What you need:

• Heavy duty scissors
• Flash
• Case that flash came with

The case comes for free with your flash. I almost never use mine, but after the modifications I actually do. Notice that the inside is lined with a nice black felt that absorbs light like my girlfriend’s cleavage.

Cut a hole in the bottom, staying inside the stitching

Now you DIY guys, you can leave it like this and make a little velcro tab to flip it open and to close it, but again I’m too lazy to do that



After cutting the whole end:

Now you can use the case (wary of the open end, but it protects it well). WHen you use it on the flash, tuck the little flap into the space meant for the plastic stand:

And TADA!!!

Now for some tests about four feet from my wall o’ photos

24mm

105mm

24mm with snoot

105mm with snoot

I was surprised to see that when you narrow the light in-flash down to 105mm, it actually creates more light falloff. That must be due to the angle of light exiting the flash. You’ll use more power at 24mm, but the edge is nice and crisp.

The nice thing is I can carry the snoot with the flash, eating up no space at all in my bag and protecting the flash from damage (I put the flash bulb end in first to protect it with the bottom of the case). We used this at the first LA Strobist meeting and the guys seemed to like it.

I used my Canon 40D with the 16-35mm f2.8 and a 580ex flash, which all total to more than $3K. I wanted a way to incorporate my camera into the costume to take pictures in a fun way. My girlfriend said, “Why don’t you put it in a stuffed animal?” and I was like, “Yeah, I’ll be in pajamas and take pictures out of his butt…”

This was the unintended affect of shooting out of his butt (photos by a friend)



I forgot that my face would be in his crotch the whole night. Everyone thought I was either a pervert or a child molester. Great! But at least I got to take my camera to a bar with NO hassles at the front door.

Here is the front before and after lifting the front flap



Here is the back, including the IR sensor port made with a toilet paper tube. I could lift the back of the shirt to all IR light metering and focusing if it was too dark.

And here is where the flash with a plastic omni-bounce attached came out of the back of his neck. This gave overhead bounce lighting that made the pics look much better than all the point and shoots.

Note that I had to insert the two parts separately and attach them inside of the bear. Here are examples of it in action. Notice the overhead lighting and soft shadows (compare that to the flat flashed look of point and shoots). Oh yeah, looking at a bear’s butt made almost everyone laugh or smile and made the camera less intimidating than it usually is.