Toronto Photography Meetup Group

So I'm reading a lot and grey cards keep coming up but I never see people using them .. Do you use them? If so what are the benefits I have'nt really used one ever and havent seen the need to .. anyone care to shed some light?

I used to use it a bit in the old film days because you couldn't get instant previews of your shot like in today's digital world. Not to mention, film was expensive and last thing you wanted was 36 shots of under/over exposed images. It was a poor man's light meter for tricky lighting conditions since a camera's metering system was balanced for neutral gray, if you knew a constant (ie metered for the gray) then you could compensate for the exposure you wanted by opening up or closing down from the metered reading.

I don't see it used much today because DSLR metering systems I think have gotten a lot better and being able to instantly view your shot allows you to compensate and take the proper exposure within seconds.

I still carry one with me regardless.

Grey for setting exposure, white for setting white balance.

I carry one.

ohhhh So its useful to have I may pick onee uppp Thanks!

What you do with it is meter off of it (ie. put it in front of the camera and take a meter reading). It is helpful in difficult lighting situations to help determine the "proper" neutral exposure to capture a picture image. Light meters in cameras are calibrated to expose for 18% grey (ie. the colour of the grey card). However, because in camera meters use reflected light (ie. light reflected off subjects), the exposure that your in camera meter reads will be reading the brightness of the subjects rather that the incidental light - ie. if a subject is predominately light toned or predominately dark toned - your meter may be fooled- you may not get a neutral reading- your meter may be telling you to over or under expose (if a background is predominately white ie. snow, the meter reading in your camera would likely result in an underexposure- everything ends up looking grey. The grey card essentially allows you to use your in camera meter like an incident light meter which gives you a reading of the available light for a normal exposure.

I have a grey card and do carry it around with me (whether I'm shooting film or digital). The flip side is white so I do use that from time to time for custom white balance readings (not as often as I should though). I have a hand held incident light meter and tend to use that more often then the grey card.

There has been a few occasions when I didn't have my hand-held meter and wished that I had used the grey card (including when I was shooting digital).

A scenario could be where there's a high chance that the current lighting conditions can fool your meter. Take for example, you're out shooting a snow scene (well snow is kinda easy to meter since it's pretty white and generally shot 1 1/2 to 2 stops over the metered reading) or on a very sunny white sand beach and you're shooting slide film. If you shot it with your camera's meter reading, your snow or beach scene will come out looking very underexposed. Similarly, if you were taking a shot of a black car against a dark background. Your camera's meter would probably be fooled and your shot would come out looking over exposed. If you took a spot meter reading of your gray card, you'd have gotten a closer/more accurate meter reading to properly expose your show scene.

You need to ensure that the card if held properly for taking a meter reading. You want to keep it parallel to the lens.

If you don't have a gray card, you can use the palm of your hand. IF you're fair skinned, you can take a meter reading off the palm of your hand and open up 1 stop. If you're dark skinned, your hand might be a natural gray card. Other items laying around can be used as a quick reference like cement, brown paper bags, asphalt etc. Some camera bags are deliberately 18% gray.

With film, always bracket your important shots!

PS: Conac beat me to it. I type too slow... lol

i carry one in the bag when i shoot. I end up forgetting to use it 50% of the time but always wish i did. Hopefully i'll get used to it more

I only use WB card on people shoots, mostly indoors, digital has an upper hand with instant preview and reshoot

I don't think I've bothered with a grey card or an incident light meter in the past few years...

since two months ago, I've been using a Melitta coffee filters over my lens for WB. Exposure wise I set my D700 to +3/ centered weight. that's it ..dirty cheap and practical to shoot mixed lighting conditions

I've tried using them to no good result. I have both reflective and incident meters for when it counts.

In the film days I carried a white Styrofoam cup in my camera bag for such purposes. Haven't bothered with digital yet.

I have one and use it too. It is a good thing to have.

Personally, I think setting "correct" exposure with a grey card is not necessary anymore with digital slrs. The only use I can see of a grey card is to set the custom white balance instead of Auto White Balance. This can be useful when doing batch processing of a lot of pics where you can change the white balance afterwards from the static white balance set in camera, instead of tweaking individually. That being said you can do the same thing if you set the white balance to one of the other standard in camera white balance settings - the key is to have a static starting point so that you can batch edit consistently.

Take this with a grain of salt because I personally rarely use the in camera "correct"exposure and/or white balance settings because my edits are more on the creative side.

You might also checkout Expodisc or a similar product

http://www.expoimaging.com/

Anyone here have the X-Rite Passport? I was thinking of picking one up to speed up the workflow etc.

i used to use a white card for WB; but messed with a grey and for some reason it seems to be closer than even the white.

so yes, I do use a grey card

I had one at one point, but I stopped using it long ago.
Odds are I would think about using it again if I could find myself a small and cheap enough one.

There's Whibal

Grey card, RAW, Lightroom, Sync