I just finished part 3  of my “Exploring Small Strobes” series that I’m currently doing over at DIYPhotography.net entitled “Wireless Triggers”. This article is all about the pros and cons of the different off camera wireless triggers out there, more specifically radio triggers like the famous Pocket Wizards or the mid-range Skyports.

If you missed the first 2 articles of the series, you can catch up with part 1 here and part 2 here. In part 1, I looked at why use small strobes and in part 2 I covered the reasons why to use your Continue Reading »

I would like to start off by apologizing to my non Nikon readers. This video tutorial is all about the Nikon CLS so…. you can bench this one. Or have a look at it and just maybe it’ll convince you that Nikon has the most sophisticated lighting system out there and you’ll rush out to sell all your non Nikon gear on Ebay!

In this video, I’ll be going through the complete steps for you to set up your camera’s built-in flash to act as a master (commander) as well as your SB-800 (or SB-600) to act as a slave. I’m doing the steps on my D300 body but the menus are similar from one Nikon model to another.

This Nikon CLS tutorial falls in wonderfully with my “Exploring Small Strobes” series that Continue Reading »

There are literally thousands of photography contests on the Net with all sorts of prizes (or not) and all sorts of ways to win these prizes. I don’t bother mentioning them here since Yanik’s Photo School’s mission is all about photography learning and not about winning prizes. But if both can be combined in an original way then I would owe it to you, my loyal readers, to point it out.

My good buddy Udi over at DIY Photography started a unique contest with an educational twist Continue Reading »

In part 1 of “Using you Monitor as a Light Source”, I looked at replacing your existing light sources with your computer monitor by displaying various colors to act as “gels”.

This time we’re going to push it a step further. We’re actually going to be using our monitor as the background! This opens up a ton of possibilities but it also has it’s limits as well. The main limit is the size of your monitor. So this limits the size of the object in front of it. But if you have a 52 inch LCD TV, you could Continue Reading »

It’s time for your first ever YPS assignment! What would a school be without any homework, right?

So there I was, starting to write my next article on how to take perfect family photos when it hit me… “most of my readers have families, so most of them should be taking great family photos!”

This is how it’s going to work. Please follow the rules or else I’ll fail you! Hahaha! Continue Reading »

The holiday season is fast approaching and we’re soon going to be running around like headless chickens to get everything done in time. So why not get a head start with your Christmas photo postcard!

And what makes your photo pop? A cool looking border or frame around it!

In this Photoshop video tutorial, I’ll show you how to quickly make borders around your photos. No more Continue Reading »

Ho ho ho! It’s almost that time of year again when families meet, enjoy good food, good cheer and a little too much of the good drink. 

It’s also time for Santa’s yearly gift giving. And I thought I would help Santa out a bit by giving him some suggestions for my fellow YPS loyal readers! I’ll be focusing on the most obvious for a photography learning site… photography books! We all love reading them but we also want good ones! There are some lemons out there (I have a few) so let me weed out the bad stuff Continue Reading »

In this Photoshop video tutorial, I’ll show you 4 ways of converting your color photos into black and white. I got the inspiration for this tutorial because of the recent Black and White Spider Awards results. This is an international photography competition with some amazing photos from both professionals and amateurs. Continue Reading »

I’ve just written a guest post for one of the most popular photography learning sites out on the Net called Digital Photography School. For more info on DPS, check out my review.

I’m a big fan of macro photography. So much so that when I chose my first ever digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 4500, it was mostly based on its macro capabilities. And when I purchased my Nikon D70 with kit lens, the next lens in my bag was the Continue Reading »

I did something this summer that I’ve only done once before as a professional photographer… enter a professional photography competition.

Last winter, a fellow photographer sent me a link to the Black & White Spider Awards informing me that some of the top pro photographers in the world participated and it could be a great learning opportunity. So I checked it out carefully to make sure it was serious and after seeing being blown away by the winners and nominees, I thought it would be a fun Continue Reading »