The Color Parrot has a new name

I see that the color balance diffuser formerly known as the Color Parrot is now known as the ColorRight (or Color Right, depending on where you read about it).

You can read some fascinating things starting here:

http://www.colorright.com/

Particularly fascinating is the fact that the little prisms invented by George Wallace (boy, did he have a cute wife) and now found in the ExpoDisc (derided by Drew Strickland as "pits") give it a uniform weighting across 180° of acceptance angle. George was shooting to get a cosine response, but evidently he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. You can read about that here:

http://www.colorright.com/pro-review

Here's George Wallace and his wife:



Well, as the little kid used to sing on TV:

"My baloney has a first name, and it's *-*-*-*-*."

O-S-C-A-R...!

I loved that commercial as a kid. Good to see that engineers aren't immune to pop culture entirely.

You might want to study up on the product you seem to like so much.

First of all Mr. Wallace did not invent the expodisc for use as a white balance tool at all, his daughter did according to their website.

He invented the "ExpoDisc to help photo students get perfect exposures with slide film."

George Wallace was not a fan of early digital photography. Diane Wallace realized that the ExpoDisc technology enabled dramatic improvements in digital images and workflow. After her father's death in May of 2001, she guided the company into the era of digital photography by developing a line of ExpoDisc products for digital camera applications.

Her name is also the one on the patent here.

A patent which by the way states very clearly that it gathers light from 180 degrees.

Now you and I know better. Notice I often referred to this claim as such, not necessarily a fact. But, that is what the patent says.

[0012] The invention may comprise a new method of determining white balance by making an exposure through the diffusion device (using the appropriate procedure for photographing a graycard while substituting the diffusion device for the gray card by making the exposure through the diffusion device while it is placed in front of the camera lens) to document on a full frame, neutral gray density image the combined averaged colorcast created by an imbalance of red-green-blue components present in all light captured within 180 degrees of the front of the lens plane. The combined averaged colorcast will reflect the correct proportions of red-green-blue channels according to the existing light conditions at the time of exposure.

But, we also both know that the cosine ideal is inconsequential for almost all practical white balance uses and that the angle of "view" of the colorright is much narrower than that on this product.

Let's try to keep the facts straight, Doug.

This product suffers in many respects due to its heritage as simply a tool to get 18% exposure. However, in one respect, I guess you're right. He did succeed in making something that just happened to be useful for white balance, quite by accident it seems. No one really seems to care much for the exposure features of the expodisc. This tool now sells only because of its use as a color balance tool.


Glad you like the new site.

Best.

Hi, Drew,

Drew Strickland said:

O-S-C-A-R...!

I loved that commercial as a kid. Good to see that engineers aren't immune to pop culture entirely.

You might want to study up on the product you seem to like so much.

Click to expand...

Meeeow! Where do I say I "like it"?

First of all Mr. Wallace did not invent the expodisc for use as a white balance tool at all, his daughter did according to their website.

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Quite true. He invented it for incident light measurement. And developed the prismatic front end to get essentially a cosine response there. I never said that was in support of its use for white balance measurement.

He invented the "ExpoDisc to help photo students get perfect exposures with slide film."

George Wallace was not a fan of early digital photography. Diane Wallace realized that the ExpoDisc technology enabled dramatic improvements in digital images and workflow. After her father's death in May of 2001, she guided the company into the era of digital photography by developing a line of ExpoDisc products for digital camera applications.

Her name is also the one on the patent here.

Click to expand...

Patent Application.

A patent which by the way states very clearly that it gathers light from 180 degrees.

Click to expand...

But not uniformly weighted over that range in the actual device.

But, we also both know that the cosine ideal is inconsequential for almost all practical white balance uses . . .

Click to expand...

Really? We both know that?

Let's try to keep the facts straight, Doug.

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Sounds good to me. I'll be looking forward to it.

Best regards,

Doug

Trying to get my facts straight

Hi, Drew,

Drew Strickland said:

Let's try to keep the facts straight, Doug.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I may have initially misconstrued what you meant by that. A colleague says perhaps you mean I should get my facts straight.

Evidently, you think I said something that was not true.

Would you be so kind as to quote whichever of my remarks you are referring to and tell my in what way you believe I have "my facts wrong".

Thanks so much.

Best regards,

Doug

I had a flat on the way over

Hi, Drew,

On the ColorRight site, you say:

"Photos often look orange indoors, blue under fluorescent lights, or just plain flat when it is overcast." [Emphasis added]

Can you please explain to us why the "flat" result often spoken of disparagingly for photography under an overcast sky is a color balance problem? Most people seem to attribute it to a lack of shadow delineation.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug

Does the Color Parrot have a new marketing slogan?

The latest marketing quotation "This sucker works!!" reminds me of the Looney Tunes segment where Buggs Bunny just made a sucker out of some schmuck and the character fades into a sucker candy with a label that says SUCKER! then fades back.

Hi, Will,

Will Thompson said:

The latest marketing quotation "This sucker works!!" reminds me of the Looney Tunes segment where Buggs Bunny just made a sucker out of some schmuck and the character fades into a sucker candy with a label that says SUCKER! then fades back.

Click to expand...

But it is more scientific than other endorsements for the product.

Best regards,

Doug

Got a new post for your analysis over at pro photo home. Something else you might want to investigate.

The greater light transmission also helps when used with a flash such as the 580EX or 550EX on a Canon camera.

Didn't originally pay much attention to this when designing the product, becuase I'm not much of a flash shooter.

But, it makes sense given we designed the ColorRight to excel at "reflective/ short" methods of measurement.

A reading from a flash like this will always be "reflective." There really is no easy way to try and take a reading using an incident type method.

Thanks,
Drew

Asher,

Did you get yor updated COLORRIGHT, yet?

Drew

Oh, and Will. I still don't have an email address to remove for you, yet.

Our next newsletter is scheduled to go out in a few days.

Thanks,
Drew

Drew Strickland said:

Asher,

Did you get yor updated COLORRIGHT, yet?

Drew

Click to expand...

Thanks Drew for the updated model. I appreciate that!

Asher