WhiBal

[MontyRand]

OK, so I'm looking for a new grey card system and I see that GretagMacbeth has a grey card with white, grey and black which looks decent. I see the Whibal cards and they to look interesting. When looking at the ordering page for WhiBal I see they bundle the WhiBal with a gretagMacBeth grey card. Huh? Isn't this a little redundant? I thought both of these products did the same thing? Am I missing something here? Why would I want both? Ok, now I'm even more confused [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Bill_Kastanakis]

GMB Color Checker have more uses, like you can Calibrate ACR with it.
Although it's hard to use it for white balance in the field because the patches are so small.

WhiBal is better for this Job.


Regards,
Bill.

[MontyRand]

The one that comes with it is the grey scale one, not the color checker.

[Jamie_Roberts]

Monty--WhiBal rocks in the field. Really, if you're a RAW shooter, you owe it yourself to have one, IMO.

I'm really not sure why there's a bundle on pictureflow.com with the WhiBal *and* the GM gray charts. There is one with the color checker too, and that can be used for all kinds of stuff, including ACR calibration, checking lighting, etc...

With any luck Michael Tapes will see this and comment, though I know there's probably some forum rule about that, so I'll ask explicity--

Michael, why do you include the GM gray stuff in a WhiBal package? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[MichaelTapes]

We bundle the Gretag products with the WhiBal because we see the WhiBal as a field shooting tool and the Gretag products as more "test and calibration" products rather than field White balance.

The Gretag Gray Scale card has little use for RAW because the Gray is dark (18%) so not useful for raw converters which need much lighter grays for optimized WB, like the WhiBal light gray or the lightest gray patch on the "color" Colorchecker. But the gray scale is good for JPEG WB or exposure setting or checking.

So we see the WhiBal/Gretag Bundles as a set of tools for the photographer who likes a complete kit. Certainly the Color Checker (21 patch) is useful for test purposes, but not a good field tool, as it is fragile (paint on cardboard) and big and expensive. We sell 100s of WhiBals alone for each Gretag Bundle but we sell enough to make it worthwhile for those customer who want this, and want to save a bunch of money. We price the bundles very aggressively as a courtesy for our WhiBal customers.

Let me know if you have other questions.

BTW, the Gretag is the only "reference card" other than WhiBal that I have measured, that is always in spec for the light gray patch for RAW WB. So I consider the Gretag color CC as the "other" calibrated White balance reference from a technical point of view.

[Michael_Poster]

IMO Whibal is indispensable. I've taken my set apart and carry the light gray card in a business card holder (along with my cards). It's with me all the time and I would not be without it.