Nikon D300 User Manual page 703

the image away from you! The D300(S) is very good at Auto
WB, but I still shoot at a pre-defined WB setting most of the
time. Call me old-fashioned!
If I'm at a party and I'm shooting images of friends for small
snapshot prints, I'll often put my camera in Auto WB and
Programmed auto exposure mode (P). Then, I'll just take lots
of pictures without worrying about a thing. However, if I'm
shooting for commercial reasons or am concerned with
maximum image quality, I use a gray
or white card and balance my camera to the available light. I
only rebalance if the light source changes. Use Auto for when
you are not overly concerned about absolutely correct WB.
It'll be close enough for average use and will return great
images most of the time.
Should I worry about white balance if I
shoot in RAW mode?
The quick answer is no, but that may not be the best answer.
When you take a picture using NEF (RAW) mode, the sensor
image data has no WB, sharpening, or color saturation
information applied. Instead, the information about your
camera settings is stored as "markers" along with the RAW
black-and-white sensor data. Color information is only
applied permanently to the image when you post-process and
save the image in another format like JPEG, TIFF, or EPS.
When you open the image in Nikon Capture NX2, or another
RAW conversion program, the camera settings are applied to
the sensor data in a temporary way so that you can view the
image on your computer screen. If you don't like the color
balance or any other setting you used in-camera, you can
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