White Balance and Lighting

White balance and lighting are pretty critical elements of good color composition. I'm hardly an expert at this, and all of my lighting experience has been with natural lighting—no flash systems or anything more complex than an SB-400.

This past weekend, I was able to get some pictures of my parents' firebushes. I was really just killing time, not planning anything...but it worked out fortuitously.

I've wanted to post a bit about lighting, but time and experience are both factors here.

The bushes look a bit like this:

24mm, 1/100s @ f/4, ISO 400

This is actually the "pretty" version of the bushes, taken at the end of the set. With somewhat poorer lighting and bad composition, we get something eternally uglier: