Lessons

Lesson Info

Building a Snoot

And we'll snood off one of our flashes for hair light and the reason for a snoot just like putting an inbox is that we're controlling the light, so when I had the flash by itself bowman's story light everywhere and we this is we're making a very controlled dramatic portrait we want light on ly just right here, maybe just on her hair, ok? Ah, and then we want only that we don't want any of this balancing anywhere, so the snow it helps you focus your beam. I wouldn't use this one up here I'm gonna use my own tape, which is mai get it day this's where that thin tape I was talking about earlier it's on the table over there a mysterious woman back there or, you know yet then the thin black tape thing it's on my table if you could grab that kid so I'm gonna basically attach this to this flash, making myself a shoot, and we'll put a warm jell I think over the front of this to get a little warm light to this year and will be in that way at the back of her head just like that, people since righ...

t in the white stands all right, so I'm just going to take a little of my gorilla tape here about where we want the snoot tio take it on now you're you're noticing probably you're not getting the full use of the your flash and that's that's okay we don't need to we can just use the center part of the flash and the parts of the side that we're not using I'm just going to ask him off so they don't cast their own little special late everything's covered up way have your fences nut it's kind like an elephant the notion right that's for you and then I'll grab my sticky filters and let's throw a little warm jill on there just slightly warm one because I'm sticking it to the front of a cardboard of any banking a couple more pieces of tape there's nothing really for it to stick to someone I'll just put it completes the tape on their couple small ones too great I have nightmares about ripping tape the way we go boom warm toilet paper tube on ahead yo all right so now we'll just adjust this a little bit so with this new here we don't know exactly how far back we see the pattern so let's do a little test just to see what kind of a pattern this thing catches cast is and this is my be lights I'm saying this to channel b we talked a little bit about this but not too much on the receivers have three channels and generally what I try to do is have my main light channel eh my I have a secondary feel like they'll be champ channel b and the tear light would be channel c or would have a background might be and then a hair lightsey so I keep my separate channels so I can work on but I always try to have my main light on a and I just know that I might my camera it's always mean light a channel my less second important light would be b and the third one would be seized on this case I just have to say it's a and let's look I want to shoot from behind so just keep staying where you were and I'm just going to sit back here just so we can see the pattern of this beam of light not knowing yet where it is what is doing oh it would help if I actually turned it on thank you shred it again I've also set the zoom on this head to one eighty on ah be so that we have it is focus is possible and that was a common actually from marcus of five five private said would you increase the zuma at this point knows that an increased soon yeah increase the zoom so that this is a two hundred actually spliced one goes to two hundred and that helps to folk funnel that light even more okay don't even know what happened back when there was just the front lights turned off you kind of see where that beam is going there it is pretty well focused on her so I think it's probably gonna be good so we can you can you see the light there were right at the top of the chair and on her hair is kind of where we're focusing this being a little bit tighter kind of keep the right about there so yeah that's just about right to see the beam you can kind of see it kind of is basically here is where it's stopping so it's getting about that wide from the too polite itself and this part is not affected it's not anything any extra phil anywhere else on we're good to go good face towards me ever slightly you can look right at that light though you good so I didn't check the power of that hair light don't get too bright that happened that's still on manual on detail yeah I just gotta bring down by a light the hair light looks pretty good the way it is I'm not going to mess with that power they're going to bring that one down okay so this new is good it keeps my light controlled it's just a couple more to get a work on our expression is a little bit face towards me ever slightly him by keeping it the like and work up a little bit of a smile for me almost that's good about that beautiful second one might not a recycled fasten that's nicer okay, beautiful so soft box the purpose of the soft box it keeps it soft but it also contains the light because the more dramatic like works beautifully have nice catch light in the eyes and then our little snoot now perfectly contained little hair light to separate come into the warm added the warm because it works great with the background that we have going on there to kind of compliment that they're ok. So any any questions on these so far can you talk us through again through this new yeah and what would a normal complicated what a normal snooze be for people who they were people who would never use just before yeah, I mean this is essentially free you know you haven't raising a toilet paper roll, but they brings one of her maids for speed light I've seen range from thirty to seventy five dollars for kits that have different, you know, different with variations in there so it can it can range, but I really to get a decent one that snaps on the front of a speed light you're talking these twenty five, thirty, forty bucks and end up you know, some of our kingdom two hundred bucks or so we've got some great ideas that are also coming in first needs chatter have heaven way have, um obi one why jay who says my favorite die wife's new is to take one of those phone pop cans cozies that everyone gives away so one of the co uzis and cut it off at the bottom it's also easy to store in your bag yeah with this new because he's someone another one that pringles can just going to say that because the interior silver already so it helps to reflect on the lights so you could get a pringles can it so it could be a bigger pattern so if you want something that really is a nice tight being these the smaller you get the better you know the better for tightening but brings can works great uh because of that reflective interior silver yeah you know the size of him with wass what about length yeah the length will make it tighter to see if I use that full tube here that will also further narrow it down a little bit um it's a lot shorter if