LED Sphere for Colour Balance setting

[Terrywoodenpic]

That light bulb moment

I had a fairly new led light bulb fail early in its life. So as is my want. I took it apart to see what had failed, It was a single led that had burnt out.
However and it is a big, However, I also had a light bulb moment of my own.

I tried the now half sphere over the f2.8-4 18-55 Fuji lens of my XE2 and it was held in position by the lens hood as a perfect fit.
So the idea was to try it as a colour balance light sphere for manual setting.

The experiment worked very well, and gave a very close visual match provided it was pointed from the subject towards what would be the taking position.

The four shots that I took were; Camera set manual balance; normal Auto colour balance; one with the globe pointing at the subject; and the last with the globe pointing towards the camera taking position.

The First two over compensated for the wall tint but looked fine. The globe pointing to the subject slightly over emphasised the wall tint. And in “true four bears style” the Globe pointing to the camera position was just right.

However. A personal preference might be quite different… but I does give an accurate starting point. It weighs a few grams and cost nothing, so will live in my camera bag….

light sphere by Terry Andrews, on Flickr

shere XE2 by Terry Andrews, on Flickr

camera auto by Terry Andrews, on Flickr

camera manual by Terry Andrews, on Flickr

sphere towards by Terry Andrews, on Flickr

sphere away by Terry Andrews, on Flickr

 

[Kodiak Qc]

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Very interesting light bulb moment!

I don't know the true colour of your walls but the
"camera auto" seems the more pleasing!

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

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Very interesting light bulb moment!

I don't know the true colour of your walls but the
"camara auto" seems the more pleasing!

I tend to agree with you, however the last shot is much closer to the truth.

In the day time the walls are cooled by daylight, and they warm up in the evening with warm white led lighting.
They are in reality pretty warm. It was a colour my late wife came up with.

 

[Kodiak Qc]

It was a colour my late wife came up with.

…sorry to read that, Terry!

 

[redhed17]

Well done for thinking of a use for the broken bulb.

It is not an original idea though. There are many lens White Balance tools available, the most famous being the Expodisc. The trick as you have found is to point it at the light source falling on your subject. You can also customise any measured WB value if you find the reality consistently too warm or cool.

Many years ago cartons of Pringles crisps used to come with a opaque white lid which could be used for the same thing, but they stopped using them.

Kudos for thinking of a use for the Bulb, and it will hopefully inspire others.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Well done for thinking of a use for the broken bulb.

It is not an original idea though. There are many lens White Balance tools available, the most famous being the Expodisc. The trick as you have found is to point it at the light source falling on your subject. You can also customise any measured WB value if you find the reality consistently too warm or cool.

Many years ago cartons of Pringles crisps used to come with a opaque white lid which could be used for the same thing, but they stopped using them.

Kudos for thinking of a use for the Bulb, and it will hopefully inspire others.

I was of course well aware of the espodisc but at £39.95. Compared to nothing. The "bulb top" wins hands down.
As it is designed to give an even distribution of light from a group of LED's. It makes an equally good neutral integrator.
Interesting the top part of the bulb is not even glued or welded to the bottom, a fact That I did not discover till I got it apart..
The two parts are simply interlocked wth lips at the rim. So can be forced apart.
They act like a giant version of the domes found on incident light meters.

I will give It a go for that purpose, to see how well it works, but it will probably need some sort of exposure factor to compensate for any lost light.

 

[HoppyUK]

Great bit of ingenuity Terry, but never mind the ExpoDisc rip-off, it's the same as those lens cap attachments you can get off Amazon/ebay for £3.99. Pringles lids were popular at one time, as were filter coffee paper cones, or just put a piece of tracing paper over the lens. Basically any neutral-white diffusion material works fine for white balance, if you don't want to carry a small piece of white card which is the commonly recommended way to custom white balance.

The advantage of the tracing paper version is by adding a few extra layers you can 'calibrate' it for an accurate incident light meter reading at the same time.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Great bit of ingenuity Terry, but never mind the ExpoDisc rip-off, it's the same as those lens cap attachments you can get off Amazon/ebay for £3.99. Pringles lids were popular at one time, as were filter coffee paper cones, or just put a piece of tracing paper over the lens. Basically any neutral-white diffusion material works fine for white balance, if you don't want to carry a small piece of white card which is the commonly recommended way to custom white balance.

The advantage of the tracing paper version is by adding a few extra layers you can 'calibrate' it for an accurate incident light meter reading at the same time.

The reality is that I will probably never use it. As I shoot raw almost 100% of the time. And more than often adjust the colour balance to "Taste"
But these things are fun to do, and play with. And lets face it it looks impressive stuck on the front of the lens.
I might bring it out on occasion to impress the natives with such a "PROFESSIONAL" bit of kit.

Especially if I see some one using an expodisc.