First off, I am a fan of using custom white balance in camera.  I’ve been thinking about purchasing an ExpoDisc to improve convience of color-correcting in camera.  Luckily, before spending $100 for one, my former colleague offered to let me borrow her’s and test it out.  Here are the results.  I took a picture of some unfolded laundry on my black futon in our spare room.  I thought the white and black tones would help out for this experiment.  The lighting was under incandescent lighting from a light fixture on the ceiling.

I, first, set my custom white balance to something totally wack so we could really see the differences here.  Once I landed my exposure, I then used the ExpoDisc.  To use the ExpoDisc, you are to put the entire thing over your lens (on manual focus) and take a picture.  The picture you just took will be your image you will use for setting your custom white balance.  So after I set my custom white balance after taking the ExpoDisc picture, I took a shot (the middle pic).  Wow! What a difference! It looks pretty good to me.  Then, I brought it up into Photoshop and did my normal color-correcting process using the Curves adjustment. There was a very slight change.  I, and any other trained eye, can see the difference between the middle image and the image on the right.

So now it’s time to decide if I want to buy it or not.  The ExpoDisc didn’t perform to a perfect white balance, but it was pretty darn close!  From this experiment, I believe it’s worth the money.  I mean, you could always use a target card.  The thing I love about the ExpoDisc is that it’s much more convenient than a target card.  With a target card, you either have to have someone hold the card or hold it up in a position that it will sit perfectly for you.  I know that the model can always hold the target card, but when it comes to a portrait session I like to have everything set up that I can get set up before they arrive.  Also, a target card is just one more thing to carry.  The ExpoDisc is smaller and has an attached lanyard that you just simply put around your neck.  And what about weddings?  You can’t ask the bride to hold up a target card throughout random times of the day… That’s just annoying.

Before making any final decisions, I think I’m going to test it in a quick session with off-camera lighting too…  How do you feel about the ExpoDisc?