Bowens Optical Snoot Taper Spotlight, Photo Studio Lighting Accessories with 34 Gobos and 5 Colour Filters, Compatible with Aputure Amaran Godox Neewer LED Video Speedlite Light

In spite of some other reviewers I found this easy to use and gives excellent results. There are little instructions, but common sense will help to assemble and put to use. No worries!

Currently this meets my needs for snoot and spotlight photography. The variety of stencils brings a lot of creativity to my photo shoots.

If you’re new to using an optical snoot, this is a great deal. But you’ll quickly discover its limitations which allow a sub-$100 price tag. But it’s still worth the money. You get a lot of gobos in the package (34 different shapes, and 5 color filters), and it does what it needs to do. Read below for limitations or important things to consider. What you need to know: all optical snoots EAT light. It’s not the same as fresnel light that increases your output, but instead condenses it. So MINIMUM you need a 300w strobe. It fit perfectly into the bowens mount on my GODOX MS300 strobe. But even then at f5.6 I had to run it at its highest power 10-12’ from the backdrop to get the output I wanted. I did not have the modeling light tube installed. It probably would still just fit with the modeling bulb in, but I worry it would get too hot. It did get pretty warm after a few hours use on a shoot, not so hot it would burn you, but I let it cool for a couple minutes before packing away. It’s built pretty well for being so inexpensive. I wouldn’t drop it, and there’s a lot of plastic, but it doesn’t feel super cheap either. It’s got some weight to it, it’s at least as heavy as my strobe, if not heavier. Consider this if you plan on booming it out, you’ll need good counterweight and a strong boom arm if you’re using a heavy light. I used it on a standard light stand (heavy duty air cushioned stand $30-$40 from flashpoint). Functionality is where it really shows its limits. It didn’t come with any instructions but it’s not hard to figure out either. There’s a metal screw that holds the barrel to the mount, you loosen this to rotate the barrel to change the orientation of the projected shape (turn it upside down etc). But if you unscrew it too far, the snoot comes apart, it’s not a big deal, easy to put back and tighten. It does not appear to “zoom” allowing you to increase or decrease the size of the shape on the wall. I could be wrong, but I couldn’t find a way to do this. As for focusing, you twist the lens at the very front, but this too comes off if you unscrew it, I believe this is where you put the color filters. If you screw it fully on it’s very sharp, if you loosen it, it’s less focused and more blurry. This does the job, but isn’t the best. I also noticed some halation in my shots (faint discoloration of light around the shapes). It’s not a deal breaker but it does cheapen the effect slightly. I was able to deal with a lot of this in editing. This does not have cutters. Cutters are the built in 4 blades that allow you to cut the light into basic shapes yourself, having a lot more control. I knew that going in to this though. More expensive units have these, as well as the ability to change lenses (often using a canon ef mount) this means you’d be able to change from wide angle to telephoto lenses and get different sizes of projections (or use a zoom lens to adjust the size to taste). But these cost more than 2x the price of this item (Neewer is about $250 and Flashpoint is $299, pro snoots are more like $500+). I’m happy with the purchase, and it’s a decent piece of kit to have handy if you’re not using this type of modifier on every single shoot. But as a creative tool to make your backgrounds more interesting or add some texture to your image, it’s great. But if you’re going to be using a snoot frequently and need efficiency and ease of use, I’d spring for something a little more advanced. And make sure you have a bright light to shine through it!

Gets too hot makes gel color filters melt

I've been using this for the past year and it's been working great. It fits the Neewer F5150 B perfectly. It gets hot to the touch but I'm sure that's so be expected. The little shapes and colors it comes with are simple but great. I've taken a lot of pictures and videos using this and I couldn't be happier.