Yet another white balance tool

White balance has become a well-known issue and benefit to digital photographers. There are several different products in the market from simple to more complex. I have come across yet another one of these tools, this time from Datacolor, the makers of Spider series of monitor calibration, printer profiling devices. The new tool, SpyderCube, lives up to its name. It is indeed a cube with different tones on its surfaces with one side having a circular opening into a black-painted cavity. Its base allows it to stand on flat surfaces or, using the threaded mount, it can be mounted on a light stand or a tripod. The loop at the top will hook on other suitable objects to appear in the scene. It even has a chrome ball at its apex to evaluate the specular highlights. At $59 MSP it may deserve a look. These tools can be extremely useful to get an accurate white balance setting under diverse conditions. For more information visit the Datacolor Web site.