what's with the price of colour temp meters?

sheesh, one would think that with dig, they'd have dropped
in price. No way: as expen$ive as ever!
:-(

 

cost of production x volume of sales = high price.

 

Shouldn't that be cost of production / volume of sales = high price?

Colin D

 

oops!... ¦-)
Never mind, ldr: I got what you meant.
Thing that gets me though is there is no middle of the road
anywhere.

Either it's a decrepit old thing with CDS cells for 50 bucks or so or
a snazzy, super-dig Minolssen for 1400.

Where the bloody hell is the mid ground marketing?
Say: 200-300 bucks?

Aw heck! Better start the saving...

 

oops!... ¦-)
Never mind, ldr: I got what you meant.
Thing that gets me though is there is no middle of the road
anywhere.

Either it's a decrepit old thing with CDS cells for 50 bucks or so or
a snazzy, super-dig Minolssen for 1400.

Where the bloody hell is the mid ground marketing?
Say: 200-300 bucks?

Aw heck! Better start the saving...

 

as there is less demnad... and hence less manufacturing... wich means
rare... which means $$$$$$

 

I have not looked deeply into this, but I would have thought a half way
decent camera gives you than information when youtake a shot... possibly
making the need for a colour meter redundant..... I would need to do
some checking on this 'theory' however.

kosh

 

most good dslrs will let me adjust the white balance by
specifying a colour temperature. But that's me adjusting,
ie: they presume I *know* what it is to start with.
Far from the reality.

One would think that a good use for all that electronic
power in these cameras would be to provide this kind of
functionality. As you so well point out. Yet none can do
this, AFAIK.

(and before anyone jumps in with the usual "take a shot
and check the monitor", no, you *cannot* judge white
balance by looking at the image in a lcd monitor!)

 

Here's what I do: I shoot only raw with my DSLR. In at least one shot in
each lighting situation I include a reliable grey reference in the shot.
I use a set of WhiBal White Balance Reference Cards -- see
http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/index.html

When I do the raw conversion (with CaptureOne) I just click on the image
of the grey card, and use that to set the white balance for all the
shots in the set.

This method is so simple and effective I wouldn't carry a colour
temperature meter even if I had one.

Peter Marquis-Kyle

 

hmmmm, you can't get the actual colour temp in degrees kelvin while
reveiwing the shot? Or am I thinking of info you get from filebrowser in
photoshop?

kosh

 

i like it!

kosh

 

Hi,

if you shoot in Raw, then you can use teh Adobe Raw plug in to tell you
the colour tempratue.

there is a little eye dropper that has a grey lower half. if you click
that on any white object, the colour tempratuer will show up in "White
Balance" As Shot temprature dialogure section to the right oftheImage
window.

Regards

Sandy

 

I'm perplexed with this.

If I take a photo at sunset of a person in a white shirt I want the
shirt to have a golden colour, not white. I wouldn't adjust the
colour temperature on import of the raw file to make the shirt white.

I would have thought the grey card was for exposure, not colour
temperature.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

: Noons wrote:
: > most good dslrs will let me adjust the white balance by
: > specifying a colour temperature. But that's me adjusting,
: > ie: they presume I *know* what it is to start with.
: > Far from the reality.
: >
: > One would think that a good use for all that electronic
: > power in these cameras would be to provide this kind of
: > functionality. As you so well point out. Yet none can do
: > this, AFAIK.
: >
: > (and before anyone jumps in with the usual "take a shot
: > and check the monitor", no, you *cannot* judge white
: > balance by looking at the image in a lcd monitor!)
:
: Here's what I do: I shoot only raw with my DSLR. In at least one
shot in
: each lighting situation I include a reliable grey reference in the
shot.
: I use a set of WhiBal White Balance Reference Cards -- see
: http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/index.html
:
: When I do the raw conversion (with CaptureOne) I just click on the
image
: of the grey card, and use that to set the white balance for all the
: shots in the set.
:
: This method is so simple and effective I wouldn't carry a colour
: temperature meter even if I had one.
:
: Peter Marquis-Kyle

 

not that I know of how.
Could well be something I'm doing wrong.
The only thing I can eventually see is the kelvin used
by the camera to process raw data for white balance.
Different from what the scene actually had, which is
what I was trying to get.

 

Cool! Thanks.

 

Not a bad way of getting around it. Thanks for the useful tip.

 

The grey card also provides a reference point for white balance.

Being 18% grey, it should be 18% grey, not 18% grey with a bit of yellow in
it.

 

What would happen if it were used for a sunset shot?

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

:
: : > I'm perplexed with this.
: >
: > If I take a photo at sunset of a person in a white shirt I want
the
: > shirt to have a golden colour, not white. I wouldn't adjust the
: > colour temperature on import of the raw file to make the shirt
white.
: >
: > I would have thought the grey card was for exposure, not colour
: > temperature.
: >
:
: The grey card also provides a reference point for white balance.
:
: Being 18% grey, it should be 18% grey, not 18% grey with a bit of
yellow in
: it.
:
:

 

If you were taking sunset shot and the camera was on auto white balance, it
would try to make the whole scene neutral or less 'golden' by adding more
blue. If you had a grey card in the shot, it would have a bluish tinge to it
(red+green=yellow, +blue=white).

When processing the RAW file later, you could set the grey card area as your
neutral reference point which would removed the excess blue from the pic.
This would then give you the true 'golden' glow. You could then use the same
colour settings for any other pics you took that that time.

 

The catch is "any white object" may not really white, or there may be
none in shot. A proper grey target (like the WhiBal one) is a more
reliable source for setting white balance.

-Michael