Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

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Archive 2004 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Trey Neal
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p.5 #1 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Good to see you doing some in-depth research Tom. Clearly you have found a way to achieve the desired results while saving a lot of photographers a good deal of money. Excellent efforts and thanks for sharing

Jan 18, 2004 at 04:52 AM

edtang
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p.5 #2 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Did you cut it out of one of those textured plastic sheets?

Jan 18, 2004 at 05:51 AM

Mr_Bucket
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p.5 #3 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

edtang wrote:
Did you cut it out of one of those textured plastic sheets?

Maybe its from a floursecent light cover in one of the cielings with cieling tiles.

Jan 18, 2004 at 06:16 AM

Tom Hicks
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p.5 #4 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

It's a sheet of clear Acrylic Light diffuser from Home Depot.

Jan 18, 2004 at 06:24 AM

Tony Sirgedas
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p.5 #5 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Saw all the hoopla yesterday while reading.... so when I shot a basketball game last night I stopped and spent a whopping $1 ona package of 200 filters to try out. I just stuffed three of them into the end of my 70-200 lens hood and took the shot to calibrate........

It didn't come out too bad..... I may try only two next time... here's a shot I did nothing to except a slight crop and noise reduction without any color correction.

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Jan 18, 2004 at 08:05 AM

Linda Baldwin
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p.5 #6 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

When you use the acrylic sheet material, do you *replace* the glass in the filter with it?

Thanks,
Linda

Jan 18, 2004 at 01:43 PM

oeyvind
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p.5 #7 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Wow Tom, it does look like ED man...

Jan 18, 2004 at 01:51 PM

Jack Flesher
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p.5 #8 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Hi Tony -- Those whites look pretty white on my monitor!

The nice thing about the coffee filters over the respirator filter is ease of attaching to the lens -- with the coffee filters you can just hold them in place over the front of your lens without needing any special adapters -- I like that. Plus, at .03 each you can afford to keep a few spares on-hand in case they get trashed

Jack

Jan 18, 2004 at 03:52 PM

Littlebike
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p.5 #9 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

When I first saw the Expodisc I thought about this, what you have done.

Several years ago when I would night wakeboard we put 4x4 spotlight on my boat, in order to widen the beam I bought some acrylic light diffusor material and put it over the lenses of the lights. Worked like a dream.

I think I am hoinh to have to make a home depot run myself.

Is there a general consesus on best meterial yet? Coffee or Resporator?

Jan 18, 2004 at 04:32 PM

geir
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p.5 #10 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

How well does this work as an expo disc though. Any results you can share with us ?

Basically, is it worth making, or are you doing it because you are having fun...

Jan 18, 2004 at 06:55 PM

Tom Hicks
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p.5 #11 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Linda Baldwin wrote:
When you use the acrylic sheet material, do you *replace* the glass in the filter with it?

Thanks,
Linda

Linda , because of the thickness of the Pad I had to use a polarizer filter and replace it with a piece of UV glass , so you have UV towards the lens then the pad then the sheet material and then screw the lens ring back in place.

Jan 19, 2004 at 05:03 AM

Tom Hicks
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p.5 #12 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

geir wrote:
How well does this work as an expo disc though. Any results you can share with us ?

Basically, is it worth making, or are you doing it because you are having fun...

Geir , Maybe this will help,

Jack Flesher wrote:
Great find Tom!

For all you measurebators that are leery of these types of things, I just spent a few minutes digging around in my garage and low and behold, found my paint respirator pre-filters

So being leery myself, I got out my trusty Sekonic 558 combo meter and metered an overhead light from 3 feet with the dome on the meter -- 1/15th @ f4.3 ISO 100. I then switched to spot and metered through the respirator at 3 feet -- 1/15th @ f4.5. This makes my pre-filters within 1/3 stop of neutral gray in transmission -- way close enough for WB. So the question remains as to how neutral in color are they really? I don't have a color meter, but as soon as the sun is up tomorrow, I will compare the filter to the gray card, though I suspect it is very close to a true neutral.

You Da Man, Tom!

Jack

Jan 19, 2004 at 05:06 AM

Littlebike
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p.5 #13 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

I just made one tonight and did a bit of testing, nothing scientific mind you.

I liberated 3 coffee filters from the corner gas station and dismantled a crappy Polarizing filter. I tested with 2 and 3 filter elements and find the I like the color using 2 better than three.

I went to home depot and they did not have round resporator filters there and the ones they did have appeared to have a blueish tint.

Jan 19, 2004 at 05:16 AM

kansashoops
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p.5 #14 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

I think he was asking about the acrylic light diffuser, not the respirator filter.

Jan 19, 2004 at 05:32 AM

John Wright
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p.5 #15 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Does the respirator filter also help to get the picture in focus?

Jan 19, 2004 at 06:09 AM

Paul Kierstead
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p.5 #16 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

I just have this vision of this ending up being called a "Hick's Disk", which will make people think all sorts of bad things about it...

Jan 19, 2004 at 06:17 AM

Tom Hicks
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p.5 #17 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Hey I resemble that remark. heheheh

Jan 19, 2004 at 06:28 AM

geir
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p.5 #18 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

kansashoops wrote:
I think he was asking about the acrylic light diffuser, not the respirator filter.

I think so too... OR do I need both pieces (filter and diffuser)

Jan 19, 2004 at 06:33 AM

Mike Spinak
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p.5 #19 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

I don't understand. Could you explain to me the purpose of this filter?

Thanks.

--Mike

Jan 19, 2004 at 08:43 AM

hornbill
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p.5 #20 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

And some examples of the resulting pictures?

Jan 19, 2004 at 09:34 AM

Willem W
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p.5 #21 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Coming from the Netherlands: what is a respirator filter? (Maybe you know, Hornbill?)_

Jan 19, 2004 at 12:33 PM

Peter de Weerdt
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p.5 #22 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Tom,

This looks great! A real professional "L" tool. No need to be embarrassed during a shooting with a coffeefilter

Peter

PS. Obviously, some of you may have missed the preceding topics:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/64826
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/66028

Jan 19, 2004 at 01:05 PM

Tom Hicks
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p.5 #23 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Thanks Peter, it looks like it's store bought, I let Trey Neil and Jim Victory play with it yesterday at the zoo. I think I'll have to make a couple of more. Trey will probably right up a little something on his experiance with it and what his thoughts are.

Jan 19, 2004 at 01:54 PM

dparish
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p.5 #24 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Tom,

Did the acrylic work better than the respirator filter?

-Dave

Jan 19, 2004 at 06:23 PM

Trey Neal
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p.5 #25 · Yet another alternative to ExpoDisc

Okay, I'm a Nikon shooter, but I still get along with THicks despite that

. Here's my take on the Hickspodisc© - It simply works. I had a chance to try it out yesterday and there is no question that the tool makes getting the shot right in the camera easier and more fool-proof. I ended up learning more about my camera in the process (always a good thing) and eliminated some of the processing workflow. Here are a couple of sample shots - both straight from camera, converted to jpeg and uncropped.

before

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After

Jan 19, 2004 at 07:04 PM


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