white balance lens caps

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egosbar

Senior Member
just ordered some white balance lens caps of ebay for all my lenses , at 3.50 its a cheap option and at worst they are still lens caps ,wondering if anyone uses them and thier thoughts , i think for in door shooting it wont take long too set it properly but im wondering how they work on multiple lighting sources and what source would you point the cap at to take the reading

was looking at the dear one i cant remember its name now but it was around 100 bucks which i think is too dear
 
Fred Kingston_RIP

Fred Kingston_RIP

Senior Member
I have one...and don't use it. I just try to include something white in any test shot... and then blaze away... I always shoot RAW, and always use LR to post process... as part of my workflow, the first step is to select the "white balance' picker tool, and simply click it on the white object in my test shot... another 2 clicks, and I can save that as a preset for the rest of the shots...

Shooting everything RAW, pretty much frees me up from doing any camera adjustments...
 
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rocketman122

Senior Member
youre thinking about the expodisc. crazy overpriced. I got the cheap white balance cap 77mm. says mennon on it. I dont like WB and at times I have a hard time. so want to try it out. $4 is peanuts. better than a color hand meter.

hows yours working out for you?
 
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John P

Senior Member
I picked up an Expodisc 2.0
Works awesome for me. I am color blind and have a VERY hard time post processing colors.
The new expodisc is half the price $49.99
The disc is neutral, and also has warming filters for portraits.
Essentially both filters for half the price of the original.
 
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WayneF

Senior Member
egosbar said:
just ordered some white balance lens caps of ebay for all my lenses , at 3.50 its a cheap option and at worst they are still lens caps ,wondering if anyone uses them and thier thoughts
Click to expand...

Not for me. The white lens cap is just an averaging filter. It sees the scene as one resulting averaged color, and to use for WB, it assumes that color ought to be neutral gray (whether it is or not). But aim it into a green lawn or a blue sky, and it will be instead be green or blue, not neutral at all. The light is just whatever color it is, it certainly is no fixed standard. It simply cannot be more accurate than the cameras auto WB (i.e., not accurate, in general).

Whereas a white card that you photograph (in the same light as the scene), is actually manufactured to actually be a neutral color, no color cast, and this works perfectly. We could use a close photo of the card for Custom WB Preset, but probably easier to do in post processing, which is trivial if Raw.

Edit: Yes, I am aware the lens cap should be aimed at the light source, but there's so many times that is not possible (shade, etc).
 
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