review here on iSquint.

First, let’s hear what Rosco has to say about the Strobist Collection:

Rosco, the worldwide leader in color filters has assembled the essential collection of filters for use with your on-board flash. Rosco has been manufacturing color filters since 1910 and our Cinegel range of color filters has earned two Academy Awards™. Working with David Hobby, the founder of www.strobist.com, The Strobist Collection contains the Cinegel filters photographers need, properly sized (1.5″ x 3.25″) to fit most shoe-mount strobes. There are 20 different colors inside with multiple pieces of each color for a total of 55 pieces of filter.

So what comes in the Rosco Strobist Kit.  Think of the kit as a normal swatch book with only the colors that you might need to correct colors of a photo with the use of a flash. The size of the cuts of gel are the same exact size from the normal Rosco gel swatch book, minus the hole from the pin. The cuts of gel are already the perfect size to place in front of most standard shoe mounted strobes.  While there is no specific way to attach the gel to the front of your strobe, using tape will work just fine.  In my case, I used a flash hood not only to help diffuse and soften the flash, but to hold the gel cuts in front of our strobe. The cuts of gel were a little larger then the size of my flash hood, but the gel easily flexed a little inside the flash hood while still giving me the same effect.

My camera of choice is my Nikon D80 and Nikkor DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G lens with a Nikon SB 28DX Flash. Each of my review photos was taken at a distance of 2.5′ with an ISO 200, F 5.3, and a speed of 1/60 so that each photo was consistently the same except for adding of the gel. Have to be some what scientific about this testing!

From the gallery of images below, you can get an idea of what the Strobist Gel kit has to offer to change the look and color of the scene you are trying to capture. Most if not all of these color corrections can certainly happen in post production, but it is always better to do less in post and frame and correct the shot before hand.

Is the Rosco Strobist Gel Kit worth the $9.95 it cost to color correct your images while on location?  I am going to leave that question for you to answer.  For me, the Strobist Kit will be a nice addition to my camera bag.

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