White balance card - do I need to be shooting in RAW?

[Colin Southern]

I have a Canon rebel xs. Shooting raw can only be done in fully manual mode, correct? Not quite sure I am ready for that

Hi Heather,

No - you can shoot RAW in Manual, Tv, Av, Bulb, and P modes

[heather4279]

Hi Heather,

No - you can shoot RAW in Manual, Tv, Av, Bulb, and P modes

Thanks Colin! Will have to give it a try.

[perth45]

I've been reading a little about shooting in RAW and white balance ... like, shoot a white balance card at the start of the shoot ... but what about the changing light in a landscape and a setting sun dropping lower in the sky? Surely I don't have to shoot the card before each picture? ... please see my new thread Photoshop and RAW ... any help appreciated.

Also ... my camera, a Nikon D3, refers to RAW in the instruction book as NEF - why is this?

[Colin Southern]

I've been reading a little about shooting in RAW and white balance ... like, shoot a white balance card at the start of the shoot ... but what about the changing light in a landscape and a setting sun dropping lower in the sky? Surely I don't have to shoot the card before each picture?

Shooting a gray card for a sunset shot is pretty much a meaningless concept. For a start, your usually shooting into the light, and for it to be of any use, you'd have to turn the camera around and shoot in the other direction so that the setting sun was illuminating the card (remember that it's the reflected light that we want to capture off the card), but even then it doesn't make sense as you won't want a white-balanced sunset anyway (you'll WANT the warm colours; you don't want to neutralise them).

Best approach is to simply shoot RAW and then adjust the temperature and tint to your liking in the RAW converter.

My camera, a Nikon D3, refers to RAW in the instruction book as NEF - why is this?

Different manufactures give different extensions to their RAW files. Nikon use *.NEF, Canon use *.CR2. My strong suggestion is to convert them to the standardised *.DNG format (that's what I do).