DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Colored)

This will be the last post of this month and with it I would like to make an improvement to something I had already built.

I already changed the normal snoots (Part 1 and Part 2) to colored one's so now it's time to make the same with the famous Black Straws Snoot Grid.

Some people have been asking about if colored straws would not do the trick but then again you will be stuck with that specific color in your bag and there aren't too many straws with nice colors unless you would want some green or orange fluorescent on somebodies background or head.

Anyway this will be a complement of the DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Part 1) and the DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Part 2) I posted.

I will not post the assembly here again, instead I will only show you what I have changed from the previous one.

And remember if you would like to have the Lee filters attached to your flash without having to worry with Velcro and at no cost just take a look at DIY: Lee Filters Flash Adapter.

Starting out with a new one I decided to make this one a little bit longer, so instead of having 5cm long I raised it 1cm more so it will handle better the insertion for the Filter Gel.

The measures are the same except the length for the 580Ex (I noticed that they will also fit on the SB-26):

1cm, 4,5cm, 7cm, 4,5cm, 7cm and length 6cm and straws 2cm length.



You get the ruler and while peaking at inside to see where the straws end (mine were at about 3cm from the edge) you mark the cutting line. This will be where the Filter Gel will enter.



With a sharp knife or something sharp you will cut from bottom to top like on the above image. Just remember to cut on the side where the box is not glued, this way would be easier to pass the gel in.



As you can see this is a simple way to do it. If you have already made one of this Snoots then you just have to cut it in and you are rockin'.

Do not worry about those straws that are not covered with the Gel, after you inserted the flash, they will not catch the light anyway.



Can you see it working with a nice Violet color??

Wait... I have some more for you!



Now let's wrap it up to look more "Professional".
PAY ATTENTION to the hole. DO NOT under any circumstances cover the hole with tape or else you will end up with tape on the Gel Filter ruin it and we don't want that, RIGHT!!



I changed the Color from Purple Rain to some kind of Tequila Sunset Red. COOL!!!

Now let see what we can do when we hire a Professional model for the job :)



Professional Model with Black Straws Snoot Grid Colored on the background.

Hey let's lit the guy ;)



Hey, Hey, Hey let's wait a minute how did I end up here ??

The photographer sucks, look at the background light it almost vanished and he just put so much light on me... broad day sun ;)

Oh well, it looks like when you wanna do both things at the same time neither will come right just look at my smiling face :)



For the last of the sequence the setup shot.

Canon 580Ex camera left with the Black Straws Snoot Grid Colored 1/4 at 105mm, SB26 camera right shot through the white umbrella 1/2 at 14mm.
Camera ISO 100, Tv200 and Aperture 9.0.

Thanks to all for the support and stay tuned for more good stuff.

Also take a look at these:
DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Part 1)
DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Part 2)

DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Part 1)

Hi again and welcome,

here is a new idea you can start doing by yourself.

When I was on one of my trips, this time to London, for a great Strobist Seminar we went into a Mexican restaurant and as by David advice on getting all the Black Straws you could pick I decided to try my luck.

I ask the waitress if I could get some black straws and she just said grab the one's you like... so as you can imagine I took 2 hands full of them !!!! :)

Later on I decided that was time to put together the so talked snoot grid but I could not imagine how to assemble it, since I have never did it before. I then realized that a lot of people also did not bother to assemble it, maybe because of lacking how or because they simply did not know what was it all about.

In this, 2 parts simple, "Do It Yourself" I will show you first how to assemble the "THING" and then, on the second part, I show some examples on what you could accomplish with them just in terms of lighting conditions.


These are designed for the flashes  have at the moment, the Nikon SB-26 and the Canon 580EX but you can always design to fit your own.


So let's start...

Working table with all the gear needed to assemble the Black Straws Snoot Grid.

- Black duct tape
- Cereal Box (Any type or any kind)
- Scissors
- Glue
- Hand full of Black Straws (0,5 cm diameter)
- Ruler
- Portable flash to try it out later
- Pen

This is the design on the cereal card box for the 2cm Black Straws Snoot Grid. There is an error on the calculation between the picture and the real thing since I have some Velcro at the flashes end and it gives 0,2cm more to each side (If you have the Velcro at the end of your flash use the measures on the picture instead), sorry but I only noticed it now here goes correct the measures:

1 cm, 4,5 cm, 7cm, 4,5cm, 7cm and length 5 cm

This will give 2cm for the straw and the other 3 to fit in the flash and will fit on SB26 and 580EX

This is the design on the cereal card box for the 5cm Black Straws Snoot Grid.
This fits on SB26 and 580EX:

7cm, 4,5cm, 7cm, 4,5cm, 1cm and length 8cm

This will give 5cm for the straw and the other 3 to fit in the flash.

Cut with scissors the card box as showed.

After cutting the card box use the ruler to help you bend the card box on the marks.

After bending all the parts here is how it should become.

After bending all the parts here is how it should become. Do not glue it yet!! On my left hand you can see the 1cm part that will be for assembling the structure together.

Cut the straws with scissors and pay attention that they tend to pop out after each cut ;). Illustration for the 2cm cut for the 5cm is the same only the straw pieces would come out bigger.

Now it's time to glue them to the card box. Start to glue them to the longest part of the card box this way will be easier to glue everything later on.Start to align them at the front of the card box... don't mind if the back part (the one that stays inside the card box) is not precisely align it will work anyway. What you have to keep in mind is to align the front.

Here you can see some of the straws on the back are not aligned but they are glued :)

First row now glued this is what it will look like after all of them are glued. Carry on gluing...

A couple of rows later...

A couple of rows later...

Try it out before you close it... this way you can ad or remove straws so it can stay aligned.

The inside after all the gluing has finished.

Done. This is how it look after it's finished.

Now tape it to look more professional and to cover those unpaid ads :)

Here are the 5cm (L) and the 2cm (R) with that black tape professional look :), just look through them, you can even see what will be coming out of this...

Hope you like this photo tutorial and make use of this tools since they are very good and if you loose one you can always make another ;)

Don't miss part 2 of this series since it will bring you some examples how you can use your new Black Straws Snoot Grids.

Until next time... go shoot!!!

DIY: Black Straws Snoot Grid (Part 2)

And also check a colored version I just came up with.