How to get rid of orange and green backgrounds with flash

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/80, 28-300mm, White Balance: Flash

Have you been getting photos like this with your off camera flash? The reason for it is you have a mixed lighting situation. The background is tungsten or 3200º Kelvin and the subject has flash or 5500º Kelvin.

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/80, 28-300mm, White Balance: Tungsten

Now by doing everything pretty much the same except for two things are changed: the flash has an orange gel on it to match the tungsten and then the white balance for the scene is set to tungsten.

I prefer to put on the orange gel over the flash and then use my ExpoDisc to get a custom white balance by pointing the lens to the flash with the ExpoDisc in front to help me get an accurate skin tone for the subject.

Nikon SB-900 with the gel kit that comes with the flash and the two covers.  One at the bottom holds the gels and the other cover is a diffusion filter.  You can use the gels with the diffusion filter as well. There are two green and two orange filters. You can test these and depending on the lights in the room one may work better than the other.

The gel slides into the plastic cover and the hole lines up with a raised piece in the cover. When you do the the little white squares will automatically adjust your camera to the correct white balance when on the camera hotshoe.

Here you can see the cover snapped back on the SB-900 with the other gels off to the side in the carrying case.

I prefer not seeing the orange and green backgrounds in my photos when using flash. If you do use the gels as I am showing you here, then you will fly through the post production. Many people try and remove the color shift in the background with post production, but the time it takes to convert the flash to the correct gel combination if far faster than just color correcting one image.

Now imagine shooting a wedding or an event where you may have hundreds if not thousands of images to color correct if you do not use the gels.

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/80, 28-300mm, White Balance: Flash 

This is with regular flash under fluorescent light. There are more color differences from my experience under fluorescent lights than under tungsten.  Just because you see a fluorescent light doesn't mean it is going to be green. Some of the lights are already daylight balanced and will give you proper color with a flash. 

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/50, 28-300mm, White Balance: Fluorescent

Here you can see the shift to a better skin tone and background not as green, because I used a green gel over the flash.

While this may take between 2 - 5 minutes to set up properly over time you may cut your time to 2 - 3 minutes to do. It is very important you see this in your over all workflow. 2 - 5 minutes once or 2 - 5 minutes for every photo you shoot to color correct it. It is your choice. Depending on the situation you might not have time. If you had the time and didn't do it you will be wishing you had during post.