Originally posted by thrillerb After this experience and a couple of others, I think I'm going to stick with the auto setting for now. Are there any specific instances where this is a bad idea? (I read an old review that said the *ist DL had iffy white balance performance under incandescent lights.)
Thanks for any info
Indoor lighting, snow and sunrises/sunsets are common conditions for the white balance to be fooled. Indoor lighting is especially tricky these days because it's not just incandescent, it's compact fluorescent, halogen, LED, etc. from 2600K up to 6500K, sometimes a random mix. Snow will reflect other colors like the sky or lights. Sunsets are warmer and sunrises are cooler than typical daylight. (Sunsets are the reason why auto WB doesn't adjust for incandescent lights.)
I did the same thing as you at first, and still have some shots that I wish were different. Then I switched to using RAW mostly, using Auto WB and adjusting WB in Photoshop Elements. That has accidentally trained me to figure out when Auto WB will not work well. Now I will often set the white balance manually in difficult conditions, even shooting in RAW. The advantage is that the preview image is more accurate, and so is the histogram. Also when I'm traveling without access to my usual software, my processing time is shorter.
It's like exposure - experience will tell you when you need to change settings to make a better image.