As you may recall, my set-up was a little crude, I was using a tripod then, I decided to purchase (1) a 6′ light stand, a shoot through umbrella & a umbrella adapter with hot-shoe connection.


The current set-up has given me extra flexibility, the extra height of the stand & the diffusing capability of the umbrella to soften the shadow.

I did some test shot using the current set-up & I’m quite satisfied with it’s result.

This shot of the bear was taken without the help of the shoot through umbrella. Notice the shadow of the right side?

As you can see the on the next photo, the shadow is more detailed, which is not good in shooting still life or even in portraiture.

So what else is missing?

1. Another speedlight (flash), probably an SB800 or SB600
2. Another light stand
3. Another umbrella or a soft box
4. Umbrella adapter

Good thing that I can take advantage of Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS), this makes the flash (IR/RF) commander optional.

Answers.com defined snoot as nose, while mimi.hu has given a more precise photographic definition of the word. Yes, it resembles a nose (more of an elephant trunk), to which the term has been derived, it’s being use to direct light to a particular location, it is being classified as lighting modifiers.

To further elaborate the practical use of a snoot, I’ve attached 3 photos of my DIY snoot in action. The first photo was taken with a snoot attached to an SB800 flash facing the camera, photo no. was an SB800 directed to a wall without the snoot & the last with a snoot on.

On the third image, you will notice that the scope of the light is smaller & more direct, which precisely what the snoot is for.

Now to try it on a subject, I called on my friend Kobe to be my model on this test. The first photo was taken with direct undiffussed (controlled) flash & the second photo with my DIY snoot.

Notice how the shadow on Kobe’s face added to the drama of the image, whew! This one’s a success, see you in my next experiment.

As a Nikon user, I have the advantage of using the built-in CLS (Creative Lighting System) capability of my cameras, this simply means that I don’t need those fancy (or not so fancy) remote flash triggering devices(i.e. Cactus, pocket wizard, etc.).

With a little bit of hard work & a lot of online reading, not to mention my limited lighting equipment, I’ve deviced my own strobist set-up.

The set-up is basic:

1. The stand is a tripod, this costs me nothing since this was a freebie when I bought my Nikon D80 Camera camera. It quite short since it’s maximum height is just above 4 feet, but just enough for me.
2. The flash is a Nikon SB-800 speedlight attached to a AS-19 Speedlight Stand which comes with the Nikon SB-800 package.

That’s it! That’s gonna be my set-up for now, I’ll be posting my experiments on this blog in the future, I’m currently working on a light modifier called the “snoot”, once the experiment is successful, you will see the sample photos here.