Is an Expodisc worth it?

William Petruzzo · Sep 21, 2008

What do you think?

dEARlEADER · Sep 22, 2008

that's an open question that is most likely up to the individual...

certainly worth it for jpeg shooters.... raw shooters have some extra wb room to play with...

if you are interested in preserving the colours as you saw them (especially indoors with mixed lighting and variable coloured walls... than an expodisc can do wonders...

i think even if you shoot raw you want to get a fairly accurate wb setting in camera... i saw a technical discussion on a another forum about it (the discussion was above my head) about how photoreceptors behave and/or how raw data is manipulated in camera based on temperature settings... maybe someone with a better understanding could clarify...

I'll end up buying and expodisc at some point...

William Petruzzo · Sep 22, 2008

Hmm. I shoot raw right now, but mostly because I get inconsistent color results as I'm moving through a day, so I end up needing to run adjustments on the whole lot to get them matching before I can them over. Ideally, I'd like to move to jpg, but obviously, that'd make mass color corrects a bit more frustrating.

Fiendish Astronaut · Sep 22, 2008

Just had to Google what an Expodisk is. Do these cheap-looking things actually work? And how? My only guess is that the disk refracts all the colours and then... ??? Or is it just a white surface that soaks up the colours in a room?

JerryPH · Sep 22, 2008

lol... yes they actually work.

However, as I mentioned in a past post, a caucasian hand is about 1-1.5 stops off and an expodisc is easy to lose, whereas a hand is always there. I don't really need them that badly for my needs that a 1/2 stop off would kill me. Besides, I also shoot nothing but RAW.

bill9000 · Sep 22, 2008

yes. they work very well. - even if you can adjust WB later in post-processing, it's very nice to have it already done at time of capture, and have it accurate. Especially if you have someone with a different skin tone, to make sure to achieve the best reproduction of color possible. - They seem very overpriced for what it's made of... but they do absolutely work good.