Kens Photography Blog

The ExpoDisc is a device that you put in front of your lense, snap a shot directy at your lightsource from the view of the subject, then you just select that shot in your camera as the custom white balance and voila, perfect neutral colors and no need to fiddle in post or RAW converter.

The only problem is ExpoDisc’s are bloody expensive.

You can make a home made version that works almost as well, the real deal will be slightly better but hey, this is free.

Just grab a coffe filter, place yourself where your subject will be, put the coffe filter in front of the lense and snap a shot. Now use this shot as the custom white balance for your camera. You can use a UV filter if you have one laying around and cut the coffe filter so it fits inside and use that to. The coffe filters you use should be the white type of course.

It’s amazing how well this works, much better than a gray card. The reason it works so much better, is that you are now using incident light to white balance and not reflected light like with a gray card. If your scene has for example colored wall, grass etc.. that light will reflect back on the gray card and tint your card so the white balance will not be spot on.