Lastolite EzyBalance

[laurontario]

Hello,

I found this product on the web and was considering buying it.
Has any of you used this? Is it as good as they claim?
Can this be used as an 18% grey card to determine exposure?

I am planning on using it for white balance for digital as well as for determining exposure for both digital as well as film. I heard, though, that grey cards used for digital photography are different than those for film. Would this be OK to use for exposure?

Thanks,

Laurentiu

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by laurontario

Hello,

Can this be used as an 18% grey card to determine exposure?

Thats pretty much the entire point of the product.

From what I can gather, it'll work best for digital, but would likely work just fine for exposing film.

[LoveDSLR]

For dual purposes it may work for you, but I prefer ExpoDisc (set DSLR WB) or WhiBal (set WB at pp) over my EzyBalance for WB.

[w0lf]

I second LoveDSLR. Although the ExpoDisc is way to pricey for my wallet, I'd highly recommend WhiBal for white balancing on the DSLR. I just picked one up and waiting for it to arrive.

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by w0lf

I just picked one up and waiting for it to arrive.

Remember to download the plug-ins. http://whibalhost.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7780

[laurontario]

Thanks to all who replied.

Unfortunately, Whibal is not available at any retailer in Canada (or, at least at the two big ones I know:Henry's and Vistek).
I decided to go ahead with Lastolite - as a matter of fact I purchased one yesterday. Although I found it a little expensive (42 CAD plus tax), I am impressed with the quality. I like to fact that it folds and I can carry it in my bag.

Laurentiu

[OsmosisStudios]

laurontario: If youre using the Henry's or Vistek websites as a basis for item availability, you'll be happy to know that the stores themselves are often much better stocked and can almost always order stuff. Especially in Toronto (The hub of the world, apparently )

[laurontario]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

laurontario: If youre using the Henry's or Vistek websites as a basis for item availability, you'll be happy to know that the stores themselves are often much better stocked and can almost always order stuff. Especially in Toronto (The hub of the world, apparently )

Thanks for the tip. I always thought that if an item cannot be found on their web site, they do no carry it. After all, why keep it hidden?
I am not a very big fan of Henry's (especially because their web site sucks, compared with Vistek's), but, funny... I buy most of the stuff from them. Vistek has a larger pallete but it is not quite conveniently located for me.

PS: I liked the idea Toronto = hub of the world

[OsmosisStudios]

Ive bought most of my gear through Henry's (or Directly from Nikon) because they're convenient. The nearest Vistek (and there is only one) is about half-way across town. The only thing about Henry's is that they're salesmen, always pushing a new product, even if it's crap. I've caught them doing it and outright proved them wrong: having a connection within their ranks helps too

The Henry's website only shows what ALL stores carry, not what they all CAN carry. Vistek is a bit more in depth, but they'll still custom order just about anything.

[laurontario]

Hello all,

As I mentioned before, I decided to go ahead and buy the Lastolite EZBalance. Last night I finally had a few minutes to play a bit with it. I decided to write a short feedback thinking that there might be other people interested.

I first read about how to measure the right exposure using a 18% neutral grey card and I learned that, despite what we were told, the meters are calibrated not for 18% reflectance but for something between 12-13%. There is a lot of stuff dealing with this matter, and numerous opinions, both pro and cons, so I won't get into this discussion now. If you are interested, you can start reading about it on Thom Hogan's web site (just Google after 'grey card thom hogan' and you'll get the link). On the same page you will get two more links to a long discussion on the photo.net forum that you should also, at least, skim through.

Well.. to make the story short, Thom says that in order to get a correct exposure from a grey card, one should measure it, and open half of stop from that reading. I should say that at the beginning I was also on denial and thought that the meters are calibrated on 18%, so, last night I decided to do a small test with my D80 (this was taken actually from another forum, where they were explaining how to calibrate your camera meter using a grey card).

So, here is what I did: I took my camera, switched to manual exposure and spot metering, then I adjusted the exposure until the 'needle' was in the middle, indicating a 'correct exposure' for my grey card target. I took the shot and looked at the histogram. I noticed that the histogram was a little bit to the left, indicating underexposure. I adjusted my settings, opening up 1/3 stop, and took another shot. This time the histogram was close to the middle, but still to the left. I took another shot, this time opening the aperture 1/3 stop more than before (making it 2/3 from the initial reading). Now the histogram was a little bit to the right, indicating a slight overexposure. I was too lazy to modify the settings of my camera and concluded that in fact, if I compensated with .5 stops, the histogram would have been right in the middle. For now, and knowing that a little overexposure is better than under, I decided to compensate by 2/3 stops whenever I use my Lastolite.

After this I picked up a small figurine (white marble), that I has around, placed it on my desk and took two shots, framing it tight. The first one was taken using the matrix metering and for the second one I took a spot reading from my Lastolite and opened up 2/3 stop (manual exposure). Well, the first one ended up, as you would have imagined, greyish, indicating underexposure (the meter was trying to compensate for that white marble and ended up underexposing the picture). The second one, though, ended up exposed quite right! The marble was white (well... there was a yellow cast, but we will get to that in a minute), and I could still see the details. Overall I was impressed with the results. I don't know what was the difference between the two exposures in terms of stops, but it was quite clear that the grey card was very helpful (no more guessing).

As I mentioned, because of the lights in the room, there was a yellow cast, clearly visible in the picture. This could have been corrected later (I shot raw), or I could have adjusted the white balance right there. After all, now I had the tools to do it! So, I switched my camera to White balance preset, and, using my grey target, I took a shot. Then, I removed the target and took another shot of my small white marble figurine. I was very pleased to see that now the yellow cast disappeared and the figurine was not only properly exposed but also white, as it was in reality! And now I did not need to adjust the WB in Lightroom anymore!

Unfortunately I do not have the pictures ready now for showing, but I will try to put them on Flickr one of these days so that you can see the difference.
I was a little reluctant at the beginning but now I am satisfied with the small investment I made. So, the bottom line is, if you think about getting one of these things, do not hesitate.

Hope this helps everyone wondering if they need to get one of these little toys or not.

Laurentiu