Snoot techniques

Dan Bolt · Issue 128, Sep/Oct 2022 · pp. 38–41

Products mentioned: Marelux SOFT, Sea & Sea YS-D1, Olympus OM-D E-M1, Olympus 14-42mm, Olympus 60mm macro, Olympus 30mm macro

Since you are being treated to Phil Rudin’s superb Marelux SOFT review in this edition of UWPMag I will not try to cover the same ground – I agree whole-heartedly with Phil’s opinion that this is a superbly built and very useful tool that will enhance almost everyone’s underwater photography. In short… I’ll be sad to send mine back. So for a slightly different perspective, Peter (UWPMag editor) asked me to write a bit about snoot usage in general. To explore a few ways that snoots can be used beyond the ‘brightly-lit subject in a pool of black’ style that is all too easy to fall into. Hide the background My most favoured snooting technique it to use the tightness of the light-beam to help isolate a subject from a busy or uninteresting background. This can really rescue a shot that otherwise wouldn’t work, or wouldn’t do justice to the subject. The nudibranch in photo 1 was crawling among…