There are times when there is just not enough light to take the picture you want so you have to get some from somewhere, most of us photographer types tend to use a thing called a flash gun! The trouble is flash guns sometimes produce too much of the stuff and throw it all over the place and this is where a nifty little tool like a snoot comes in handy.
A snoot is basically just a tube which you stick on the end of your flash head which blocks light from the sides and leaves you with a tight beam which can be positioned pretty much wherever you want.
PA Katana MD
This shot was taken using a snoot and shows the effect (or one of them) you get by using one. This rather superb model aircraft was sat on my living room floor just in front of my couch and did not make for a very interesting photo when lit normally with an un snooted flash because having a couch sat behind it was just plain awful!
So instead of just sticking a flash somewhere and shooting it, I put a home made snoot on it and positioned the flash to just light up the front of the plane. The results being a more dramatic looking photo and the horrible cream coloured couch background lost in the darkness.
If you want to add a snoot to your collection of lighting equipment you can head off to google and start searching for a store that sells them for entirely too much money, or you could just read the rest of this post and make one for as near to nothing as makes no significant difference.
Here is a quick snap of what the finished ‘Super deluxe Adjustable Snoot’ looks like so you know what you are making 
I have just lashed out major amounts of money on two new SB900 flash guns, and discovered that due to the larger size head on them my trusty DIY snoots wont fit them so I have to spend hours and hours of my valuable time making some more – well, about 10 minutes actually.
OK, lets kick off with what you will need to make them:
- A couple of cereal boxes
- A bit of glue
- Sticky tape
As you can see its going to be a costly affair! Or if money is no object and you really want to splash out:
- A few sheets of black card
- A bit of glue
- Black sticky tape (Duck Tape)
As I have spent hard earned cash on fancy new flash guns I am going for the deluxe version, the process is exactly the same except you don’t have to cut up the cereal boxes and you cover the finished thing with black duck tape. If you are using cereal boxes you will get a larger fall off area of light due to the light reflecting off the light coloured insides near the open end, if you use black card you will get a smaller falloff area.
First thing to do is grab hold of your flash gun and measure the size of the head, just wrap a piece of paper round the head and mark it where it crosses itself, you can then use this as a measure to mark out the card.
Then get your sheet of card, or hacked cereal box, and mark a line at the distance found above from one edge. Then another line parallel to it but 15mm further across the card.
Now mark a line at right angles to the others, about 150mm from the end giving you a rectangle and cut it out. The piece of card should now me 150mm x circumference of your flash head and have one line marked on it 15mm from one edge.
If that was about as clear as mud then have a look at this pic which should clarify it for you..
Now place a ruler along the line and score the card with the point of the scissors, or back edge of a knife, don’t cut through it just score a line to make folding easier. At the scored line fold the card to a nice sharp right angle.
OK now you need to glue the sides together using the 15mm tab and then when securely glued completely flatten the not quite circular tube. Now slide this tube over the flash head with the glued corner of the tube on a corner of the flash head and mark the position of one of the corners NOT having a fold mark. Remove the tube again and flatten it again but this time making sure one of the folds is where you just marked it.
There, you have a snoot which easily folds flat for storage and will slide snugly onto your flash head and enable you to take superb restricted light photos, but as I am making the Deluxe version I am going to cover it carefully with black duck tape to make it a bit less ‘Blue Peter’ ish and a bit more durable.
So having got this far you now have a nice looking snoot which will work wonderfully, the only thing is you need a few of them because the tightness of the beam depends on the length of the snoot. Queue Super Deluxe Model.
Make Two more tubes in the same way as the first, except when measuring for the first you need to have one snoot already fitted on the flash head and when measuring for the second you need BOTH the snoots you have made so far fitted on the flash head. You need to have the snoots fitted so that the one you are making is the correct size to slip Over the previous snoot, its a good idea to add a mm or two also just so they slide on nicely. To work out where to flatten them, just transfer the fold positions from the next smaller tube while both are fitted to the flash head
When you want to pack the snoots away take the tubes out of each other again and fold them flat, takes up no room at all.
Below is a series of quick snaps to show the effect you will get. The flash was about 12 feet from the wall and set to 200mm head zoom in all pics. If you are working close up, at about 2 feet away the light is not much bigger than the size of the flash head.
No Snoot Fitted One Snoot Fitted
Two Snoots Fitted Three Snoots Fitted
If you want a more circular light pattern just squash the open end into a round or hexagonal shape by making a couple of short folds, these pics were taken with the snoot the same shape as the actual flash head because I am lazy
Have fun with your new flash snoots, the next DIY project will be a grid snoot coming to a mad woman’s blog near you soon..
Enjoy.
Tags: DIY, Flash, Photography, Snoot
