Strobist
Learn How to Light.
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Latest posts
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Travel Photography Is About People: How to Connect, Approach Strangers, and Make Photographs That Matter
For nineteen years, Strobist has been about light. This post is about the other thing, the bigger thing, the thing that took me forty years and ten thousand assignments to fully understand. The success or failure of a travel photographer is not decided by gear, and only partly…
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The Traveling Photographer’s Manifesto,Discounted for Strobist Readers
For fifteen years, this site focused on lighting. Before that, I worked as a newspaper photojournalist. Lighting was part of the job. So were access, preparation, and learning how to walk into unfamiliar situations and come back with something useful. Lighting solves technical…
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So Long (for Now!) and Thank You.
In 2006 I started a lighting blog while working full-time as a staffer at The Baltimore Sun. By early 2007, it became obvious that I didn't have the personal resources to give 100% to both Strobist and my job at the newspaper. That’s exactly the position I find myself in today.…
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SLC-1L-13: Conservancy Critters
When lighting with small subjects, a speedlight is generally all you’ll ever need. Further, because of the scale and distances involved, even with a small flash you’ll be working at low power settings. For these photos of some of the resident animals at the Howard County…
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iPhone Users: Put an AirTag in Your Camera Bag
Apple’s new AirTags are a straight-up gift for photographers. After testing one for the past couple of weeks, I’ll be hiding an AirTag in my scooter, one in my car and another one in my camera bag. Read more »
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Notes on the Paul Buff Link 800ws Flash
The Paul C. Buff Link monobloc studio strobe ($895.95) delivers 800ws of portable power, and deserves consideration from anyone in the United States who is considering a big gun for use on location. Please note: This is not a full review. There have been several thorough…
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SLC-2L-15: Cross-Pollination
Lighting with flash can give you more than just the ability to control the quality of your light. With the inherent consistency of light from (manual) flash, you can layer in slices of time as well. But first, you’ll want to lock down two things: the ambient light portion of…
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SLC-OE-08: Turning the Corner
Whew. What a year. But if you're reading this, you made it through! As we all move into a hopefully much better 2021, here are three things you can do to improve your experience as a photographer for the coming year. Read more »
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SLC-0L-05: Lighting's Gateway Drug
Quick, guess the lighting. If you said two lights, and use of high-speed sync to get the shallow depth of field, that's a pretty good guess. If you said zero lights and a rigid high-efficiency reflector, that's an even better (and correct) guess. When working with an…
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SLC-1L-12: A Garden of Ideas
At first glance: a simple, one-light portrait of activist gardener Janssen Evelyn. Dig deeper: a look at tonal mapping via specular highlights, stretching the range of your modestly powered flash, and how to discover your next project. Read more »
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SLC-2L-14: Fill in the Blanks
There are two main schools of thought when it comes to lighting. One is to light your subject in a way that is not grounded in reality but merely looks cool. And the other is to use lighting to translate the way your eye sees light into a way that your camera can better…
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SLC-2L-13: Shoot Through Your Sunset
Whenever you have control over the time of day in which you'll be shooting a location portrait, always remember that the hour that wraps around sunset will offer you at least five different lighting environments in which to work. And for today's portrait of birders Jo (left) and…
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SLC-1L-11: Planting Rice at Sunrise
Seeing as no one is doing much traveling these days, I thought it'd be fun to pay a visit with a Strobist reader photographing somewhere far away. Up for a little Lighting Cookbook field trip to Indonesia? Yeah? Then let's go... Read more »
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SLC-2L-12: Two-Light Bike for the Bucks
UODATE: The bike sold, quickly, for the full asking price to the first person who showed up. Which was cool. And even better, the guy was like, "Who did the pictures? They jumped out at me." (Tiny speedlights FTW...) Have you tried to buy a new bike lately? Or even a used bike?…
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SLC-2L-11: The "Magic" of Medium Format
There's something about shooting medium format — especially in black and white. The look is unmistakeable: creamy highlights supported by lush, detailed shadows. So it's perfectly understandable why many photographers shell out big bucks for pricey medium format gear. In fact,…
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SLC-1L-10: [COVID DIARIES] Shoot the Kids
Hey, there's a pandemic. Have you heard? Looks like we might be spending a lot of time in the house with our immediate family these days. Maybe that family includes kids. And maybe they are starting to go a little stir crazy. Keep reading for some ideas for any lighting…
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Hot-Shoe Go-To: The Godox TT600
How best to put this? The Godox TT600 is, objectively, a screaming bargain. It is a full-sized manual-only speedlight with power comparable to OEM speedlights that cost over eight(!) times as much. It features a reliable, built-in transceiver, a suite of different remote…
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The X-Peditions Workshops Site has Moved!
Two pieces of news, on the X-Peditions Hanoi photo workshops front: The first is that I retired from teaching as of November 2025. But X-Peditions is still going strong. The second piece of news is that their new instructor, as of Fall 2026, will be none other than Ibarionex…
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In Appreciation: The LumoPro LP180 [2013-2020]
The LumoPro LP180 is no more. You could make a strong case that the LP180 was the best manual hot shoe flash ever produced — and maybe that ever will be produced. It was a beast of a flash, with a fluid user interface and features designed specifically for off-camera lighting…
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SLC-0L-04: Red State, Blue State
To learn to create evocative light with flash, it helps to better understand how we experience the continuous light we see every day. To do that, you'll need to wean yourself from auto white balance, and even to abandon familiar waypoints like your daylight WB preset. Because…