DIY color temperature cards
 

I've been reading the discussion of the GL2's color temperature in the "XL1/GL1/etc comparison thread" above. Somebody mentioned the availability of WarmCards, the link to which I followed.

Other folks discussed printing different-temperature white balance cards on their computer. How did you all format / design your cards? What do you use for a pure white balance when printer paper is supposedly "not quite" white?

As a pretty inexperienced videographer and new GL2 owner, I'm pretty excited to try cinematography that's new to me, and am grateful to have the resource of your collective brain to pick. Thanks!
-Fred

I asked myself the same question. So I went to the Warm Cards site, opened up Photoshop, sampled one of the cards, and printed it out. I white-balanced my GL2 on it- and it works pretty nice. It's no substitute for the real thing, but what the hey? Of course, you don't get those cute WarmCard key fobs....

For true white balance, I carry a pure white freshly bleached towel in both my camera bags. Just drape it on something, and voila! Works great!

natural white balance
 

when outdoors I just point the camera down to white balance it.... (north pole, Alaska here... :) )

Bud,

I've heard that using snow for white balance can result in excess blue. Any experience with that? Although I guess if you are surrounded by snow and shooting snow, then white balancing on it would work fine!

white balance on snow
 

it may be that if it is overcast and you white balance on snow you could end up with a cold ...er...bluish cast but it's not been my experience, and I know that if it is sunny out and you have a nice blue sky then white balancing on snow works quite well and if there is any concern it might be with too little blue since the reflected light will tend to show that bluish cast from the sky. if you white balance off snow and you are in a shadow...then go out into the light...you may well end up with a blue cast. there are a lot of little traps like that and they are easy to fall into "Well, I did what he said, white balanced off the snow and it was a blue cast!". Same with foliage...go into a forest surrounded by green. Take a white balance off a white card. Now step out into the sunlight. Oops. Anyway, my experience is snow is pretty white and works pretty well as along as your subject is in the same light you white balanced off.

Dont white balance on yellow snow!! (sorry, couldn't resist).

If the snow tends to yellow, white balancing on it would tend to make the rest of the scene tend to blue, but if the snow tends to blue (normal) other stuff would trend to yellow.

I use the Home made warm cards found here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4840&highlight=warm+balance+values

I think they work great, especially the minus green.

Have Fun,
Tustin Larson