Mennon Gray Cards review

04 Oct

Posted by Jayce as Photography, Review

Does gray card a necessary tool in photography? Do you have any gray card with you? I do. I have Mennon Gray Cards. However, I did not use it much since I bought it.

Mennon Gray Cards

The Mennon Gray Cards package that I bought consist 2 gray cards. They are 8×6″ and 10×8″ sizes. I did use 8×6″ gray card once in a while. But I did not use 10×8″ at all because it is too big to carry along.

8×6″ and 10×8″ Mennon Gray Cards

So what does gray card do? It will correct your photo white balance. Just look at the photo below.

Original photo

White balance corrected with gray card

As you can see, the first photo is warmer than the second one. The warm lighting is causing the photo to look warm. However, by using gray card, we can correct the white balance of the photo.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Tags: Gray Cards, Mennon

8 Responses

Pazuzu

October 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
1

how much u get the grey card?

might wanna get one too ..
Jayce

October 4th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
2

I got it for RM51.
KK

October 5th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
3

how to use the gray card?
hold it beside the camera to block out the light??
Jayce

October 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
4

Hmm… Hard to explain it here. But definitely not to use it to block the light.
Bernie

October 6th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
5

Oh dear, I never use any grey (or white) cards to correct white balance. I find them too much of a hassle (imagine shooting grey cards every time the light temperature changes…).

I find shooting in RAW is the safest to get correct WB because it can be tweaked later in post processing without any problems. Shooting in JPG allows tweaking too, but not as much lee way.

Basically I just make sure I choose the closest WB setting in the camera, then correct them during post processing.

On a related note, I find correcting WB problematic when there are 2 types of lighting with vastly different temperature (say tungsten+daylight or flast+tungsten).
Jayce

October 6th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
6

Ha…Ha… My gray cards stay at store room most of the time. Just want to test it so bought it.

I shoot only RAW. Unless really not space in my memory card. Anyway, I do post processing all the time.
Bernie

October 8th, 2008 at 3:15 am
7

Do you use the camera’s light correction systems too? Or does using the gray card mean you need to keep the WB setting no matter despite different lighting (outdoor, indoor, tungsten, etc)
Jayce

October 8th, 2008 at 8:43 am
8

I use auto mode all the time since I shoot in RAW. I can change it later with Canon RAW converter.