Using a gray card outside?

Hi guys and girls,

Quick (newbie) question - when shooting sports photography (in this case I'm shooting water sports) does it make sense to use a gray card?

I am still getting my head around the use of a gray card (hence such a basic question).

Appreciated

Welcome to the forum
Using a gray card would not hurt. At least you will have a baseline for exposure and white balance.

Thanks for such a quick reply.

So my work flow would go something like this:

1) I would take a photo with someone on the boat holding up the gray card.

2) I would shoot the wakeboarders. Let's say it is a perfect day and I plan to pan my shots and decide on say, shutter 1/30 with f/22, closing down the aperture as much as needed to prevent over exposure and perfectly expose.

3) I would then go home, open up Photoshop and load my gray card example into curves and I am away!

Does this sound right?

Apologies I just realised I have posted in this wrong forum. Admin please move to correct forum !

If anything I don't go into the talk forums THAT much. And here I just learned what gray cards are. Thanks!

My grey card workflow indoors is no different from outdoors.

Whitebalance:
1) Put the card in a place which is representative for the lighting in the shots you are going to take. Sometimes this is the model holding it up, sometimes this means putting it on the ground close to the playing field.

2) Take a blurred (camera exposure full auto mode ("P"), zoomed to fill frame, manual out of focus) picture of the grey card in said lighting to use it for
a) automatic, in-camera, custom WB
or b) use it in post processing for WB readjustments

Exposure:
3) Point your camera again at the card. Get a rough measure for exposure starting values. Read: Point your camera to the card, spot metering, adjust arpeture/shutter/ISO to your needs and until the in camera meter shows proper exposure.

4) Put the card back into your bag and take a shot with settings acquired in 3) - read the RGB histogramm and watch for any additional adjustments you will have to make to fine-tune exposure.

This is MY workflow and may vary from others. Having the grey card will give me starting values for either WB and exposure, which will normally be further adjusted either in post (WB) or with a few test shots (exposure).

In the end: just take the picture.

I always use it.

I use a coffee filter over the lens and aim it at my light source.