a quick snooted portrait to practice my technique - I had a Nikon SB600 at 1/32 power through a snoot. I set my aperture first in order to get the exposure for the flash, and then dialled down the shutter speed until I was happy with the fall-off on the background.
If I'd been spending more time on this I'd have used a tripod and a lower ISO. As it is this is handheld and somewhat noisy.
I used small jpegs until I was happy and then shot one in RAW. I like RAW.