we cut this down in half again just give means it's more spread to think like a shotgun you know the longer the barrel the more the type you can have that that pattern so you can play with that and obviously if you go to the bathroom several times save your toilet paper you've got a plethora of tubes to use and then save you're told that your paper tall rules and make some different sizes and test best ways to do is they came in on the background and test it, you know, even on a background brother to see exactly what distance what the pattern looks like this to be great for a background light too. If we're just to shoot this light up a glow behind her in the background, you could use this I'm just going to step back a little bit to get more of that background in here. So there's basically the width of what we're getting at that distance so nice, pretty tight circle and it's like it because it's fairly natural cause jenny, what you get with most grids, you get a get a hot spot that gradually fades and then at some point you get nothing. And this actually is pretty nice pattern for a for a toilet paper roll so you could see it that distance we're really about for for three or four feet across is air usable light on that. Okay, awesome sauce. Any more questions popping out about there? Let me see. How about in the studio? Indians, guys, good guys, they have used anything else for use one with that, I created this new with my alien bees I used, you know, the little silver cone looking things for your umbrellas and stuff. I clamp them together teo so it kind of about back to back collectors yeah, and then I put a cloth over it so that I wouldn't have lights village on the out of the little holes on the on the sides we're just trying something safe it wherever and it worked beautiful yeah, I was really happy with it. Yeah, so if you guys I don't know if you understand what he's talking about but there's the's dish these reflectors that come with your lights like the studio lights that are kind of short kind of wide reflectors like this that air silver and she put two of them so one one to the other so you have the little opening the big opening and the big opening down to little opening right and then sealed it together and then you could just put some duct tape around that and boom, you've got yourself an instant snoop yeah so that's snoods or one of the things there's just a million ways you could do it it's saving them, saving the money sometimes it's pretty fun because then you could buy more. I'm sitting here thinking about ways to make grids with it, you know and play with the lighting that way and it's going to sound kind of corny but a strainer came to mind strainer yeah with the holes and yeah, trying to create a different pattern patterns would be really cool in fact, one of things we did and where my other classes was creating gobo called go goes in the industry and that's basically anything that you through a light through it it makes a pattern onto the wall, the background and a lot of times where their cookies sometimes they called cookies goebbels or things you kind of flag off cookies or patterns and stranger and make an interesting little pattern one thing to keep in mind when you're using objects for a cookie or go bo is say if you're going to shoot your hand and you want finger you know shadows on the wall the further away here pattern is from the light the more distinct the pattern will be and as it gets closer because it has more to diffuse thinking in that shotgun effect that little b diffuse and you have a kind of a soft herb bigger hand pattern if I have it here versus if I put it there then I'd have a tighter and pattern so same with what if you put in front if you want leaves and you put him here and it just turns into barely recognizable patterns you're like wow, I can't even tell that because it's too close to your life just pull a little further away and blast at it and then you'll have distinct leaf patterns and that's one thing I also do if my studios they go like michael's that but place it gives me hives you know that uh stuff everywhere kind of star and get the fake plants and branches and stuff and just have some of those on hand because you could just clamp those on a stick and put him in front your light make interesting little dappled light patterns in the background the wall too okay another idea that has come in from a t a p s t bo this those solo cups all right the right shape inside so that's a little plastic covered it kind of goes out like they just cut the bottom out of a solo cup and it's already white on the interior um yeah I mean use one of those but that would definitely work and I would cover a little more of your flash so you get a little more output from the flash it's a little bigger opening and it's because it's well I guess depending which way put if you put a big side forward or small side forward you could change the pattern from big wide or whatever it's like a mini uh dis reflector if you put a big side out I guess on their cut the bottom out of it I have a couple questions going back to the soft box if that's ok we had a couple of votes on this question as well from jo's photography in energy humint let's see actually sorry this was questioned was from oh, I lost it betty d there we go. How heavy is that contraption that you've made? Well most of the way it is really just the flash itself and the ring is plastic the toilet bowl ring it's blasting it doesn't weigh much of anything the box because all from course very very light so it's ah it's pretty easy to hold with one hand um the key thing which we did witness here is using really good grippy tape on this like the super duct tape or grill a tape or something if you something that's easy to remove it we'll easily remove at the wrong time like you just witnessed here so make sure you use a sturdier duct tape but it's it's fairly light great. We did have a couple people suggesting putting tin foil on the inside and so that was from betty dia's. Well, what would happen if you added foil to the interior of the the soft box and yeah that's good. Yeah, it just gives you a little more. It does help to add more reflected light but the silver lining and you see these in soft box designs as well. Sometimes I have removable silver over white and you can choose because the silver lining gives you somewhat more speculator a little bit harsher light coming out of it whereas the all white interiors but a soft as you're going to get if you really want the softest, softest, then use the white interior. The silver is, you know, multiplies your light little more so you get a little bit more output, but it also gives a little. You might find some hot spots and irregularities and it's less. Your silver is really angle just right in place, just right. But try it and see how you like it. I like the difference, for sure.