What’s the one thing about lighting you often overlook? Is it placement? Power? Type of lamp?

For our purposes today, we’re going to say it’s lighting gels — the rolls of plastic you cut and slip over a light to change its temperature, softness, or overall output.

And knowing which gels do what is crucial to using them properly.

So Brian Dailey from The Dailey Info has created Gel Pocket Guides: a reference for LEE Filters and Roscolux lighting gels that you can put on your phone or in your toolkit to consult in a pinch.

Here’s what Brian said to me in an email recently:

As a New Years resolution I decided to finally get serious with my own blog and was inspired to create my own pocket books geared toward the G&E department similar to your camera pocket book guides. The first set is going to be for Lee and Rosco gels.

Like the digital cinema pocket guides, Brian’s gel variations come in mobile and paper formatted PDFs. What’s on them? A bunch of info (taken from the download page):

A preview of the foldable paper version of the Roscolux guide

• Color Temperature Orange, Straw, and Blue gels’ product numbers, MIRED shifts, and common Kelvin temperature changes
• Neutral Density gel product numbers and f-stop changes
• Minus/Plus Green gel product numbers and CC filter values
• List of common diffusion gel and their f-stop reductions
• MIRED equation and Kelvin to MIRED conversion chart
• Separate versions for both LEE and Roscolux products

Lighting gels might not be as sexy as digital cinema cameras, but these guides serve a real and practical purpose. As an electrician, gaffer, or director of photography, these references are convenient and worthwhile. It can’t hurt to put them on your phone or in your toolkit.

Plus, they’re free to download, so what do you have to lose?

If you do download the guides and find them useful, consider donating to Brian and his website, The Dailey Info. I know how time-consuming it can be to create something like this and we, as a community, should encourage and reward those who are willing to provide such awesome resources.

Click here to head on over to The Dailey Info and grab the Gel Pocket Guides.

Also, get the Digital Cinema Pocket Guides if you haven’t had the chance yet.

About the author:

About the author: Evan Luzi is the editor and founder of The Black and Blue as well as a freelance camera assistant.

You can learn more about him or follow him on Twitter and Google+.