Currently, I use a neutral grey card to set my white balance either in camera before shooting, or by including it in a shot at the time of shooting and using the eye-dropper in Lightroom to adjust white balance in post-processing. In combination with either the Adobe Standard colour profile or those embedded in my images, this works reasonably well (as a starting point, at least), though I typically have to tweak contrast and colours quite a bit to get to a "standard" look (I usually fine tune white balance again at that stage, depending on the look I want to achieve for each shot).
My questions are regarding the use of the Colorchecker Passport (which I'm considering buying) and Lightroom, with my various camera / lens combinations:
(1) In setting a colour profile for a specific camera / lens combo, will that profile now work for all lighting conditions if I also continue to use my neutral grey card for white balance reference?
(2) Further to question (1), would I actually be better off taking a calibration shot at the start of a shoot in the prevailing lighting conditions, and using that to create a shoot-specific colour profile and set white balance off one of the grey squares on the Passport?
(3) Does the colour profile take into account the contrast characteristics of the lens - i.e. if I setup a profile with one of my cameras and a lens that has poor contrast, will it now render colours and overall contrast appropriately, or will I still have to adjust the contrast separately?
(4) In relation to question (3), what about zoom lenses where contrast appears to reduce at the longer end, will I need separate profiles for a range of focal lengths (I assume that I will - and that's OK, I'd just like to establish if this is the case)?
Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Last edited by BigMackCam; 01-29-2016 at 05:07 PM.