andrewlighten.com

A snoot is a device that sits in front of a speedlight or strobe and constrains the light to a very specific area.

One of the articles I’ve seen floating around the ‘net a few times is how to make a snoot from a cereal box and some black straws. Click here for the original article.

You can probably spend $$$ on a properly built fancy-pants snoot, but to have a basic fiddle with the idea a bit of cardboard and some straws seemed like a good idea.

I’ve been keeping half an eye open for a packet of black straws and found some at Spotlight last weekend. I hacked apart a cereal box and kind of broadly followed the directions they had. Very easy stuff.

It adds a very interesting element to the flash. The light is so incredibly directional. It’s almost like a vignette, but not from the lens: it’s due to the flash being delivered over a very short area in front of the camera.

It’s a strange mixture of warmer light while having much sharper shadows. We still need to do some experimentation to get the hang of using one, but it’s a very cheap (like, $2.00) accessory that adds a real twist to the sorts of shots you can capture.

Bouncing the flash with the snoot doesn’t seem to work nearly as well as it does without the snoot because the light is so directional so you don’t get the softness normally associated with a bounce.

EDIT: Here’s another DIY snoot article that’s even simpler.