studio lights and canon flashe + gels

[Shelley]

I have been playing (and learned heaps along the way). I just assumed it was impossible to get my 580exII flash to fire with my studio lights and ranger quadra as other photographers said it was not possible. I knew it may be possible if I went down the road of pocketwizards - someone might confirm that it is. I just didn't want to go down that path and expense. edit: I have 2 580exII plus a nissin flash.

I discovered that if I use my 580exII as the master on my camera hotshoe (enabled flash or when disabled), it still set my ranger lights off as well and I could use ettl on my flashes (though not sure as yet what the studio lights will do) - I could also get hi-speed by doing this. The hi-speed doesn't seem to be right though on the ranger light. I have action set of ranger and can go to shutterspeed of 1/1600. The power from the lights on my ranger when using hi-speed is greatly reduced - I know that you lose 2 stops in flash power by going to hi-speed - but it seems not right.

The revelation for me is that I have more lights to use now - useful for white backgrounds. I had asked around and googled, yet I did not find this answer anywhere, I just stumbled upon it with trying lots of different things.

Gels:

I have been told by lots of people not to bother with. But, I am finding gels have a place with speedlights. I particularly like faking sunlight when its not available, on your subject. What do you think?