I’ve used pretty much every kind of white balance filter that’s been made. 18% Kodak Gray Cards, the WhiBal Card, and the ExpoDisc. For my upcoming trip to China, I’m taking a new product, Phoxle’s SpectraSnap White Balance Filter.
The SpectraSnap was designed by COBA member, Chris Pedersen. Chris has been coming to COBA for many years now, and he’s given some excellent presentations. Last August, he spoke about his early experiments with creating a white balance filter. It’s amazing to see his progress in just a few months. Fast forward to today, and he’s got shipping product!
What I like about the SpectraSnap is that it (1) is one-size fits all and (2) is a shoot-through filter. While convenient to use, I never had good results with the WhiBal card. With the ExpoDisc, it was always a pain to attach it to lenses less than the diameter of the disc (77mm). The SpectraSnap combines the best of both competing products. What’s great is that I can attach the SpectraSnap to my Sony HVR-V1U videocamera to get custom white balance that’s better than pointing the camera at a blank wall or piece of paper.
If you want to color correct for both ambient light and flash, Phoxle also sells Flash Match Filters. I’ll be testing both products with me in China, so more to come when I return!
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