Welcome to Strobist.

This website is about one thing: Learning how to use off-camera flash with your dSLR to take your photos to the next level. Or the next ten levels.

Here, you'll find everything you need to know about how to more effectively use your small speedlights. There are more than 1,000 articles about lighting. Over two million photographers from around the world have learned small-flash lighting techniques from this site. We're thinking you can, too.

Why small flashes? Because that's all you really need start your journey into high-end lighting techniques.

Larger strobes have their place, but they tend to spend a lot of time in trunks and stuffed under beds. But the small, everyday strobe is always in your waistpack ready to go. And it can yield great results when used more effectively and creatively. For example, the photo of the wind tunnel at the top left was lit with one small, shoe-mount flash - set on only 1/4 power.

See? You don't necessarily need all that heavy, expensive gear. Heck, we don't limit ourselves to small flashes, either. You'll find all kinds of ideas for other ways to light on the cheap. (You'll never walk down the lighting aisle at Home Depot the same way again.)

Think of Strobist as a lighting idea bank, run by and for the most enthusiastic DSLR photographers. The site has over 250,000 regular readers, our discussion group has more than 40,000 members, and we are all about sharing ideas and techniques for small-flash lighting. There are no secrets here. We love clear, step-by-step instructions.

If you are a student, we hope that you will benefit from the experience of others. If you are a seasoned pro, stick around and you might even pick up an idea or two. If you are an amateur, we are happy to have you, too. We started out as a site for professionals. But some of you "amateurs" learn so fast we have given up trying tell the difference between your photos and the "professional" ones. And that's a very good thing.

In fact, 85% of the readers that frequent this site are amateurs. Using small flashes and a little creativity, here is an continually updated gallery of their most recent work.

Each of those images was taken by a photographer who at one point did not know the first thing about off-camera lighting. Join us as we learn, while at the same time making sure we do not take ourselves too seriously.

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You're reading the welcome page, but the daily front page is here.

The core eduation portion of Strobist is divided into two areas: Lighting 101, and On Assignment.

And Lighting 102, a free, interactive, comprehensive lighting course, is underway right now. (You can easily catch up at your own pace.)

The Lighting 101 series begins with you getting your flash off of the camera. Learn how to position it, clamp it, synch it, bounce it, soften it, snoot it, cookie it and balance it with ambient light.

(Don't know what a "cookie" is? Suffice to say that office plant in the corner is a lighting tool.)

The photography world is digital now, which gives you a wonderful little screen on the back of your cameras to learn from both your mistakes and your successes on a real-time basis. And there is no better way to learn than to constantly make interesting mistakes.

And for the record, we dig interesting mistakes more than boring successes.

In the On Assignment series, we'll take real-world lighting examples and break them down to show you how it was done. This is where you learn how the pros apply the basic skills you are learning in Lighting 101. Where applicable, we will link the appropriate Lighting 101 lessons with the corresponding On Assignment shots. And vice versa.

The idea is to build your skills while you learn how to apply them in real-world situations.

And if Strobist is a day job, the after-work watering hole would be Strobist's Flickr Group. There is a huge group flash-enabled photographers waiting to answer questions and share ideas about lighting techniques.

Throw your photos up, ask questions, get answers, make pithy comments - go nuts. If you are not yet a member of Flickr, you really should be. It's photography gone viral.

Want to learn more? There are lots of good books out there. Check out our bookshelf for some top-notch light reading.

There are imaginative photographers out there doing creative and innovative work. You'll see in-depth interviews popping up on the front page periodically.

So, try out the lighting courses. It's all free. Or you can jump right into the deep end by clicking on any photo on this page to go to the corresponding On Assignment post, to see exactly how it was made. If the explanation looks a little Greek to you, better hit the Lighting 101 section.

Sit back and read, soak it all up and charge your brain until your ready light glows red.