I own a lot of modifiers. My studio contains Broncolor Hazylights, old fresnels that are as rare as hens’ teeth, and softboxes of pretty much every size from under a meter to so big I can stand inside them, but this latest addition is the one that has helped me.

I have never been that interested in camera bodies or lenses, as they just don’t excite me all that much. However, give me an interesting lighting modifier to look at, and I am all over it. My two favorite modifiers have always been the Bowens Softlighter and the Broncolor Hazylight. Sadly, neither are in production anymore and haven’t been for a very long time, so I spend a lot of time online trying to find them, as I stash them away in my studio like the eccentric British photographer that I am. 

Before Christmas, I purchased a few old optical snoots to play with, and I was pretty impressed with them, but the old modifiers had a few faults, mostly due to age. I then picked up a budget optical snoot from PixaPro, which is also known as Godox around most of the world.  The one I went for came with a lens (I’m not keen on putting high-end optics in front of a hot modeling light) and is called the Optical Snoot Spot Projector with Built-In 85mm Lens Complete Kit. The kit itself is very good value for money, although to use it to its full potential, you are going to want at least 1,200 watts of light.

In this video, I talk about the pros and cons of this affordable optical snoot from Pixapro as well as show examples of how I have used it.