Expodisc

[heidih]

So was wondering what peoples thoughts are on the Expodisc. Are they worth the money? In performance are they as good, worse, or better than using a gray card? They seem like they'd be more convenient to use versus using a gray card. I shoot kids/families outdoors using natural light. Some indoor sessions during the winter. My white balance is so off on my canon and I do shoot raw but feel like in post all I do is fiddle with the white balance and its time consuming...

[BigVinnie]

Personally think it is people who take snapshots in jpg.

I like the X-Rite Passport. It will cost you more upfront but save time and money in the long run. Watch the video on batch processing.

I started with X-Rite using the original color checker and densitometers. They have pretty much defined color management since the beginning.

[LeeR]

What kind of PP program are you using? While I agree that white balance is critical, it shouldn't take you but a few seconds to shoot it. In ACR you simply pick up the first eyedropper and click on a neutral area (preferably a white that is in shadow like the bottom side of a cloud.) This will give you something close to a true white balance, thought you don't have to leave it there. Sometimes an image that is a bit warmer or greener than 'true white balanced' is a better image.

I saw an image of a nude on another forum recently. The woman was surrounded by votive candles which the photographer had carefully color balanced to look pure white. But why? We all know that candles give off a particularly yellow/orange light and I think that hue would have looked good against the model's skin. Many times making the effort to be as accurate as you can in reproducing the white balance will give you the best image, but not always. Sometimes it's the worst thing you can do.

[heidih]

I use CS4. So your saying click on the white balance tool in ACR and use that dropper or are you referring to something different in ACR? I guess my frustration is I took a picture of a 6 month old boy last weekend and we were in one area of the park then we moved to another area and his skin coloring looked completely different. I wish they would be more consistent. It seems worse on some sessions versus others. B/c the session I had the week before that seemed to be a lot better. (these were shot in auto WB). I know it just all depends on the lighting. I wondered if the one way to get more consistency b/w all my pictures would be if I used something like an expodisc or gray card...

[BigVinnie]

An expodisk would not have helped.

You were probably getting color cast from the trees and grass. This is light that is reflected on to the babies skin but the expo disk will not pick that up. It is going to color correct the light from above, but not what is reflected from the grass.

This is one of those cases where you really need to bring the light with you. A flash on low power to provide a slight bit of fill will remove the color cast. Just changing your white balance in this situation will make the foliage look dull.

My favorite setup for something like this is an umbrella with a black backing. I unhook the backing from the upper half and shoot through. With the lower half covered you can control where the light hits the ground at. You don't want to light up the grass and have a hot spot in front of the kid.

Color management is important, but I don't think that is your issue here.