White Balance

[boku]

Geez -

I'd have to disagree on all points!

1) RAW is always better.
2) WB off of a white card (or equivelant) is always better.
3) Handheld meter (incident or spot combined with my brain) is always better.*

* Disclaimer: regardless, I use my cameras meter because the histogram renders handheld metering accuracy unnecessary.

[Baz]

I'm trying to find out the best way to shoot jpeg to minimize time spent in photo shop editing. Auto white balance seems better than Pre white balance done using a white piece of paper. What are your experinces with this?
What is the best way to metre. A hand held light metre does'nt seem to give as good a reading as matrix.
Light metre 350th @ f11 to dark
Matrix         160th @ f11 very good exposure does any one use a hand held light metre with digital camera.
I'm using a nikon d70.
Thanks

[drh681]

I'll show you some samples when Phototalk comes back up.
I made a four up night scene with AWB, Tungsten WB, and Custom White Balance.(measured off the concrete side walk) I included a Daylight WB just for comparison.

auto and tungsten seemed to give a 'faithful' orangey rendering of the lighting(those orange sodium lamps) with a slight edge to tungsten on faithfulness. I think that, with some white balance shift, might make a good image.
the daylight was, of course, way orange.
The Custom White Balance provided a nice green to plants and a very nice deep blue to the sky while the lamps were rendered white. not at all faithful to the actual scene, but I think it looked good.