Snoot Focus Light

[DevilEyeDog]

New snooter here. No idea what I'm doing other than I now own a snoot. My current focus light I think is too bright and is adding in too much light to the snoot. What kind of focus lights (red light? white light) do people use to focus their snoot/camera on the subject? If I sound like an idiot it is because I am! I have not taken it under the water yet. Only on land so far. Thanks in advance!

 

[bvanant]

Depends on which snoot. Many snoot systems use the focus light of the strobe it is attached to to figure out where to point the thing. You could use an external focus light that turns off when your strobe fires but in general why not just turn down the power of your focus light
Bill

 

[DevilEyeDog]

The strobe I'm using does not have a focus light and the external light only has one setting. Seems I'm going to have to research some lights that have some other options.

 

[Chris Ross]

Why do you think you focus light is too bright? It is not going to show up in photos unless it is incredibly powerful and most are not that powerful or you are shooting at very wide apertures - the strobe will generally outpower the light. Having said that most focus lights are too bright , you don't need a lot of light to focus with most cameras.

Snooting with a strobe with no focus light could be a recipe for frustration - there are a lot of posts talking about difficulty with aiming a snoot

 

[DevilEyeDog]

I have a big blue which acts as my focus light without issue, but it's pretty powerful. Not all strobes come with their own internal focus light. Yes, I gather that snooting without a focus light could prove almost impossible. Perhaps under water the blue won't seem so bright, but right now it has quite a wide beam.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

I use retra with the keldan attachment. Find it less frustrating than the strobe, but I would
Also suggest the ‘wolf mounting’ setup for snoots if you are just getting started. .

 

[Chris Ross]

I have a big blue which acts as my focus light without issue, but it's pretty powerful. Not all strobes come with their own internal focus light. Yes, I gather that snooting without a focus light could prove almost impossible. Perhaps under water the blue won't seem so bright, but right now it has quite a wide beam.

I don't know what strobe or exactly which light you have but the brightness of strobes and lights is a long way apart - far enough to confidently predict the focus light will have little contribution to the photo. Someone did a test a while back with a 14000 lumens gates light and a YS-D2 strobe - they ended up being 7 stops difference in light with the camera at f2.8 for the video light and f11 or so for the strobe to get the same exposure. Though I agree turn your focus light down - some subjects are very sensitive to light and will leave if you approach them with a bright light.

As far as aiming your snooted strobe - I've heard of a number of ideas you can strap a small light to the snoot to help aim it won't be exactly aligned due to not being on the same axis but al least it'll give you an idea, people even find that a non-centred light in the strobe itself makes it difficult to aim. For aiming though you are going to need a narrow beam a wide beam won't help you much.

 

[deeper thoughts]

I have a snoot for the backscatter mini strobe and the 10bar snoot with laser for the ysd2j strobe.
Have not taken one good shot very frustrating !
Any tips would be greatly appreciated

 

[bvanant]

Snooting is tough. When I snoot I typically mount the strobe with the snoot off camera on a tripod so I can get the aiming right. Alternatively get a dive buddy or guide to help you aim. Of course this assumes your subject is mostly stationary. The new Backscatter mini-strobe/snoot is nice since the aiming light is coincident with the strobe light, the snooted light goes where the focus light is.
Bill