Customer Reviews

General Brand 52mm White Balance Lens Cap Disk for Digital SLR Cameras

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I received last week my 52mm "General Brand White Balance Lens Cap". It's a basic lens cap, but with a translucent white plastic disk in the front face to achieve the diffusion required for WB metering to work. It also included a threaded ring to provide a positive detent when attaching the cap, so one could use it as a full-time lens cap if you can afford an additional ring on the front of your lens without vignetting.

Anyway, I've tried it out in an incandescent lit room and it works great! It included some cursory, vaguely-worded instructions, so you'll need to know to position your camera where your subject is located and aim your lens in the direction of the main source of light... In the end, it's certainly an improvement over the preset WB option built into my Nikon D80. So if you have the time before you shoot a picture, and are planning to take several shots, it's worth doing this as opposed to post-processing a lot of pics afterward.

Please refer to the two images that I have uploaded to this page (above).

These images pretty much tell the story. Though I have given this product my own rating, I will let you decide if this product works as advertised. Both of the images that I uploaded used the exact same exposure settings. In the WB-Auto image, you can see that the white sheet of paper has a yellowish tint, due to the room lights. In the other image, the paper looks more white. So, does this product work? You decide!

I ordered this product as a "General Products White Balance Lens Cap" through Amazon. What actually arrived, was a "Mennon White Balance Lens Cap." The Mennon lens cap is sold separately through Amazon via it's own page. Both items are available from, and shipped by Cams Digital. I have no complaints, as it appears that both items are the exact same thing.

FYI - There are other products on the market that do the exact same thing as this product. However, they are more costly, as shown below:

- The Lally Cap ($30+)

- The Balens ($44+)

- The Expodisc ($70+)

What do they do differently, that would justify such prices? Hmmmmmm?

Pat Lanclos
Cibolo, TX

The price on this can't be beat, and it's a heavenly replacement for a grey or white card! The threading is perfect, it's inexspensive, durable and allows me to set the white balance each and every time I shoot before I even remove the cap. And if I have to adjust it for various locations during a shoot, I only need to hold it over the lens and throw back in my bag. This is a must have, and balances perfectly!

I ordered this product just to balance out a gift card I recieved and I am glad I did. At such a low cost I was doubtful it had any value but I found it gave me very good results. Like other reviews I read there are no instructions included but finding this information was a no brainer on the wed. I've only used it for a short time since purchasing it but in every type of lighting condition (even in mixed light) I am very pleased at the results, my only regret is that I did not buy additional sizes for all my lenses. I would give it a five for it's low cost but I thought any product should ship with some instructions.

Photography for me grew from a hobby to a lifestyle to my daily living. When photography for me because serious I knew the hours you would spend trying to properly white balance your photos in post production were just way too much to deal with. I decided to give these cheap white balance caps a try over the much more expensive alternatives out there. With my Nikon camera I am able to quickly and easily set a manual white balance and this cap over my lens during this process sets the proper white balance for the shooting I am doing in mere seconds. No more am I spending hours adjusting hundreds of photos from a particular event. If you want your photos to have that pro look and feel, I strongly suggest you get these.

I should add these caps are a fairly cheap plastic, so don't have the highest expectations of them there. Also they do come with a threaded piece that you can screw onto your lens. I have found however it is best only to use these caps when you are setting the white balance and not to even both with the threaded attachment. To use the threaded attachment is generally unnecessary and a pain when you need to quickly put a different filter on your lens. Overall though I suggest buying one of these in the size you need for each of your lenses.