What should I buy for a white balance card?

[oxband]

So, I want to take around a piece of card stock, or something like it, so I can hold it for the camera and auto white balance to it if I'm i a setting without anything white.

Does it make a difference what I use as long as it's white? I know that sounds silly. What I mean is that there are different shades of white, like any color, and I wonder if I should be thinking of something specific for this purpose.

 

[bryan777123]

White Card

White Card

Hiya
The purist white item is the best you can do for accurate colour redition. I have tried a matt white card, but it is cumbersome. I now use a pure white tee-shirt, as it is also flexible.

 

[dregenthal]

I got one of these almost 2 years ago and have never regretted it: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/375202-REG/Lastolite_LL_LR2050_EZYBalance_Grey_White_Card.html

 

[Ken Steadman]

I use this one I used the above one but a couple of months ago I switched to this one. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/429984-REG/Photovision_DT34012_34_One_Shot_Digital.html
The reasons I prefer this it's big so it covers a lot of the screen and when you use the white/black/gray side vertically you can check the waveform monitor and really see what your exposure range looks like.

 

[David Saraceno]

I have used the one two posts above for three years and love it.

Will look at Ken's though.

The first one is smaller, which cuts both ways. And it folds conveniently into a small pouch.

 

[WpgCameraMan]

I put this together a while ago, and it's worked out pretty well for me.

Got four 4x6 photo printer sheets (dollar store cheap) .. I printed out 3 .. Colour Bars , Warm & Cool. I keep these in a cut-down CD sleeve INSIDE my lens cap. The 4th sheet I left unprinted, it and the CD sleeve are taped to form a hinge, so I can flip it open and pick what I need, or leave it closed and have my white card exposed. A small tab of tape keeps it shut.

The trick to this, is after you print out the Bars, you need to shoot it with 3200k light on the Preset 3200k WB setting. I shoot on the default scene file, but if you use others, you'll need to shoot this reference footage with those scene.

(Unless you've got a super sweet printer, you'll never get the bars 100% accurate, but even if you did have spot-on colour matching, still wouldn't hurt).

You'll now have a short clip that you can bring into your project and dial in your field colours to the control clip.... or at the very least, you'll know what the camera saw as 'blue' under the location light should be a certain value.

I suppose you could affix a white card to the face of the cover, and place a focus chart on the inside. Also a handy place to keep a business card or two, for loss recovery.

 

[sewolla]

I've always used an 18% photo gray card from my local camera store, seems to work as well as anything. It's about 6" X 8". Cost = app. $5.00.

 

[matt s.]

Use the card that came with an old portabrace bag. people really spend $90 on a WB card?

 

[Vic Owen]

Same idea here...

I 'evicted' my old XL-1 from its Portabrace bag, and used it for the 150. Not a perfect fit, but adequate. And, the included WB card works just fine.

 

[Mark Von Lanken]

I have been using these http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/300868-REG/Porta_Brace_WBC.html for the last 12 years.

They are cheap and I loop the string through my belt and keep it on me for the entire wedding day. When I need to white balance, I just throw it down, white balance and then loop it back through my belt. It only takes seconds and if you accidentally lose it, it's only $5 to replace it.

Whatever you do, make sure all cameras are white balanced to the same color of white. That's the danger in doing a WB on whatever you see around that looks white. It may not be the same color of white that the other shooter finds.