Thursday, October 7, 2010

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport



I've been meaning to get one of these for a while and it wasn't until my recent color calibration woes that I decided to actually get one of these. These go beyond white balance and provide custom camera profiles for every lighting condition. Now I've long seen a difference between the H3D and the D3 in their out-of-the-box color casts. The H3D exhibits a greenish tint whereas the D3 is colder and more bluish in hue. That doesn't bother me too much because all my files go through extensive color correction in Photoshop but for once.

But one day, I'm going to shoot with both cameras and really get upset that I'll have 2 separate sets of images that look like they were shot with different cameras.

Oh wait, that was
Saturday.

Here's the post-custom-H3D-profile view of the display with the actual ColorChecker. I know it doesn't look like it on the image but in person it looked like the display was an extension of my table space with how close the color renditions were.


Here's the side-by-side of 2 separate images, one captured with the D3 and one captured with the H3D. Adjusted for exposure and white balanced.


I'd call that "pretty damn close".

The ColorChecker software is really easy to use. Just shoot the ColorChecker and load as a .DNG into the ColorChecker program and you're done.
Update: If it wasn't easy enough it just got easier. There's a Lr plug-in that automatically installs when you install the Color Checker software.

Is it worth the $99 price tag? My sanity is worth 10,000x that. But you be the judge ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment