ExpoDisc for White Balance: Anyone Used This?

[Denniscasey]

I think this subject is different enough from my "color shift" thread to post new thread. Reading more about white balance I came across a product called ExpoDisc from ExpoImaging company. If I understand claims correctly, it attaches to camera lens (like a filter) and uses refractive (not reflective) light camera sees as means to manually set white balance. Has anyone used this product?

As mentioned in my previous post, scenery I video can be in direct sun under blue sky while I can be standing in shady or overcast sun location (different color temperatures at different locations). This makes gray card white balancing inappropriate (thank you for advice from respondents to my previous post) and this ExpoDisc seems ideal for this situation.

Some white balance tutorials I have now watched use DSLR examples which give a much wider range of white balance preset options to help with varying light ( shade, sun, overcast, tungsten, fluorescent, evening, etc in addition to manual white balance) than the HMC 40 presets ( ATW, ATW Lock, 3200 and 5500K, manual white balance for Channel A and B). So if products like ExpoDisc do what they claim they seem very helpful for getting correct white balance for distant scenery (without adjustments in post).

 

[ggrantly]

Might work great, but most of us get it done with a $5 WB card or a sheet of white paper. When you balance you should always be aware of where the light is coming from to make sure it is the same light in your scene.

Grant

 

[Felipe Henao]

Dennis get the gray card

 

[Denniscasey]

Might work great, but most of us get it done with a $5 WB card or a sheet of white paper. When you balance you should always be aware of where the light is coming from to make sure it is the same light in your scene.

Grant

Sorry for belaboring this, but this trip (colors, lighting conditions) and my learning curve gave me new perspective/appreciation about white balance. If gray card and subject are in same light then I understand manual white balance with gray card and yes I will get one.

However, Grant again highlights situation I was in per previous discussion---clouds were coming and going so for example my available shooting location could be in overcast lighting while distant "subject" (scenery) was in different light (bright sunlight)---in this situation gray card at shooting location would reflect overcast lighting only not direct sunlight scenery was in. In addition this was vacationers "run and gun" situation where it was not practical for me to stop and wait until light was uniform. And I was trying to capture exceptional ocean colors and hues varying from teal and aqua to deep blue as I panned from shoreline to further out in ocean (don't think I could replicate in post).

So in this situation we had discussed options of: (1) setting HMC40 to preset 5600K or (2) letting camera "identify" color temperature of scenery through AWB and then Locking AWB to avoid color shift as I panned. However, this ExpoDisc seemed to offer another possibly more accurate white balance option since it claimed to use "refractive" light from scene/scenery you are shooting to use in manual white balance procedure--in other words like gray card was at the scenery location rather than at your shooting location. Hence my interest in this ExpoDisc product.

I do have to say after reviewing my shots on plasma TV that the HMC40 AWB seems to do a very good job of adjusting white balance to ambient light at different times of day or under overcast/sunny conditions if left on one scene (i.e. not panning left to right for scenery or up and down for sunsets both of which sometimes gave color shifts).

Given jet lag and inexperience I hope my question about adjusting white balance for far off scenery makes some sense.