Is Using Digital Grey Card Useful?


I'm not good in photography but I'm learning. I don't have a good sense of coloring and am always struggle in getting the right white balance setup. Sometime its getting too warm and sometime it getting too cold.  I need a tool to help me and I come across a tool call digital grey card.

There were a lot of argument and debate about 18% grey card that it is use for exposure but not for white balance. But its doesn't matter for me since hey both provide similar result ( according to my research) and I'm not enthusiast nor professional that need 100% natural color. I just want it to look nicer.

I decide to get one.

I Just receive a Digital Grey Card which I purchased few days ago and I trying to use it now. I just have time to play around with it after hang out with my lovely colleague and friends.

Anyway, to prove that it is useful and I'm not wasting my money. I decide to test it before I "trust" it.

Here you go, the picture below is taking under fluorescent light using auto white balance:




The picture is a little bit blue  as you can see from the picture above.

Next, I use the preset "fluorescent white light" white balance mode:


The picture shown better result and giving the color close to what my eye is seeing.

Last, I use the custom white balance mode by using grey card as reference:



And below using white card as custom white balance reference:


Both of the Grey and white reference give me difference color tone and base on what I seeing, using white card seems to give me a close to original floor color.

Using grey card as reference give me various results every time I tested it, some better and some making no difference, especially when I modify the exposure . In case above, it gave no difference compare to auto white balance. I might need to do more test or perhaps I'm doing the wrong setup.

Closed one here is definitely the last one, by using the white card as reference.

Worth to mention that, the preset fluorescent light mode did a pretty good job and it give a very close result to the custom mode.

Summary: It is very subjective whether the digital grey card give a big hand here as it give difference result and this is not what I'm expecting, and white card is giving me a good outcome. I might want to test it a little bit more especially outdoor and gather more opinions before I make a judgement.

The bottom line is, the preset mode give us a rather good result while using custom white balance ( with  white card) also give you a good result without having struggle to select the correct presets, especially during outdoor shooting. Avoid using AWB indoor and spend a little more time on finding the right white balance would definitely give us better result.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Kuala Lumpur Water Hard or Soft? Is it safe to drink?

Image
What is the hardness level of Malaysia water source?  According to Wikipedia, water is classify as soft water when the hardness is below 60 mg/L, below 60 ppm or below 3.5gpg ( grain per gallon) .  ( Hard/ Soft Calssification Table, Source:  Wikipedia - Hard Water  ) * Parts per million (ppm) is usually defined as 1 mg/L CaCO3. It is equivalent to mg/L One recently study on Kuala Lumpur Tap Water in 2007 has shown that most populated areas in Kuala Lumpur are soft water. (source:  A Survey Of Tap Water Quality in Kuala Lumpur - March 2007  )  Also commentary of the study has confirmed that piece of finding. "As shown in figure 3, the hardness of tap water in these20 selected areas ranged from 48 mg CaCO3/L to 92 mgCaCO3/L with an average of 65 mg CaCO3/L. The tapwater in all these areas is considered soft as the hardnesslevel is below 100 mg CaCO3/L. Although there is nohealth-based guideline value, soft water and low pH maycause corrosion of pipes result
Read more

How to Reset Xiao Mi Power Bank

Image
According to Mi official website, Mi Power Bank 10400mAh 10400mAh should charge within 12 hours for a standard 1A charger. I have a 10400 Mi Power Bank but it take >24 hours to charge. I contacted Xiao Mi Support and indeed this is not normal. They suggested to Reboot the power bank. To do that: Press the Power Button for more than 15 secs.  After that drain the power bank and charge again. The power bank should fully charge about 12 hours or in some case 13 hours is fine.  The support person also suggested if the unit still behaves the same, we should bring it to the nearest service center for checking. http://www.mi.com/my/service/repair/
Read more

What need to be done after purchase a property in Malaysia

The process of purchase a house is not end at the moment we get the house key. We need to inform various authorities regarding the change of ownership. There are 5 of them. Cukai Taksiran/ Pintu Cukai Tanah ( Don't not get confuse with cukai taksiran)  Electricity - Tenaga Nasional Berhad Water Supply - Syabas Indah Water Konsortium It take me a lot of time to understand and research the whole process hence I'm writing down my own experience, hopefully this will help some of you out-there. The example below is specific to Selangor hence it will be different for other state. When in doubt, always call your Municipal Council for more information.  Tips: You will always need IC and S&P, make at least 4-5 copies of them.  Cukai Taksiran Cukai Taksiran need to be done at municipal council, aka local Majlis Perbandaran. In my case, I did it in MPSJ (Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya), which located in USJ 5, Subang Jaya ( click here for google maps ). To transfer t
Read more