Customer Reviews

ExpoDisc EXPOD72 72mm ExpoDisc Neutral White Balance Filter

5 star:		(6)
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3 star:		(1)
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I own a 30D and was spending too much time in photoshop correcting the white balance on ALL my photos! Even though this is my first SLR of any kind,I don't use any of the automatic modes. I'm learning how to use all the creative aspects of this camera. I didn't know anything about color temperature. The factory default was 5500K, so I left it there & used AWB & the daylight setting. I mostly shoot during the day or before sunrise. ALL of my photos had a bluish tint!......Out of frustration,I surfed the net for an answer & stumbled across the expodisc. I immediately ordered a 72mm filter to fit my 28-135mm. WOW! did it ever make a difference!! I now keep my white balance on the custom setting for ALL my pix!

I suggest you go to their website to read the full explanation,testimonials from pro photogs & also see some before & afters. Then come back to Amazon to buy because it's cheaper here. I would also suggest that you get the expodisc that fits your biggest lens. I wish I would've bought the 82mm instead because I plan on buying the 16-35mm ii in the future. Even the video that comes with it suggests that you buy the disc to fit your biggest lens. You just hold the expodisc against your lens & take a shot. It doesn't need to be attached. You can see a short video of it on you tube,which is where I first spotted it.

Before finding the expodisc I had looked into a color temperature meter. It's $1400 on Amazon!!!!! A good light meter is over $1000.00!!! I'd rather spend $100!!! The best thing about this tool is that it helped me to understand color temperature. My pix had a bluish tint because the color temperature was too low at 5500k for daylight. With the expodisc, that same picture had a color temperature of 6800k! The colors were stunning & I didn't have to do any post processing besides cropping or resizing! I shoot in Raw + Jpeg mode.

Maybe once I get more proficient with Photoshop,post processing won't be such a pain for me. But until then,whenever my camera comes out, my expodisc goes around my neck. If the light changes, I just take another custom reading with the expodisc! I will never be without it!!!
HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TOOL!!!!!!!

I bought the ExpoDisc on the recommendation of a friend who is also a professional photographer. I have been using a SmartShooter Balancesmarter 20" target. This device works well but it requires that you unzip, unfold and hand the target to your subject. Then, after taking a picture of the target, it is refolded, put in its case and zipped up. The Expodisc on the other hand, is very easy to use. It fits on the front of you lens. Then depending on the lighting conditions, you go to where your subject is and either aim the camera back to where you will take the picture from or toward the main light source. Turn the auto focus on your lens off for a moment(so the camera will take a picture without focusing), take a picture for the custom white balance, then go and take great pictures.

Many people have no idea what white balance is and see no problem with their photos. In that situation this device is expensive and unnecessary. However, if you have noticed that your digital photos sometimes appear too blue or too yellow, you know what I am talking about. This is particularly true of photos taken on cloudy days or indoors under artificial lighting. If this has been a problem for you, read on.

The in-camera automatic white balance setting attempts to estimate the correct color temperature in order to set a white balance that neutralizes grays. My Nikon tends to err on the cooler side in shady, cloudy or indoor situations. Personally, I prefer the warmer feel of a yellower white balance, as do many portrait photographers. The solution is to change the white balance in post-processing and this is easiest to do if you shoot RAW. The problem is that it is sometimes hard to judge the correct white balance and I tend to over-correct. This also adds more laborious steps on the computer.

ExpoImaging's ExpoDisc acts as a diffuser to average out incident light and lets you set a custom white balance, essentially using your camera as an incident light meter. Detailed instructions are provided. I must say that I tried a cheaper product and did not like the results. The ExpoDisc is expensive, being priced for the pro market, but it does deliver. In the shade and under bounce flash the results were very pleasing. I took a picture of some pinkish marble in a bathroom and was astonished by how much truer to the actual color the custom white balance photos were, compared to those taken with the auto setting. This is exactly the situation where the auto setting goes wrong. I will say though, that outdoors, in direct sunlight, there is not much difference so I would not worry about using the ExpoDisc then. When shooting in the morning or late afternoon, to capture the naturally warm light, the ExpoDisc will work against you by neutralizing the white balance and so generally should not be used (as stated in the directions, by the way).

In summary, the ExpoDisc is an expensive but helpful product for those interested in a more accurate white balance in difficult lighting situations.

To white balance a digital camers to any light and be on target is hard. This is a dream to use and a must for everyone that need to take pro photos.
We use it at SoYouHeadshots.com- and it is great. We now have 3 of them.
Normal and Portrait White Balance that adds a touch of warmth.

Thank You Paul H Behrens, Designers & Photography

This works exactly as claimed and as I thought. I create a custom balance based on the light falling on the subject. It works perfectly. I only use it in areas of mixed or unknown light sources such as varying fluorescent sources. It's a little tricky when using camera-mounted bounce flash but I mainly use it for portraits and architectural images. I've come to depend on this professionally for those occasions when I can't determine the color temperature.

white balance was way off on a number of shots in different lighting, but I just plain didn't notice till a friend was shooting with me and he used manual WB setting with what I came to learn was an ExpoDisc. His shots were far more "true to life" in the exposure. I was surprised because we were shooting outdoors and I set the WB to "sun."

Other photogs were telling me "oh, you could get the same with a white sheet of paper." Tried that first; close, but not 100% on target.

Now I have an ExpoDisc. Best money I ever spent.

I purchased ExpoDisc 72mm. Here is test result, using Photoshop:

SETUP: Took a gray frame under incident light source per ExpoDisc instruction, using camera Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm lens.

IMPORT to Canon software "Digital Photo Professional" FOR WHITE BALANCE: Use this gray frame to do white balance itself. A result of a final Gray Frame.

IMPORT this final gray frame to Photoshop FOR MEASUREMENT: Using Photoshop Color Sampler Tool.
Result finding in 256 color scale (0 - 255):

Green & Blue = Mostly about equal.
Red = Always about 10 (in 256) value higher than the other two.
Example:
Green = 112
Blue = 114
Red = 124

I repeated this type of test several more times, result are still much off from scientific theory or way out of range (10 in a range of 256 or 4% error from neutral).
Supposely: Red = Green = Blue to call Neutral.

So this ExpoDisc is for convienent only. OK for none important picture. Way too high price for a non-precision piece.