An Ultra Narrow Grid Spot for your flash

Last week I made a grid spot from drinking straws for my flashes. You can read about these DIY devices here.

It took me a few hours to build one with 4.5 cm straw fragments. The result was nice. The spot creates a circle of light about 20 cm wide when used from a distance of about 1.5 meters. (Note: In The Netherlands you can find these black straws at the Xenos or the Ikea)

I wished however for a tighter beam of light and wondered if I could use the complete straws in a construction. I'm a bit lazy and didn't want to glue a cardboard/straw assembly together only to discover that it did not work. So I tried the following:


I bundled two packs of straws with two rubber bands (a band on each end) so that they formed a nice circle. I used an already home made snoot as container, c.q. flash mounting device. To prevent light leakage I wrapped a black cloth (a.k.a. a pair of socks) around the straws and put this in the front of the flash mounted snoot:


The result was great! This grid created a spot as shown on the first image. The hot spot is about 5 cm when used from a distance of about 1.5 meters. Not only was it quick to assemble, but this way the snoot can function as a snoot AND a grid spot. So the bundle of straws and the sock get a nice permanent place in my flash bag...