[BethC]

Here is the link Lally Cap

It sounds like a great idea, when shooting outside and your light/location changes so you don't have to reset custom white balance each time. But I'm skeptical as to how well it will actually work.

anyone ever use one? or try anythign similar that works well?

[Wheatfield]

Bounty paper towels.
They are useful for more than just setting white balance.
The lally thing is a solution to a non existent problem.

[jpzk]

Maybe I am dumb enough not to understand how this would work ... either with the Lally or the Bounty paper towel: care to say how you'd use this anyway?
JP

[ghelary]

Here is the link Lally Cap

It sounds like a great idea, when shooting outside and your light/location changes so you don't have to reset custom white balance each time. But I'm skeptical as to how well it will actually work.

anyone ever use one? or try anythign similar that works well?

Ultimatly white balance is part of the development process. I have neutral gray cards that I simply never use. When I shoot, I make sue that WB is approximatively ok, and then I adjust to what look the best, it's not always what it looked like on field.

People shall stop worrying too much about WB, sometimes an image looks much better when it's off balance.

[BethC]

The lally thing is a solution to a non existent problem

Not necessarily a problem, but when chasing a toddler around outside and they change locations, it's a pain to reset a custom white balance each time.

So I take it this doesn't work?

[mickeyobe]

Years ago they used to be called Shampoo Caps. Cost about 5 for $1.CAN.

Then some clever "inventor" started using them to cover bowls of left overs. Cost 2 for $1.CAN.

Now put it over your lens. Cost 1 for $29. Plus shipping. US funds.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Mickey

[BethC]

LOL okay, I get it. I guess I'll just keep wearing my grey card around my neck and re doing my custom white balance.


Oh, side note, just asked a friend who is a weddign photog. she said she was told to use a pringles can lid LOL

[Wheatfield]

Not necessarily a problem, but when chasing a toddler around outside and they change locations, it's a pain to reset a custom white balance each time.

So I take it this doesn't work?

The Lally works the same way that an incident meter works. You are taking the reading at the camera, not the subject.
It will work fine until you take your WB reading with the camera in sunlight and the subject in shade, or until a cloud goes past, or any of the myriad of subtle things that can affect white balance.
If accurate WB is that critical to your snapshots of your kids playing in the back yard, shoot raw and adjust each image individually.

[Ratmagiclady]

Years ago they used to be called Shampoo Caps. Cost about 5 for $1.CAN.

Then some clever "inventor" started using them to cover bowls of left overs. Cost 2 for $1.CAN.

Now put it over your lens. Cost 1 for $29. Plus shipping. US funds.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Mickey

Bingo. Well, maybe even more cynically-than I'd put it.

That is not thirty dollars.


That kind of thing turned up a lot in early video days, usually in the form of a white, translucent lens cap.

Mind you, I've often been a fan of the 'Put a sock on it' school of lens-cappery, but you don't need to pay that in any event.

I think Wheatfield brings up an important point, though: under conditions where that kind of thing is even likely to work well, presets or AWB will probably do, and work faster. Things that may confuse your Pentax' auto white balance in lower light seem pretty likely to not be helped by that.

[BethC]

If accurate WB is that critical to your snapshots of your kids playing in the back yard, shoot raw and adjust each image individually.

I was thinking more about a situation that happened to me, I was doing pictures for someone else (Building my portfolio) at a local park, while the child was running around, from under one tree, to open shade from a building, to full sun etc....I try to get it right in camera with very little editing to do when editing a shoot for someone else. When I came home I noticed some color issues on some becuase i never changed the WB each time the toddler moved from one location to the next. I shot in RAW and adjusted them all for the Momma before she saw them, I was just curious if this would save any editing time.

Guess the concensus is it's not worth the money, so I'll just keep doing it the old way.

[Ratmagiclady]

I was thinking more about a situation that happened to me, I was doing pictures for someone else (Building my portfolio) at a local park, while the child was running around, from under one tree, to open shade from a building, to full sun etc....I try to get it right in camera with very little editing to do when editing a shoot for someone else. When I came home I noticed some color issues on some becuase i never changed the WB each time the toddler moved from one location to the next. I shot in RAW and adjusted them all for the Momma before she saw them, I was just curious if this would save any editing time.

Guess the concensus is it's not worth the money, so I'll just keep doing it the old way.

Have you tried the auto-white balance, for this, by the way? Trying to set manually can end up just producing more errors than it's worth, I should think.


Toddlers just plain move fast: one thing you may consider, actually, is to just use that little pop-up flash (cranked all the way down with camera exposure on manual) or a bigger one similarly configured.

In days of 'daylight film,' I wasn't screwing correction filters on all the time: (a little more latitude for 'WB' exists there, anyway, especially with negative film) ....I'd just like to put a little little bit of fill in, ...just with that little 'splash' of direct flash, (This is very different from trying to light the whole space with the most diffuse flash possible: even if the flash is aiming for four stops under, you're just easing shadows and not-coincidentally, knocking down any odd colors you might see in a sun-to-shade situation.

Balance and balance.

[Wheatfield]

This is the problem with white balance tools that mount on the lens: they are only good for measuring the white balance at the camera. If the subject is in shade and the camera is in sun (or vice versa), then you won't get an accurate read with a camera mounted device.

[raz-0]

Not necessarily a problem, but when chasing a toddler around outside and they change locations, it's a pain to reset a custom white balance each time.

So I take it this doesn't work?

I don't have a lally cap, but I have a cheap chinese translucent lens cap.

The changing locations in a small geographic area over the course of a day is EXACTLY when I find the device useful.

When covering an outdoor event where differing areas are in various light and shadow, using the cap to set custom WB once means that I have one WB for the entire shoot. With AWB, I can get severely different color casts all over the place that are huge PTIA to correct for. With the cap-based custom WB, I can almost batch process the whole thing.

The cheap chinese lens cap cost me all of $6 shipped. Saves me probably 3-6 hours of fiddling around in post. Also, I have a k10d, which is just awful with AWB under tungsten. Put on the cap and point it right at the brightest light source and set custom WB, and I'm 95% of the way there.

[JeffJS]

I was thinking more about a situation that happened to me, I was doing pictures for someone else (Building my portfolio) at a local park, while the child was running around, from under one tree, to open shade from a building, to full sun etc....I try to get it right in camera with very little editing to do when editing a shoot for someone else. When I came home I noticed some color issues on some becuase i never changed the WB each time the toddler moved from one location to the next. I shot in RAW and adjusted them all for the Momma before she saw them, I was just curious if this would save any editing time.

Guess the concensus is it's not worth the money, so I'll just keep doing it the old way.

Put your gray card somewhere unobtrusive in your photo or just take a photo of it. Shoot RAW. Use a WB adjust tool in your processing software to set the WB for each group. You only need one photo per group that way. WB shouldn't be changing second to second in a given location.

[keyser]

White balance is a funny thing.... sure, indoors it helps get rid of that horrid incandecent glow. Outdoors, it can ruin a perfectly good shot. Sometimes white doesn't need to be white!