Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm not sure if anyone else with einsteins is having this problem.
I own two einsteins and both are set to constant color temp.
When I pull my photos up in camera raw the color temp is no
where near 5600K. It is well below 5000K. Do I need to have
my camera color temp on the tungsten setting?

-any help would be appreciated

-Kyle

This heavily depends on modifiers that you are using. Softboxes, umbrellas, etc. all alter the temp.

Bounce from the walls, ceiling, floor will also affect it.

So you can probably only see 5600 with the bare unit, perhaps in the simple reflector, and measured on a target that is not seeing any bounce off walls, etc.

The key aspect of the constant color is not that you dial in 5600 on your camera wb, but that it won't change much as you raise and lower power. So you won't get a color shift off one unit set lower for a ratio, and so forth.

If you are mixing modifiers (one silver umbrella, one white shoot thru, for example), then all bets are off on what the actual number will be. But when you shoot your test target, you can figure it won't be changing much if you alter power.

As was said, environment and modifiers will play a big role in color temperature. We recommend either a custom white balance and/or a white balance target. I prefer the target solution. Once you finalize the light set up, place your target where your subject would be and shoot a frame in RAW. Replace target with your subject and shoot as normal (in RAW). When you open your photo editor, you can select some or all of the shots, click on your target with the WB tool, and all photos will then adjust accordingly. If you have significant changes in lighting in your shoot, then you will want to reshoot the target.