Whiteout or Wipeout?

I often wonder what other people did about white balance when they used film in their cameras. I know some people who shot in studios bought odd emulsions that were biased to tungsten lights - and they had to be careful to get the particular film for their lights, or vice versa.

Others sat there with colour temperature meters and measured what was coming out of the lights, or in trough the window, then did a page and a half of mathematics, and then shuffled through the accessories box to see if there are some filters for the lens or some gels for the lights or a big sheet of cellophane for the window. And then shot it with fingers crossed.

Nowadays we have the wonderful facility of the white balance control on the camera. Generally accessed through the menu, it allows a vast range of presets for daylight, flash, tungsten light, and a number of other atmospheric conditions. Frequently there is an "Auto" setting and if you have a good camera a custom setting that lets you measure what is out there and act accordingly.

Have a look at the "Auto" setting on my little studio camera. Not coping very well at all in the first instance, but spot-on in the second. What did I do that made the difference?I used an expodisc, that's what.

The Expodisc is a light integrator that gathers colour from many angles and presents it to the measuring program in the camera as a pure blank - and then you ask the camera computer to regard this as the standard to which you wish to work. It works - see the second view of the studio desk.

I can see this as the ideal solution for the wedding photographer who gets caught in a church with off-white walls and off-colour windows. The light inside one of these edifices may be conducive to holiness, but I'll guarantee when you see it later on your computer screen as a raw image you won't be reciting blessings...not if you have to sit there and manually re-balance an entire shoot.

Simply slip the appropriate size Expodisc on the front of the lens you'll be working with and take a WB shot in the same light as that falling on the bride. Your camera will do the rest and your post processing will be ever so much simpler.

Even in studio flash circumstances, the output from your strobes might be 5500º Kelvin which matches your camera preset, or it might be different, depending upon the age of the tubes. The Expodisc can set you exactly onto studio white.

They are available now in our shop in various sizes from 62mm on up. Highly recommended.