New to digital-White balance & sensor cleaning

cactusjakcactusjak Registered Users Posts: 8 Beginner grinner
edited April 20, 2006 in Accessories
Being new to digital has anyone had experience with a product called Expo disk , and is white balance about as important as worrying about which lens to use? Also would it be reccommended to get a sensor cleaning kit (copperhill) right from the beginning ? Thanks in advance

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  • Mike LaneMike Lane Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2006
    cactusjak wrote:
    Being new to digital has anyone had experience with a product called Expo disk , and is white balance about as important as worrying about which lens to use? Also would it be reccommended to get a sensor cleaning kit (copperhill) right from the beginning ? Thanks in advance
    White balance is important to prevent color casts. The expodisc is nice to have but it's not required by any stretch. There are other methods of getting a proper white balance. You can carry a gray card and use your camera's custom white balance function - read your manual for more on that. Heck, you don't even need a gray card, you could just use your palm as long as it is in a shadow. You could shoot in raw and then adjust the white balance using your favorite raw image converter. Personally I feel that it saves time to have my whitebalance set correctly when I get the image into ACR. One less thing.

    I wouldn't say that getting your white balance is as important as what lens to use. I would say that getting the white balance right is as important as it used to be deciding what kind of film to use for a given situation.

    I would recommend getting a cleaning kit right off the bat. My 20D came chock full of dust...umph.gif
    Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

    http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2006
    cactusjak wrote:
    Being new to digital has anyone had experience with a product called Expo disk , and is white balance about as important as worrying about which lens to use? Also would it be reccommended to get a sensor cleaning kit (copperhill) right from the beginning ? Thanks in advance

    Copperhill is really sweet, I highly recommend it.

    Expo disk is wonderful, but shooting in raw is even better :)
    Andy

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  • tracytracy Registered Users Posts: 117 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2006
    Giottos Rocket
    cactusjak wrote:
    Being new to digital has anyone had experience with a product called Expo disk , and is white balance about as important as worrying about which lens to use? Also would it be reccommended to get a sensor cleaning kit (copperhill) right from the beginning ? Thanks in advance

    Hi,
    I have the Item below and Recently I went to a Canon Sponsored Macro class and they said the same thing don't get anything that will touch your senor. The reason is is that dust is not sticky and anything that is on your sensor that is sticky should be taken in an have cleaned. Everyone has their own opinion though.


    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=259157&is=REG&addedTroughType=search


    Tracy
  • KA0TVOKA0TVO Registered Users Posts: 164 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2006
    Copperhill is very good. they also provide a sensor brush which is very helpful in cleaning. It sounds scarry but after a few times you will be cleaning the sensor in less than ten minutes. :D Just DO NOT SPRAY THE SENSOR WITH CAN AIR!!
    Bob
  • Red BaronRed Baron Registered Users Posts: 53 Big grins
    edited April 20, 2006
    Shooting RAW is good advice and paying attention to white balance can save you a lot of time in post-processing. I have both the ExpoDisc and WhiBal (http://www.pictureflow.com/products/whibal/index.html) and they both work great.

    The ExpoDisc works best where you can set white balance in advance thereby eliminating the need to deal with it in the post-processing phase. You don't need to buy an ExpoDisc to fit each lens - I bought a 72mm ExpoDisc and a stepping ring to 77mm to fit my lenses - this allows me to use my ExpoDisc as a lens cap on my walk-around lens so it's right there ready to roll when I need it.

    The WhiBal, on the other hand, works best where lighting conditions are constantly changing. I shot a wedding a few weeks back - I showed up at the church early and set my WhiBal up in various locations shooting white balance frames with and without flash. After the wedding I then used these frames to set white balance in post-processing - it worked really slick and produced colours that were bang on.

    A lot of people say that these devices are expensive, particularly the ExpoDisc, but I can't begin to count the post-processing hours they've saved me. Remember, you can always replace money but you can't replace time. If I need to spend a few hundred dollars to save countless hours of time, I'm all for it.
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