Benefits of a beauty dish

Farno

Farno

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Neil
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I read somewhere that a beauty dish will give nice round catch lights, is this true.
What benefits over soft boxes do they have and what draw backs?
 
Well it is round so what other shape of catchlights would you expect? ;)

I like it because it IS more robust, smaller, easier to handle and gives a great light compared to a softbox.
Disadvantage = price. Mine was something like £350.
 
Yes, you get lovely round catchlights with a beauty dish. Are you going for a silver or white dish? Silver is more contrasty and less forgiving if your subject has anything less than flawless skin.

It's a different light to softboxes. More contrast and light falloff is sharper towards the edges.

Drawbacks: Can be heavy once you get over 20-22". They're also not cheap if you go for one like Ali's. If you want to add a grid and/or diffusion sock, factor in another £100-£150 on top.

BouncyMelons said:
Well it is round so what other shape of catchlights would you expect? ;)

I like it because it IS more robust, smaller, easier to handle and gives a great light compared to a softbox.
Disadvantage = price. Mine was something like £350.
Click to expand...

Mola 22" by any chance Ali?
 
You get similar light from a silver brolly. You can't use them so close because the shaft is in the way but they're bigger, so they're okay a bit further away. And of course the eye highlights aren't quite so clean and round (Photoshop?).

I think the main difference is a kind of practical one - it's nice to be able to put the light close with max control, minimal spill and loads of ISL fall-off behind.
 
The light from a beauty dish is contrasty and very controlled. Put a honeycomb on it to increase the effect or when using it for backlighting (can't do that to an umbrella) and put a diffuser on it to soften the light, basically making it very similar to a perfectly round softbox. See http://www.lencarta.com/2010010398/modifiers-beauty-dish/index.php on the Lencarta website or just buy a 70cm one here for £110
 
TimSandhu said:
Mola 22" by any chance Ali?
Click to expand...

Bowens with a couple of grids Tim. Cost a packet but I've had it for three years now and it's probably been used in preference to the softbox almost every time. I did also get a trigrip so when I use it well above a model I can use the trigrip thingie to bounce light back up a la clamshell.

Now where's a model when you need one? :naughty:
 
ScarySquirrel said:
Got any shots of the dish itself and some results?
Click to expand...

This MK1 version was really an experiment, it looks rubbish but does seem to work quite well, I haven't used it in anger though as I'm short of one component to finish it off (I need one of those little convex (?) stick on mirrors you can get for your cars blindspot.

MK2 will look better and work better, when I eventually get round to it.

I'll try to upload some pics at some point but that may be a while, got my hands full with poorly babies at home right now :'(
 
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