Or would you like to be sure?
Would it be better to bring back a series of images that all have the same white balance...or would you like to spend the evening shoving sliders back and forth across a screen. Do you like green brides and pink grooms?
Or again, do you like to bring back images that are 3 stops underexposed next door to ones that are three stops overexposed...and back to the sliders after dinner...or would you like to have most of your pictures fall well within the ballpark?
Enter the Lastolite EzyBalance. It's deceptively simple and really quite cute, for a lifesaving device...
Go to a shoot. Look at the light falling on the subject - strong light on something that is dead white or dead black. Let your camera try to TTL that and you're asking for trouble. It will try to make both situations into a mindless compromise - rendering the white and black as grey, and making it all look wrong.
Grab your EzyBalance bag, open it and pop out the little flexible square. Turn it over to the grey side and let it be in the same light that is illuminating your subject. It'll let the camera focus on itself - that's the reason there is a target pattern printed on it - and will give the camera's light meter the info it needs at 18% grey. Lock your exposure, shoot away, and when you see your results the white will be white and the black, black. Remember to unlock the exposure when you move on to more normal subjects.
Now say you are moving into spaces where the lighting is constantly changing - and it might be changing the colour temperature as well. Your camera might be able to capture the nuances with AWB, but it might not. You might prefer to make a custom white balance and get a more accurate measurement. Flip the EzyBalance over, use the target pattern to focus on, and cycle your camera menu to a custom white balance setting. As long as you don't change into a markedly different colour you can shoot away and never touch a slider when you get home.
The astute will also realise that the EzyBalance can be used as a small reflector for fill in - and it really does get used for that - or a convenient fan behind which to hide at a cotillion. " Lawsey, Mr. Butler,
whatever do you mean...? "
It worked for Scarlett...it'll work for you.
