White Balance Tools - Gray Card, ColorChecker and ExpoDisk - Comparison and How to Use Them

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

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[@asheeshkchopra]

Thanks for the video. Having a brief review of the results after doing white balance adjustments with different methods would have been great.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thanks for the feedback! I might do that in a future video!

[@caoyang5074]

This is very helpful! Thank you!

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thank you! I'm glad that you found it useful!

[@FierceSleepingDog]

I shoot a lot of club volleyball. Indoor lighting varies greatly (color, intensity, flicker) Sometimes the same convention center or gym has multiple color casts due to the maintenance team changing out bulbs in inconsistent ways. I always use an ExpoDisc before every match to set a custom WB. I walk onto the court and shoot upwards at the light banks. Also, I always shoot in manual mode. The automodes cause your shots to vary greatly in exposure levels. The sensor gets fooled a lot.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thanks for sharing your experiences - we are definitely on the same page here! Shooting Auto WB and even auto exposure modes in such a scenario is the best way to not get the job done!

[@MarcusBritish]

Very thorough and useful comparison, thank you. I have a grey card and colour checker but no expodisk, but have been considering getting one.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thank you for the comment, I'm glad you found the video useful. Really hard to give a recommendation there, as I've said in the video, I mostly use reflective tools but I rarely shoot landscapes.

[@MarcusBritish]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography I'm shooting a family wedding this weekend and will arrive early to setup my gear. I plan to get pictures of the grey card and colour checker at a couple of locations for post-editing references but will use the expodisc (I have ordered one) to reset the Custom WB when we move between key locations - wedding room, dining area, outdoors for group photos. The main issue is going to be not knowing what the weather will be like or how it will change over the day, and the location is in an old country hotel with most event rooms lit by "candle" effect bulbs set quite high up on chandeliers which makes it quite weak lighting for my cropped Canon 70D to work in but less so for my full-frame 6D. As you'd expect, I can't use flash during the ceremony as that annoys people. But there are also French doors to the gardens behind where they'll get married which could cause issues if it's sunny and bright beams are coming through, so It's going to be tricky to work with the various light levels for sure. So I appreciate your advice here on how to use the expodisc as I now know to set my Custom WB at the spot they will be married on, though I am still unsure whether to face towards the French doors and mostly get the daylight levels or with my back to the doors and face into the room and mostly get the weak warm indoor light for CWB. It might be better that I go to the side of the room a bit and try to cover both for more balance as you did in the third test with 3 light sources.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

First: Sorry for my late reply, Marcus! I did miss the notification and I therefore hope that the wedding shoot worked out fine nonetheless. Regarding your questions and input: 1) I think that this is a very viable and thought-out workflow. 2) The situation you described with the french doors and weak indoor lights is truly tricky. In my experience, there is no easy solution to that. As you suggested, trying to get the "average" of most light sources seems very viable and that is most likely what I would do as well. While I understand that you cannot use flash under these circumstances, I myself started to use flash more often in these scenarios. However, the white balance issue is only solved when the flash is the dominant light source. If it only provides a stop or so of fill, you are facing the mixed lighting issue again. Ideally, you would be able to place a reflective tool under the exact circumstances the couple would be photographed. I understand, however, that this might not be possible in such a scenario. Let me know how the shoot worked out, I'm interested to know!

[@MarcusBritish]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography Hi, thanks for asking. It went great - a lovely country hotel built in 1800s, a cream Daimler State Limousine, ceremony in the lounge, reception in a glass-turreted oak-panelled dining room, ivory wedding dress, lilac bridemaids dresses and gents ties and group photos in the gardens in front of a large gazebo and backed by trees. So lots of indoor and outdoor locations to work with... was forever changing white balance, but it seems to have done the job. I had one of those expodiscs to hand at all times and a colour checker for reference shots. I like how the expodisc worked out, it did a great job in all locations, and as you said I got an "average" in the lounge so the WB is fairly close with very few shots having a horrible colour cast. I'm only having to add or remove ~100 to the temperature in Camera Raw to make them consistent. I actually ended up using a fill flash during the ceremony because the light from the windows did not reach as far into the room as I anticipated and the tungsten light was a little bit dim for my Canon 70D, so I used a 270EX + diffuser to add a bit of soft light which did not bother anyone. When I used my Canon 6D I used a diffused YN-500EX and which also gave good soft results but also added nice white spots to everyone's pupils. Later, for group photos, it was a bit overcast so again I used a fill flash and got nice results. I'd say 90% of the photos seem to have turned out okay, a few are out-of-focus either due to me not hitting the back button focus right or due to haze throwing the AF off. I'm trying to clean some up in Photoshop that have the potential to be decent. Fortunately, this was a family wedding, so any mistakes will have to be forgiven since I was not paid a fee but it was a great learning experience for me though a very tiring one!

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thanks for the report mate! Awesome that it worked out so well especially the WB as it can be a chore to fix it in post when something went wrong! And hey, 90% is an awesome hit rate! Few photographers get that I'd say!

[@diciannove1100]

learned a lot from this video! thanks

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Glad to hear it!

