Beauty dish

Paintedhead123

Paintedhead123

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Jason
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Hi guys just wondered if anyone could help, I'm thinking about getting a beauty dish and honeycomb cover. I was just wondering if the ones on ebay are any good quality wise, I normally buy all my lighting bits from Lencarta which are always good quality for the price. A 40cm beauty dish white defuser and a honeycomb cover would cost me £100 from Lencarta but on ebay I can get one nearly twice the size with the bits and for a few quid cheaper too. I was more thinking with this not being an a electrical item would I be better off getting the bigger one? any help advice would be great.


Here's the one I've seen on ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Beauty-Di...ories_CameraFlashUnits_JN&hash=item3f1bbc5aaf

Cheers

Jason:)
 
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It will probably be fine as long as you treat it very gently.
 
Are there any reviews of it? I've seen some on ebay that aren't shaped correctly and just scatter light everywhere.
 
Garry Edwards said:
It will probably be fine as long as you treat it very gently.
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Hi Gary thanks for getting back to me I didn't think they'd be up to much I'll stick to the Lencarta one:thumbs: I just noticed on the Lencarta site that they only seem to do a silver in the 40cm beauty dish is there a white available?

Cheers

Jason;)
 
digitalfailure said:
Are there any reviews of it? I've seen some on ebay that aren't shaped correctly and just scatter light everywhere.
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Hi Brian I've not really come across any, I think I'll stick to the Lencarta as everything else I've bought from them as been good quality:)
 
Paintedhead123 said:
Hi Gary thanks for getting back to me I didn't think they'd be up to much I'll stick to the Lencarta one:thumbs: I just noticed on the Lencarta site that they only seem to do a silver in the 40cm beauty dish is there a white available?

Cheers

Jason;)
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There is a white one, but unfortunately it's sold out. More are on their way.
 
TSL also do some good ones on ebay. Think they sell under the Pixapro brand these days.
 
I was reading on a strobist website that the beauty dish is much more effective than a soft box when used with speedlights. Would anyone else recommend these over softboxes for a one or two light set up using only speedlights? I've never used one.
 
scottduffy said:
I was reading on a strobist website that the beauty dish is much more effective than a soft box when used with speedlights. Would anyone else recommend these over softboxes for a one or two light set up using only speedlights? I've never used one.
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You can't recommend a beauty dish 'over' a soft box. They are different things and they produce different light effects.
 
I know that. The question i was asking was would anyone choose a beauty dish over a softbox as apparently there all all sorts of problems with softboxes when used with speedlights including hot spots etc.
 
scottduffy said:
I know that. The question i was asking was would anyone choose a beauty dish over a softbox as apparently there all all sorts of problems with softboxes when used with speedlights including hot spots etc.
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I usually use a beauty dish for portraits, but that's because I love the light. Softboxes are superior for other things though and I think ultimately more versatile. If you buy a good quality soft box with a baffle you won't get hotspots.
 
As above, they're different beasts entirely. If people are getting hotspots from softboxes, I'd say it's more their softbox use than softboxes per se.

Personally I prefer the Westcott style softbox for speedlights, because there might be a tendency for hotspots with a shootthrough style softbox. But if you go for 2 baffles and you're careful with positioning you didn't ought to get problems, in fact you could even add to the inner baffle if you wanted to be extra careful.

If you need a softbox, then get a softbox, if you need a beauty dish, get a beauty dish.
 
I've seen some on ebay that aren't shaped correctly and just scatter light everywhere.
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How can you can tell just by looking at the ebay picture of a beauty dish that it will "scatter light everywhere"
It's that I'm looking for one at ebay prices and need to identify the good ones from the duffers.
 
There are 2 distinct types, rear lit or reflective.

The rear lit ones need an inner baffle in order to avoid hotspots, like this one. There's also another variable, many cheap ones are fiddly to assemble, all the ones I linked are pop up (2 different designs).

Generally, the more you spend the better (as with all things). The other variables are whether to get an Octobox shape, and whether to get a grid for the front.

Sorry I probably added as much to the confusion as I did answering your question.
 
And of course, sometimes you might *want* a hotspot. It's just a different kind of light. Sofboxes you can shoot with the baffles, without the baffles, with a grid, without a grid, with the diffuser, without the diffuser... so many options. My soft boxes I used to use like a silver brolly a lot of the time, really nice light, lovely hotspots...
 
Thanks Charlotte and Phil. Just out of curiosity Phil have you or do you use any of the softboxes you've linked the above post. The three of them look very promising and i'm just about to purchase one.

I've bought from smick before and i like the idea of the umbrella easy opening type softbox but if it doesn't make a huge difference whether it's front or rear facing them i'm not sure which one i should go for.
 
I use one similar to the Ezy Up, it does have a disadvantage in use, you need to do extra work to be able to tilt it to a decent angle, as the opening soon comes up against the stand.
 
I can see that might be a problem. So it can be difficult to angle it down toward your subject even with the tilting bracket that comes with it. How do you get around this then? Have you added a bracket of your own?
 
scottduffy said:
I can see that might be a problem. So it can be difficult to angle it down toward your subject even with the tilting bracket that comes with it. How do you get around this then? Have you added a bracket of your own?
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I've added an old stroboframe bracket to the top of the ballhead which I then mount the flash on, the centro of the brolly is then just above the flash head, solving the issue of the tilt with the bonus of centring the flash too.

I've seen other options, including stand extenders and simple brackets to lift the centre of the brolly.
 
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