Comments on: ColorRight Review – Custom White Balance Gets Easy

By: alexander

alexander — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:36:03 +0000

Re the Colorright, yes, it really works, and the results “look” right. This is a nice review.
You do understand it is “fluorescent”, though ?
Thanks for your efforts.
Alexander
Sydney
Australia

By: Connor

Connor — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:18:49 +0000

@Me My Canon Rebel XT and my Canon Rebel T1i both give that yellowish tint on auto when I shoot indoors.

By: ossme

ossme — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:50:16 +0000

it is helpful when you are shooting a sport match with 100s of shots.

By: Lars

Lars — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:36:50 +0000

Plenty of these on ebay for just a few bucks. No need to spend $89 for this one.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:53:16 +0000

Make it youself…find a screw-on clear lens and place a round 2cm or 3/4″ sticker in centre, doesn’t need to be exact. Spray paint black and remove sticker…voila! Another way is drill a lens cap with correct dimensions.

By: Agi

Agi — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:08:31 +0000

Well, I bought one of these when Photography Bay advertised it as being on sale, stupid or not! I live in the UK, so the company who makes this thingamajig charged me £17 for postage and packaging, gulp, but wait, UK Customs slammed me with an extra £14 of import duty to release the package because the company marked on the package “gift”. So I was stuck, either I refuse the package and try to battle with an overseas company for full refund which can be rather iffy, or I take it and save myself the hassle. I opted for the latter. And thus all my supposed savings have evaporated! If you are ordering from the UK or the EU beware that you will be liable to pay excise duty on this imported item.
Have a good day, as they say on the other side of the pond!

By: Chris Webb

Chris Webb — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:48:39 +0000

All of this is great. However, I’m sitting in a photo blind, waiting for wildlife. There are three cameras, with three long telephotos pointed in three different diections. The white balance in each direction changes constantly. At dusk and dawn, it’s even worse, especially with long telephotos. White balance in these situations is my greatest challenge. None of the “Colorrite” type devices are large enough to use with a 300, 400, or 500 fast prime lens (plus I can’t walk outside the blind every few minutes to get a new reading…the critters are not dumb). I just bought an old Minolta ambient light meter, and maybe that will help. Then again, Canon 50D is much “warmer” than 40D or 1D MKIII. It’s a real challenge.
Suggestions are welcomed…..

By: daniel

daniel — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:44:59 +0000

bonjour, votre offre m’intéresse !! mais le problème c’est mon anglais !!!
pourrais je s’il vous plait recevoir la même chose mais en français EN FRANÇAIS
en vous remerciant d’avance.
sincèrement daniel

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:21:55 +0000

Just an FYI – if you have an Olympus, you hold down the custom WB button (function button set to it) and shoot a small grey card that you can just pull out of your pocket. That’s it. It’s now set. No menus, nothing more, the camera is now ready to go.

I update the WB on a regular basis during shooting because it takes about 1 second. The WB is dead on practically every time (certainly near a 100 percent). Never really understood why these gimic products exist, but maybe it’s different on non-Olympus cameras or something and there is a market. The explanation of how complicated it is to set custom WB on a Canon (needing a menu) certainly explains a lot.

One package of grey cards cost less than ten bucks and cuts up into twenty or so pocket size cards. Basically, if you sense a change in light, reshoot the WB and you never have to deal with it in post processing or otherwise. WB is really a non-issue when you keep it up to date.

I will mention, good article though with real content.

By: George Slusher

George Slusher — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:51:18 +0000

A question: since this uses REFLECTED light, it “works” only if the scene is relatively neutral, overall. If the scene has a REAL color cast–like you’re shooting against a colored wall–it will try to take OUT that color. (The ExpoDisc has the same problem when used with reflected light–it’s supposed to be used with incident light–you put the camera at the position of the subject.)

FWIW, 18% gray cards are terrible for white balancing. They’re seldom really neutral (most I’ve seen have a decided blue cast) and they’re too dark. They’re meant for setting exposure, not white balance. “White” paper has a similar problem–most “white” paper is really somewhat blue, in order to appear more “white” to our eyes. (Anyone remember using “bluing” in laundry with whites?)

Sara Frances makes good points, except for one thing: as InfernoX pointed out, the camera’s white balance setting does NOT affect a RAW image. The best mode with RAW is a reference color that you know, like a WhiBal card that is very, very close to neutral. One click and the white balance is instantly set.

Jay_S has good advice, but, again, if you can have a reference in the same light as the photo, RAW processing can work nicely. Lightroom, Adobe Bridge, Canon DIgital Photo Professional, etc., can make the same correction to a series of photos in one action.

For RIch and Frank: those are cheap, but they’re NOT neutral. Put them in the same photo with a truly neutral reference and you may be shocked at how far off they are. Our eyes automatically correct for many lighting conditions, so white paper and Pringles lids appear neutral, but they’re not. (White paper is especially not neutral in transmission; it’s designed to look white in reflection.)