White balance - light metering ?

[zmikers]

I have a quick question hopefuly some of you could shed some light on for me......No pun intended lol:p . Would it be fair to say that it's best to use a gray card for light metering and a white card to set your white balance or could you use either gray or white card for both tasks? At the moment I use a white card for custom WB but don't use either for light metering. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Cheers.

[AlexMonro]

If a grey card is true 18% grey you should be able to use it for both exposure and white balance, however, a white card would need compensation adjustment by 3 - 4 stops to bring the default grey level up to white.

[BBPhoto]

Absolutely right. Don't be confused by the term white balance. It's a bit of a misnomer. You are balancing for the white - not necessarily to it.