I used to shoot a lot of interiors, including 4x5 and 8x10's, and many times the client wanted transparencies. Then, in the 80's, mixed lighting became so common and interior lighting so complex that correct filtering or light matching/balancing became impossible. I convinced clients that I could generally do the job for half the money if they let me shoot colour negative. When Reala became available, I used that if possible. 8x10 was gone anyway. I would filter approximately, and only use supplemental light when necessary. Reala could handle mixed lighting quite well. My Minolta colour meter saw less use, and was only essential when I still took transparencies.
Now, when I shoot digital, I again try to filter into the general range so that I don't get assymetric clipping in the different channels (you lose a lot of dynamic range if you don't filter) and then set the general balance in the RAW conversion software. If the mixed lighting is nasty, I do separate conversions for the separate light sources, and then mix the appropriate areas from several layers in Photoshop.
JPEGs leave you with far fewer options. As has been mentioned, one of the best ideas is to put a CC gel over your flash, and balance things that way. Cheap, cool white flourescents need about CC50 green, while warm white and various deluxe tubes need about CC30 green and maybe an 81EF (52 decamired) or 85C (81 decamired) yellow colour balancing filters to warm up the flash. Set the camera on flourescent and try that. With jpegs you don't want to have to do very much correction, so the closer you filter the better.
Thanks Henning, lots of good info there. I work summers as technical director for a music and theater program, so somewhere around here I have one of those Rosco gel sample fans, the chips of which are about the perfect size to tape over a flash. I have played with them before, fascinating possibilities with something like 300 colors! I will try your homework assignment. I am indeed shooting RAW, BTW.
Ken
* **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
