OK so I’ve had a white balance cap for years but never really used it. Its one of those dome cap looking things that you push on to the front of your lens and costs a couple bucks. Recently, I just got tired of the extra step and time needed to correct it in post.
So last weekend, I brought the cap with me to shoot a gymnastics competition. Having shot in that gym before, I knew wb was gonna suck and using the cap couldn’t make it worse, i thought. So I proceeded with setting up my cameras for ‘custom wb’ as I’d be shooting stills and video.
The results were much much better than I expected although the initial setup image was iffy (huge vignette). I used it anyways. Basically, you put the cap on your lens, open up the aperture as wide as possilbe, aim at the light source whenever possible, take a shot and then in your camera menu find and choose ‘custom wb’. Once that’s done, change you wb setting to ‘custom’.
You can see the drastic difference if you compare last years videos and the ones i just posted on my YouTube channel (NewbiePhotoTube). The only edits to the vids were the fading and overlays.
The wb was pretty much spot on but in some instances could be better. I guess that’s why “better” wb filters are around $100 bucks (depending on the size) whereas this one I used was around $15 I think. If you decide to get one, get the size that’ll fit your largest lens and just hold the filter in place for your smaller lenses.
Here’s some links for ya:
Expodisc | Generic Cap