Worth it to shoot in Raw?

[Ajay]

So I'm photographing a rehearsal dinner and wedding this weekend. Very low-key for a friend of a friend. She knows I'm not a professional. Other than photos of her getting ready the whole deal is probably only going to last about three hours. I've only recently begun shooting in Raw and have found that my patience for the uploading and converting process to be very thin. I have two 2g cards and one 512mb, so shooting in raw gives me about 400 frames, whereas shooting in jpegfine would give me around 600, give or take.
I plan on giving her a cd with all of the images and she wants help creating a photobook.
Is it worth the extra time to shoot in raw? Do I need more memory cards? I figured if necessary I could have my laptop nearby and upload the images from one card while shooting with the others.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jstuedle]

If the even is important to either of you, I would shoot raw.

 

[Sideburns]

I would do what you said. Shoot RAW. Upload to the laptop if you need to.
I would also try and whitebalance, but that's the beauty of RAW is that you can half-ass it at first and fix it later...though it can take a while.

Good luck with all the post processing.

 

[Ajay]

I would do what you said. Shoot RAW. Upload to the laptop if you need to.
I would also try and whitebalance, but that's the beauty of RAW is that you can half-ass it at first and fix it later...though it can take a while.

Good luck with all the post processing.

Thanks. ^

Is it bad to just leave the whitebalance on Auto? I'm afraid I'd screw up badly if I tried to customize it.

 

[Ajay]

Well, I got to take a lot of test shots at the rehearsal this evening. I'm definitely going to shoot in raw but now I have another dilemma. In order to get a decent amount of usable light without boosting my ISO too high I have to use my 50mm f/1.8.

The problem is that I can't get the entire wedding party on the stage in a single shot with that lens. The only chance I might have to switch lenses and get a shot of the whole party is while the song is still playing after they light the unity candle. But then I run the risk of not being able to switch back quick enough for the announcement, kiss and exit. Is it worth it to switch lenses for one shot? I'm going to be taking all kinds of group shots with the wedding party before and after the ceremony. What would any of you do?

 

[craig]

Tell us about your RAW workflow. It can be very redundant and time consuming if not handled properly.

Love & Bass

 

[Sideburns]

Thanks. ^

Is it bad to just leave the whitebalance on Auto? I'm afraid I'd screw up badly if I tried to customize it.

Not bad...that's the beauty of RAW.

But for custom white balance, you just take a picture of a white card or an 18% gray card and then you select that as your custom white balance setting. You shoot it in the light you're using, so the white balance is correct.

However, I guess its kinda hard with stained glass windows..so just choose shade in your menu probably...

You can always fix it later if you screw up (since you used RAW)

 

[Ajay]

Tell us about your RAW workflow. It can be very redundant and time consuming if not handled properly.

Love & Bass

Thats part of my problem. I don't have a workflow. I've only just begun experimenting with RAW so I've only edited a few separate photos at a time. I've seen where you can do a batch edit and I think this would definitely help me as there are a large number of shots with the same kind of lighting that could all be corrected more or less to same values.

What are your suggestions for a proper workflow?