photography: Do you really need to purchase gadgets for dslrs for?

[pam]

proper white balance to ensure better color .. like cally caps and the other things ya put on lenses?
i am not talking about regular filters of course ..only white balance corrections....

thanks fhotace naturally you cant see what pops up here that we see when were navigating thru photography section other day the gadgets tools gimmicks were shoved in my face saying buy this buy that i hate wasting money on nonsense .. then catalogs too....

[Tim]

For the most part those things are gimmicks that are completely unnecessary.

The one exception is a wedding photographer shooting JPEGs. Since you can't adjust the jpegs in post, something like an exposidisc will allow you to quickly set a custom WB in camera in complicated lighting conditions.

Personally, I don't use one. I think the concept of "accurate" white balance is a load of crap anyways. There is such a thing as neutral white balance, but personally I find white balance to be subjective.

[trcapgh]

You don't need anything additional in these cases. I've never heard of an SLR or even a bridge camera (hybrid between point and shoot and SLR) that does not have internal controls to adjust white balance.

There are probably a few pre-set options you can use for white balance or you can set a custom one that fits the particular shooting situation. Usually, if you get to the menu to do this, you simply have to take a shot of something you deem to be appropriately white and the camera should record it for you. Of course, the exact process varies from camera to camera so I would recommend reading the manual that came with yours.

[fhotoace]

Colour correction filters do not need to be used on dSLR's since white balance can be done using settings in the cameras menu.

Tools (gadgets using your terms) like the Xrite Colorchecker Passport are used by professional photographers to assure a near perfect recording of the subject. This is most important when shooting fabrics or painted colours (Fashion and making copies of art)

This is how that works, making custom white balance profiles.

http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_learning.aspx?action=webinarsarchive&eventid=80 3&eventdateid=4460

A casual photographer may not need the colours in their photos to be so precise.

[screwdriver]

The idea of cally caps and others apply more to shooting video than still cameras. All quality video cameras have a one touch colour calibration using a lens cap with a translucent white panel, this is important so that every shot on every location throughout the movie has the same colour balance.

For still cameras it's a lot less important, but there are times when accurate colour balance is needed. The problem is on most stills cameras White Balance is achieved by selecting off a list of preset values, daylight, overcast, tungsten, fluorescent etc., the problem is when there are multiple light sources of differing colours or when the colour balance you have is not on the list, then colour calibration is needed. Fortunately this can be done with nothing more costly than a piece of white paper or card with every DSLR I have ever owned.

If you want to spend money on it then you can use a grey card which has the added advantage of being able to set exposure accurate to 1/10th of a stop and for any tone of subject as well as colour calibration.

Chris