anyone use WhiBal?

[J Crew]

just curious if anyone has used WhiBal or a similar product? it looks very interesting and is not expensive. seems like a cheap investment to getting great white balance.

http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/index.html

- Jason

 

[oCyrus55]

Or you could just use a piece of white paper...

 

[J Crew]

Or you could just use a piece of white paper...

the purpose of the thread was to see if anyone had experience with a product like this and to see what advantages, if any, it had over a 'piece of white paper'. any other info is appreciated, thanks.

- Jason

 

[Iron Flatline]

It seems like a pretty good product, but I personally end up not using anything. I shoot raw and adjust it later on my computer. If I were shooting more commercial work I would set my WB before the shoot, of course. The other thing that changed my behavior was a review of my camera that I read on DPReview. They said the Canon 5D's WB is so accurate that you can really just leave it set to Auto. Now of course I still get odd-colored shots when shooting entirely under incandecents or a beautiful sunset - but I'll just fix that later, and I usually wouldn't have the time (or space) to use a grey card.

 

[fmw]

I have no experience with it. I use the standard Kodak 18% gray card. A gray card is a gray card and, for purposes of white balance, is a white sheet of paper.

My cameras do well enough on auto wb except for incandescent that I just use that. When I shoot something under incandescent (rare for me) I just redo the white balance in Photoshop to fix it. Outside of incandescent auto wb is fine. I can tweak it in Photoshop if I don't like what the camera did.

 

[GrfxGuru]

I have one and like it a lot. My intention was to get it and try it out then maybe compare with other options (usually more expensive). But thanks to my NAPP discount it got even cheaper...it's been very accurate for me, but sometimes I'll warm the balance slightly just to get the effect I was hoping for. But it allows me to start with an accurate reading and then tweak for artistic intention from there on out.

It is much better than a grey card I think because I have some grey cards and they don't get as close as the WhiBal does for me at least.

Regards,
Peter Witham

p.s. great for fixing bad interior lighting.

 

[J Crew]

It is much better than a grey card I think because I have some grey cards and they don't get as close as the WhiBal does for me at least.

Regards,
Peter Witham

p.s. great for fixing bad interior lighting.

thanks, that's what i was most interested in knowing. i figured it would help cut back time on white balance correction on photos taken inside.

 

[GrfxGuru]

I should of mentioned my workflow for using it....my bad.

Firstly I set the camera (30D in my case) to a preset rather than auto, the reason for this is that all my shots are consistant from the camera then be it right or wrong and gets me closer to a batch process mode later on.

Then I'll shoot the card in the lighting I'm gonna be working in inside or a couple of shots outside, one on the ground and one just holding in front of me in say direct light and one for shade.

Back at the computer I'll use the reference shots for to batch correct images based on the selection above. Now that does not mean all will be correct but it gets most if not all there and then it's tweaking from then on out on the shots I plan to use.

Hope this helps,
Regards,
Peter Witham

 

[jfokane]

Hi ,
a peice of paper is a sure miss, just check out Staples.com in the paper supplies and read about paper quality.... from 85% white to cream to 96%white and then there is the luminance factor....
Not color balancing at picture taking is reserved to those with a lot of free time. Even a basic $9 Kodak card is better and more accurate that a piece of paper, if size bothers you it can be cut to the size of your shirt pocket, if you are still more concern the "Reference8" collapsible grey card will hold in 2 inches square when folded....
To come back on the WhiBal,this is aproduct that I respect very much. I have made side by side comparasion of all WB products before building mine. The whibal full color thick cards offer between 3 and 5 steps depending on your way of reading, as with the ColorBalanceCoach you can do the custon WB at picture takibg witch takes the better part of 10 seconds or shoot a RAW image of the target when beginning the shoot and batch process on the computer (the 2 above method are independent of monitor calibration). Or you can just do nothing and the try to remember the skintone color of that lovely girl you met in some far country....

Sincerely,
jfokane