Play around with flash photography in this Virtual Lighting Studio

If you ever wanted to try your hand at flash photography, you might want to take whirl with this Virtual Lighting Studio. It's a completely free -- and awesome -- way to test out different lighting setups from within your browser.
The Virtual Lighting Studio is a studio lighting simulator programmed by Olivier Prat of Zvork Visual Programming. The simulator lets you play with strobes, soft boxes, and ring lights. You can also set up how many different light sources you have, the luminosity, coloring gels, and the positioning of the various lights.
The simulator updates in real time, and you can save exposures to compare the different setups. It's a great learning tool for how some additional lighting can affect your photography. If you're in the market for some equipment, like I am, this definitely a useful tool for figuring out what you should get.

Flash photography might seem like it's dead with modern camera sensors that are so sensitive to light that they can shoot perfectly lit photos even in the darkest bars. But even a single off-camera flash (meaning the flash is detached and directed independently from your camera) can dramatically change the look of your subject even in a well-lit room.