Grey cards vs RAW

If I use a grey cards in all my photos to get a custom wb, will it be more accurate than using RAW and setting the color temp yourslef.

How do you know what temp to set?

Or you could use this
http://www.rawworkflow​.com/products/whibal/i​ndex.html

What you're saying will certainly work - but doing that AND shooting RAW will give you more flexibility and exposure control if you are interested in taking that particular approach.

Do you do a lot of scene changes requiring constant WB adjustment? What sort of work do you concentrate on?

I use this as well.
Set camera to AWB, take a shot with the WhiBal card under same lighting conditions. Take the rest of your shots as usual.

Then during RAW conversion, click white balance on the card in the first shot to get correct WB. Apply to the rest of the series.

I went to an Orchid show the other day. They had yellow-ish lighting indoors for accent lighting. So I took out the WhiBal card, took a picture of it then continued on my merry way.

Sure enough, most of my pics had a yellow cast to it. WhiBal corrected color temp read 2850k, so applied to rest.

Works like a charm, everytime!

gparvan wrote in post #3082282
Or you could use this
http://www.rawworkflow​.com/products/whibal/i​ndex.html

If maximum color accuracy is important, theoretically a custom WB will have the edge over clicking on the target in the converter. This is because the converter's probe examines only a few pixels and even the image of an apparently solid color object (grey card, Whibal, whatever) is not uniform. Move your cursor around the target and watch the pixel value readout or click in various different places in the target and note the subtle changes in WB. This is an inevitable effect of the Bayer demosaicing. The camera, OTOH, averages thousands of pixels from the 9% center spot.

SO what I'm understanding is when I take a pic, have my subject hold he Grey card, shoot raw, then during post processing click on the Grey card with the wb tool to achieve the proper wb?

ChrisBlaze wrote in post #3083250
SO what I'm understanding is when I take a pic, have my subject hold he Grey card, shoot raw, then during post processing click on the Grey card with the wb tool to achieve the proper wb?

Another cool option is to use an Expo disc. The WB is taken care of in the camera and saves quite a bit post-processing time. Still have to go into RAW, but mainly to crop and work on tonality.

Check it ou† here: Expodisc

A friend of mine demonstrated his Expo Disc to me - he likes it a lot. It's a very good tool but I got the impression it works best in certain environments like studios, etc.

If I'm not mistaken - and correct me if I'm wrong - it's used sort of like a hand held light meter but in the INCIDENT position. That is, you mount the disc on the lens and then place the camera in the subject's position, aiming back AT the light source. And again, this is how you would use an incident meter. The problem would be doing distant landscapes or other large areas where you could not optimally position yourself.

All of the products discussed here do work, but have their strengths and weaknesses depending upon the type of application and environment. You just have to practice and experiment to see which technique works best for your situation.