Grey Card Question

[AdrenoJunkie]

I'm tired of having color balance problems when I shoot and would like to get a grey card. I also want it to help me get better exposures. This thing seems to be a pretty great buy, and got great reviews. Is it as good as it sounds? Or is there something less expensive and equally useful? I will be using it indoor and outdoor for landscape and portrait.

Amazon.com: PhotoVision 14" Pocket One-Shot Digital Calibration Target with DVD, Collapsible Disc Exposure Aid for Digital Cameras: Electronics

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by AdrenoJunkie

I'm tired of having color balance problems when I shoot and would like to get a gray card. I also want it to help me get better exposures. This thing seems to be a pretty great buy, and got great reviews. Is it as good as it sounds? Or is there something less expensive and equally useful? I will be using it indoor and outdoor for landscape and portrait.

Amazon.com: PhotoVision 14" Pocket One-Shot Digital Calibration Target with DVD, Collapsible Disc Exposure Aid for Digital Cameras: Electronics

Tools like this can be useful at times, but not always. We (my wife and I) shoot jobs where the "color" of light can vary drastically from place to place..all while doing the same job. We have to deal with bright, filtered, (through a scrim) overcast, shade, cloudy conditions as we run around from setup to setup. Each of these conditions would entail re-shooting the gray card for white balance...a pain in the a** to say the least. Far better to shoot in RAW, and make your white balance adjustments afterwards. If light conditions are constant as in a studio, we will then shoot the gray card. I'm still a little lost as to how this card will help with exposures?? Using, and knowing how to interpret your histogram works best...plus we use a Sekonic meter for our jobs which really takes away a lot of the guess work and for having to rely solely on the in camera meter

[AdrenoJunkie]

I do shoot in RAW and do corrections in post, but honestly I'm not good at it. I can never tell if it's right or not. I think it's good then look at it later and think it's still off. Plus the less I have to do in post the better. As far as the exposure part, I'm just guessing since I've never used something like this, but I figure you meter off the card to get your exposure. I think that would work if you're exposing for the whole scene and not a specific part. But really I have no idea, they just claim it does. I do use my histogram but alot of the time everything comes out kinda dull and greyish, even when it says I have proper exposure. I suppose that's since the camera is trying to make everything 18% grey.

[JohnB304]

Consider a Lally Cap...

Lally Cap

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by AdrenoJunkie

I do shoot in RAW and do corrections in post, but honestly I'm not good at it. I can never tell if it's right or not. I think it's good then look at it later and think it's still off. Plus the less I have to do in post the better. As far as the exposure part, I'm just guessing since I've never used something like this, but I figure you meter off the card to get your exposure. I think that would work if you're exposing for the whole scene and not a specific part. But really I have no idea, they just claim it does. I do use my histogram but alot of the time everything comes out kinda dull and greyish, even when it says I have proper exposure. I suppose that's since the camera is trying to make everything 18% grey.

I don't know how they figure it to work for metering either. Hypothetical...you're shooting a wedding; groom and his men all in black tux's; how is shooting that card going to help you get the exposure right with all that black in the image?...same for bride with lots of white in the image??? As far as dull and greyish images, what type of monitor are you working on (CRT, or LCD)?..and is it calibrated? Irrespective of your monitor, how do your prints come out?

[AdrenoJunkie]

Originally Posted by autofocus

I don't know how they figure it to work for metering either. Hypothetical...you're shooting a wedding; groom and his men all in black tux's; how is shooting that card going to help you get the exposure right with all that black in the image?...same for bride with lots of white in the image??? As far as dull and greyish images, what type of monitor are you working on (CRT, or LCD)?..and is it calibrated? Irrespective of your monitor, how do your prints come out?

I don't know if you looked at the link, but the card is actually white black and grey. Could that make a difference on the exposure thing? I'm working with a LCD and if calibrating is something I have to do or have done myself, then no, it's not calibrated. But my shots don't always come out dull. sometimes they are spot on. But basically what you guys are saying is that these things will not help get better exposures? So I'd be better off getting a cheaper grey card or one of those Lally Caps? In that case are the little lanyard grey cards any good?

[inkista]

Gray cards are basically designed to do one thing: put a reference point in the frame from which you can adjust your exposure or white balance. Most gray cards are of a known brightness for use with exposure. They are not necessarily calibrated to be color-neutral, although they are likely to be very close, just because they're gray.

If you are super picky about the white-balance thing, then get one of the gray cards that are designed for white balance, not exposure. But understand, that every time your lighting changes, you have to take another reference shot with the gray card in the shot. This is not convenient. Also, using something like a whibal will only help you color correct to the color the object actually is, not necessarily the color you saw under the lighting conditions you were under.

For me, I (rarely) use a whibal for lighting conditions where I know I'm going to have a tough time adjusting by eye. The whibal itself is calibrated color-wise. I shoot RAW. Then bring the image into Lightroom, and use the eyedropper to white balance off the whibal in the reference image, and then sync up the reference shot's white balance correction with all the other shots I took in the sequence that have the same lighting conditions.