[jfdavis58]

This really begs the question that I was apparently composing and posting while you were also writing.

If you read this pre-client it's food for thought and I'll still be around later for a reply. If instead, you read it later the question will still be:

What do you expect of white balance; what range of light color temperatures, what effects either in camera or later in post should be achievable?

I really don't care if you post your answer here or in the thead I initiated specific to this question--I DO CARE about your answer.

[Lowell Goudge]

Very interesting responses to my last posting.

In looking at a simple solution, I have a couple, which are probably quite useable.

1) if you shoot in RAW, you can group the photos based upon time and location and then set a white balance for each location / lighting situation, then batch process to J-PEG at the same time. Once the proofs are picked, you can then archive everything but the purchased photos in JPEGonly, and the purchased photos in both RAW and JPEG

2) if you want to shoot almost continuously, i.e. at the 3 frame per second on the K10D, and only keep JPEGs then I have a hint. If you take a shot as a "test" then press the Fn button and select WB, what you get is the WB menu and adjustments for the frame you just shot, plus the frame as a background which interactively changes color as you change the WB settings. You can then fine tune the WB for the situation you have and the lighting you have at that time., While perhaps not as good as post processing, I would be willing to bet that for candid shots in ambient lighting situations you would be very close. For flash situations, I think the camera should probably be set to the flash setting, unless you are dealing with a strong reflected color from the walls (perhaps bounce induced) or with blended color from fill flash, where there still may be a little adjustment needed.

[nosnoop]

While I do shoot RAW from time to time (which makes the WB issue a non-issue most of the time) I cover enough weddings now that if I shot and archived everything in RAW I would have to start charging 2 times the price per wedding in order to cover the expense of all the hard drives I need to archive old images.

Then why not archive them in JPG after conversion?

In reality it means that much more processing time. Time is money ... and time is also life.

True, but if you use one of the batch processing software like Bibble, just two or three clicks for the whole lot, then go and have your dinner, and they would all be ready when you are back. This would be no different than JPG out of your camera where you don't have opportunity to tweak each one before JPG conversion.

If you have to work as fast as possible to capture once-in-a-lifetime moments and need to be able to use both flash/strobe and a wide range of available light ...

This is when RAW is valuable. You can go through the converted JPG files; if any once-in-a-lifetime shots were off WB, just go back to the RAW and adjust and convert again. After you are all done, then delete the RAW if you want to.

Yes, RAW->JPG adds some processing time, but it can be automated and unattended, because you do not have to tweak each one if you do not want to.