Product Review: Datacolor Spyder X Elite

Outdoor photographers rely on the planning and capturing of beautiful light and color. Whether that’s traveling the world or visiting a familiar location at sunset, tremendous light and color can turn a good photo into a great photo. It’s interesting how photographers focus so much on the gear that helps capture great color in the field, but when it comes to post-processing, why is it that we don’t take the time to be sure all of our monitors are correctly calibrated? Enter the Datacolor SpyderX Elite.

Once you remove the SpyderX Elite from the box and connect it to your monitor to begin calibration, the first thing that you’ll notice is the improved speed. The Datacolor website states that the calibration process will be complete within two minutes. I was honestly skeptical as I’d used their calibrators in the past. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the entire calibration actually took. I was back up and running in no time.

The next most important thing for photographers is accuracy. Accurate colors are incredibly important whether you’re posting your photos on social media or printing your images for display. The SpyderX Elite is the most accurate model from Datacolor thanks to their new lens technology which provides accurate screen color, shadow detail, and white balance. I can say that I’m not timid about printing my photos after using the SpyderX Elite because I know I’ll get accurate results.

With the importance of accurate colors in post-processing, it’s easy to see why the SpyderX Elite should be a part of your post-processing workflow.