{"id":963,"date":"2011-12-28T09:38:11","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T09:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/test\/?p=963"},"modified":"2013-01-13T14:36:59","modified_gmt":"2013-01-13T14:36:59","slug":"whibal-grey-card-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=963","title":{"rendered":"WhiBal Grey card ~ Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Col2\"<\/a>When it comes to getting very accurate colours in your photos, you\u2019ll need to start with a known colour reference. That\u2019s where a grey card comes into it\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve used several grey cards in recent years, but the WhiBal from Michael Tapes Design USA is my current favourite. The WhiBal cards come in several sizes ranging from Studio sized 8\u201dx10\u201d sheets, right down to the dinky keyring sized Whibal Card. They\u2019re all made from plastic which means they\u2019re waterproof and fairly durable, although I suspect the keychain version would get scuffed up quite quickly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that these are the sort of grey cards that are used for getting perfect colour balance rather then the kind of grey cards that are used for getting perfect exposure. As such the WhiBal cards are all light grey in colour, although to be technically accurate they have no colour at all, as they are certified colour neutral.<\/p>\n

Colour Accuracy
<\/strong>\"Col1\"<\/a>So how does the WhiBal perform?  Like all good tools these things make a mundane, everyday task, simple and predictable. In this case it\u2019s job is  to get the colours accurate and to that end it\u2019s faultless.<\/p>\n

You might not be able to see much difference in the photo opposite (click it to enlarge) but trust me, when it comes to something like skin tones, the difference between getting the colours almost right and getting the colours spot on is vast.<\/p>\n

Added bonus<\/strong>
\"IMG_7786\"<\/a>All the WhiBal cards have a couple of nice touches\u2026 a ruler scale along the edge, Black and white patches and a star burst shaped target. Now personally I don\u2019t find most of these that useful, but I\u2019m sure others will. However the star burst target is a great way to check and remove lens chromatic aberrations.<\/p>\n

In the next blog post<\/a> I\u2019ll show you exactly how I\u2019ve integrated the WhiBal into my studio workflow.<\/p>\n

Prices & availability
<\/strong>At $20 for my favourite \u201ccredit card\u201d sized WhiBal card, these things aren\u2019t disposable but unless you loose it, I\u2019m sure it will last for a very long time. Sadly the WhiBal cards are a US import only, although mine arrived within a week and without any problems with customs charges. Details and prices can be found on the Michael Tapes Design website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to getting very accurate colours in your photos, you\u2019ll need to start with a known colour reference. That\u2019s where a grey card comes into it\u2019s own. I\u2019ve used several grey cards in recent years, but the WhiBal from Michael Tapes Design USA is my current favourite. The WhiBal cards come in several … Continue reading WhiBal Grey card ~ Review<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/2363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}