Custom white balance

[isaac_bh]

I'm a bit confused. In some places it says to use a "gray card", and in others a "white object". Can I just use a white sheet of A4 paper?

[jamison55]

I can understand your confusion and maybe I can shed some light...

For setting your white balance, a white sheet of paper (or any other handy white object) should work just fine. Manually setting the white balance allows you to tell the camera what the color white is so that it can adjust all of the other colors accordingly.

A gray card is most useful when determining the proper exsposure for a scene. I am beginning to shoot weddings, and I have found that the camera has a tough time figuring out the exposure if there is a lot of white or black in the picture (and guess what you see a lot of at a wedding!) By calculating my exposure on a neutral value between white and black, I can dial it in to the camera and get perfect exposures every time. A gray card provides a neutral gray value on which to calculate exposure.

Here's a great article on using a gray card...http://www.acecam.com/magazine/gray-card.html

[isaac_bh]

That was a good article, thanks. It's amazing what a simple card can do...

[calpchen]

I agree. That was an excellent article. Now if only that Fotowand greycard... ahem... graycard were available in the United States... Hrm. Let me go look...