Macro & Super Macro Underwater Photography Made Easy With a Snoot

Why using a snoot is difficult?

I started taking photos underwater two years ago. During my first intensive underwater photography in Anilao, Philippines, I noticed the advantage of using a snoot for controlling the light of a strobe. I also noticed how much its users struggle to direct it and align the light beam with the object and simultaneously focus.

I joined another Bluewater Travel macro photography workshop in December, 2019, and I decided to use a snoot. Before the trip I did some tests, diving in Eilat, Israel, which were not that successful. It was difficult to align the focus point, to change the angle of the light beam, and once you succeeded, many times the strobe and snoot moved due to gravity.

The basic problem was mounting a heavy strobe with a snoot on a long structure made of 2 arms with three clamps, which needs to be rigid enough to withstand gravity, but loose enough to enable the photographer to shift positions smoothly in a controlled way.

The Wolf* mounting method that eliminates most difficulties

The Wolf method, which I describe here, solves the problem. The key point is to replace the single arm that is attached to the housing by a rigid triangle structure which is made of two long (8” to 12”) arms that are attached to the housing and a short additional arm, held together by a triple clamp. This structure provides the rigid basis upon which the strobe is hung, utilizing an additional 5” arm.

*Mounting method by Ze’ev (Wolf* in English) Kirshenboim

The key advantages of the Wolf method

• Solid and steady

• Easy to change the distance from the object photographed and re-align the light beam

• Easy to switch between front, top, back and side illumination

• Easy to modify the angle of the light beam

• Works very well also with super macro 

• Easy to capture moving critters (!)

• Easy to mount even with two diopters. See two images below.

• Easy access to the strobe dials (at least with the front lighting)

Using Wolf mounting commits the photographer to use the snoot or a single strobe for the entire dive. That said, my (admittedly short) experience is that the images with the snoot are so much better that I did not want to switch back to one or two strobes without a snoot.

I used a strobe with focus light and a snoot with focus light. It is recommended, but not mandatory. The method can be used also with a fiber optics snoot without a focus light. The fine-tuning part of the procedure below will be different, and I leave it to the advance user who uses such a snoot to figure it out by themselves.

Setting up the system

Top lighting

To change from front to top lighting, rotate the strobe. If the distance to the object is long, then you might have to loosen clamps #1, 2 a little and tilt the triangle forward by pushing clamp # 3 forward. 

Again, make sure that the light beam is aligned with the focus point when the strobe is moved forwards and backwards. 

In the gallery, I include images taken during my first intensive attempt with a snoot and the Wolf’s mounting method for macro and super macro images in Anilao, The Philippines. 

Give it a try and enjoy. The chances are that it will significantly elevate your level of macro and super macro images. 

Gallery