Genuine WhiBal G7 Certified Neutral White Balance Card - Pocket Kit (2.1x3.3 inches)

If we keep in mind that all cameras guess what "white" is in a given environment, then you will see the immediate benefit of using such a simple and useful device.I shoot a Nikon D90, typically in RAW mode. The D90 offers a wide variety of white balance settings for a variety of lighting methods. This is to say Nikon knows what the color temperature is for "Incandescent" or "Daylight" in their sterile lab environment. I don't shoot in such a place or, for example, with their style of incandescent light bulbs.When I need to make sure the colors in my shots are reasonably free from color casts due to white balance issues, I use the WhiBal card.It is a simple matter to snap one shot in the subject's lighting and use that shot to really get a handle on what the light spectrum is for that environment. Shooting the WhiBal in the first shot or last shot is unimportant.For example: When I take shots in direct "Daylight" with the D90 set for that, I take one shot with the WhiBal. Invariably, when I use Nikon Capture NX2 to check the white balance, there is a discernable change in the color balance correction. Most times it is relatively small but I have seen huge moves as well.My experience indicates there are other things that reflect colors into the scene. Cameras set for "Daylight" can't reliably account that. In my usage, the WhiBal captures that unique spectrum distribution for that environment and Capture NX2 corrects for white balance with a couple of mouse clicks. I then copy that info from the "calibration" shot and paste it into the subject shots. These shots are now white balance corrected and ready for other adjustments as desired.It is a simple and quick matter to do this. Total time to take the calibration shot, make the post processing correction and then adjust the actual subject shots is 2 or 3 minutes at most. Unless you are feeling lucky, I think this is a must thing to do when colors need to be reasonably free of color casts.Of course you can always use the "PRE" or manual white balance on the D90 but that means you have a true "white" object that is of sufficient size to fill the entire picture field. The WhiBal fits in my pocket and works just great.Is it pricey? Kind of, but I think it is worth it for good color rendition.

White balancing is most probably one of the first steps when you develop your digital photos. You could either (1) trust your camera to do [auto] white balancing, (2) spend a lot of time at your photo development software to guess the right white balance, or (3) shoot an extra reference picture to be used for white balancing at your home.WhiBal is a lovely product. It is what it is: a white balance reference card. It fits well into my pocket and I actually use it whenever there is a change in the lighting condition. As seen from the link below, I took it for a night time photo session with my wife and there was a lot of tricky colors from the light. With WhiBal, I get a nice skin tone for my shots. And notice the white color of my wife's dress too. To apply white balancing to my photos using the reference shots is very fast. It adds much efficiency to my photo development effort.[...]For those we are into the scientific side of WhiBal, I actually did a histogram analysis. Even with my Nikon D700, there is still imperfection in the auto-white balancing by observing the histogram by primary colors (image cropped to contain just the white balance reference card). Does WhiBal get it right 100% of the time? Most of the time, all the primary colors are collapsed nicely onto each other on the gray surface. I guess at some situations especially if there are multiple color tones of light that fall onto the card, you may need to take a few measurements from the WhiBal image to get it right. Rarely do I need to do that. But it is still much better than guessing the color temperature and tint. Is WhiBal as "destructable" as it is advertised? My recommendation is to keep it inside the little pouch provided when not in used and when you are outside, try not to put it together with items that may scratch it. There are some faint scratch marks on my WhiBal after I have started using it. Not a big deal. It doesn't affect the results. Just need to be a bit more careful next time.I use WhiBal in both Nikon CaptureNX 2 and Adobe Lightroom 2.2. Both work fine with WhiBal.The delivery is great, and fast. I got the card in my mailbox sooner than I thought (International mail). Thank you!

One of my favorite children's photographers says she always keeps WhiBal with her in one of her informal interviews. So I looked into it and made the investment to try it out. Personally, I think this is a great investment to make for what it does so well -- effective and accurate white balancing!It's also very useful if you first watch some of the tutorial videos on how this works and why it works on RAW Workflow's website:[...]The pocket size WhiBal is relatively small and lightweight to carry. It's a no brainer to bring with you even if you worry about load and weight. One shot of WhiBal for each lighting condition will save you minutes of trying to white balance each image for hundreds of images!! And like the video tutorials say, your eyes quickly adjust to the colors anyway. So without a methodical and accurate way to truly do white balancing, you are relying on your eyes to do it for you -- which can really throw you off sometimes.Another thing I love and appreciate is the maker of WhiBal, RAW Workflow is absolutely on the ball in terms of shipping the products. I've ordered two sets of WhiBal cards from them in two separate occasions. Both times I ordered one along with a few other things from Amazon. And both times my WhiBal card arrived FIRST (even when utilizing Amazon's Prime membership on Amazon's qualifying products). And this is with just standard shipping rate... How wonderful is that!?

just get the card not the kit. The lanyard is poorly made and not worth the extra $10 to get it in the kit. The card works just like advertised and is the perfect size to carry with you and there is no futzing with opening or closing it.