Welcome to my latest guest post on DIYPhotography.net!

This is the last in this DIYP series…. for now. 2009 is starting with a bang with 2 back to back book shoots what will keep me out of trouble until the end of March. So just maintaining YPS will be a challenge in itself.

If you missed the first 3 parts of my “Exploring Small Strobes” series, you can check them out:

Exploring Smal Strobes - Why Should I Use a Speedlight?
Exploring Small Strobes: Why Use Speedlights Off Camera
Exploring Small Strobes - Wireless Triggers

In part 4, I look at some of Continue Reading »

As you guys may already know, I’m a big fan of David Hobby and his Strobist Website. Which makes me a big fan of off camera lighting with small strobes. Which makes me want to share what I learn with you. So much so that I’ve already written quite a few posts on the subject, not to mention that I’m currently doing a compete series on them on DIYPhotography.net.

But today I want to get down to the basics with Continue Reading »

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 »

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 »

All right fellow YPS readers. It’s time for part 2 of my “Exploring Small Strobes” series that I’m currently writing for DIYPhotography.net.

In part 1 entitled “Why Should I use a Speedlight?”, I covered the reasons why you should use small flashes. If you missed part 1 you can check it out HERE.

In part 2, entitled “Why Use Speedlights Off Camera”, I explore practical ways of using flash photography off camera. The subjects covered are: Continue Reading »

I’m a guy of my  word so, as promised at the end of my Exploring Small Strobes - Why Should I Use a Speedlight? I’ll go through both the lighting setup and the post processing to get the final intro image you see here.

You can see my other lighting setup tutorials HERE.

Studio & Lighting Setup

Let’s start with the studio setup. For the background, I used black cotton fabric. I would have preferred seamless paper but… I don’t have any because I never saw the use since I never shot light directly on a black Continue Reading »

I’ve been asked by Udi Tirosh, the owner of DIYPhotography.net, to do a series of guest posts on speedlights, also know as small flashes. I’m delighted to take on this wonderful challenge that I’ve entitled: Exploring Small Strobes.

Looking at Yanik’s Photo School 1st Poll , flash photography was the #1 request from you, my loyal viewers. So this series will fit perfectly to satisfy your flashgun hunger. The only difference is that you’ll be reading my article on the DIYPhotography.net Website instead of here.

So if you’ve been pondering the purchase of a Nikon SB-600, SB-900, Canon 430EX, 580EX II, or any other speedlight, this introductory Continue Reading »

Ok, I feel like Santa Clause right now! The sun is out again (after almost a full summer of rain), I can swim in my river, take out my canoe and eat on my pick-nick table watching the chickadees and hummingbirds buzz around me. It just doesn’t get better than that! All I would ask for more is to share my lunch with David Hobby from Strobist, Joe McNally and Chase Jarvis. One day…. one day.

So as Santa, I’ll give you 3 shoot setups in one article! How’s that! All three were done in Calgary during my 2 week stay there. All 3 are very different in terms of setup and flash lighting so I thought they would fit nicely together. Ok, enough babbling! Let’s get to it. Continue Reading »

So, there I was. In Calgary the day before the workshop and I had been playing Rockband for roughly a week as the lead drummer. I played so much that I was getting blisters on my fingers . A bunch of 30 somethings recreating high school dreams of sex, drugs and rock&roll baby! And then I get a flash (no pun intended)!

“Hey guys! I just got an idea! Let’s get 4 of you all dressed up with whigs and stuff and bring the RockBand gear out in the street at sundown and get busy with Continue Reading »