[@user-fh1di4rr5r]

Very useful video and highly essential information regarding WB tools. Haile Okbe, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Great to read, thanks for the positive feedback and best wishes from Vienna!

[@gregsullivan7408]

I have an idea for another method of doing white balance - we could in fact measure OUR OWN EYE'S white balance adaptation, just before taking the photo. This would ensure that the photo would appear AS WE OURSELVES perceived the scene. One way of doing it would be to use the EVF. The camera would quite rapidly, but smoothly, change the colour temperature of a large white swatch. When the swatch appeared to be white, we'd press a button. The camera would then store that value as the custom white balance, and would also set the EVF (& LCD) to have the same white balance. I suspect we'd need to do it twice and average the results - one ramp from warm to cool, the other from cool to warm. The whole process would need to be fast, because we don't want to adapt to the EVF. Another way, maybe, would be to use something like that row of varying tints of white - we could simply LOOK at it quickly, pick out the whitest one, and calibrate the camera off that one. (and this target would need to be made with the same high standard as the grey card)

[@gregsullivan7408]

Question: is it technically possible to create that row of tinted swatches, such that each swatch introduces a certain shift in degrees K, for a certain range of incident light temperatures? E.g +500,1000,1500... & -500,1000..... So for example, if the incident light is 3000K, the patches either side would then represent 3500,4000,4500... & similarly for the other side.

[@gregsullivan7408]

And a further refinement of my idea would be to look at a calibration light through the camera, so that we are taking into account any colour cast which may be introduced by the lens. We'd simply turn the temperature knob on the light, and note down the temperature that appeared most neutral. Then, enter that value into the camera.

[@gregsullivan7408]

Actually, the reflective strip of patches idea probably wouldn't work, because we wouldn't know where to place it, and in what direction to face it. I think my technique would have to be done using an independent light source (EVF, or hand held light, etc)

[@MstrRo1]

Reference outside above water: As a general rule, what do you think of the idea of using a white card for setting exposure and the ExpoDisc for setting white balance while using the grey card for indoor shooting? The ExpoDisc seems much quicker to use outside where you sometimes need a quick setting of the white balance.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Yes, the ExpoDisc is definitely a good idea for outdoors. And of course, you can use a white card to set the exposure, given that you bias the meter accordingly. Best, Thomas

[@edaracedream1403]

sehr gut geschildert

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Vielen Dank!

[@graememacdonald1088]

Excellent!

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thank you very much!

[@macchoudhry5868]

I find if you point the on camera flash at the wall and point the lens at the wall so that the light bounces off the wall back at the expo disc you can obtain a very good white balance result. If you are using on camera flash.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thanks for adding this tip! This sounds very practical - my only "objection" is that you are technically measuring the color temperature of the wall when illuminated by the flash. If the wall has a tint, it would influence the WB meassurement. But really, it depends on how "precise" you want to be. Thanks for the comment Mac, much appreciated!

[@macchoudhry5868]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography you are absolutely correct but it is better than nothing. It is at least a way to correct. I usually try and go for a pure white wall. Most people that use on camera flash would certainly use it as bounce lighting. Because if you did direct lighting, the lighting wouldn’t be as flattering and would be harsh. Think wedding reception and events etc.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Yes, it is a really good idea - I'll try it for sure! Lots of photogs who shoot with Olympus/OM use the one touch White Balance function in a very similar way, it gives a great "starting point", and let's be honest, it is usually good enough. Thanks for the great input Mac! Much appreciated 👍

[@cesarebonazza]

Right on the money !

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Thank you very much!

[@cesarebonazza]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography I knew the inventor of the expo disk I own the first batch that he created , I use the expo disk for my color slide then also for my slide duplicating for proper exposure :) Now I use Color checker and Whibal but I going to get a color Checker because of traveling and street photography much faster to get your color balance.

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

@@cesarebonazza wow awesome! Yes I agree, reflective WB is very convenient in those situations!

[@shengyuanhsuphotography7255]

thx for the video~

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Sure thing!

[@voederbietels]

do i need for white balancing first set the camera on daylight white balance?

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

No

[@RobinJohnson]

There is so much conflicting information on the internet as to whether one should point the expodisc AT the light SOURCE or point it at the subject… which is it?

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

You should point it at the light source(s) to get a reading of the light source's color temperature. If you want to get an average reading of the reflected light (which I would not recommend) you can point the expodisk at the scene. Hope that helps!

[@RobinJohnson]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography I mean, I guess it helps but why is the internet so divided on this?

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

I don't want to sound snobbish, but some people just don't know what they are doing and they don't do controlled testing. They jump to conclusions and give bad advice. I recommend the reflective method with a reflective tool instead of the incident tool (expodisk).

[@RobinJohnson]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography Well I use the filter is that the same thing?

[@RobinJohnson]

@@ThomasEisl.Photography Haha perfectly fine with me to sound like a snob if you can back it up. I just don’t know why SO many people could have this one thing wrong on the internet. Could you please make a video distinctly debunking this? Lol