so the general consensus is that parabolic reflectors/softboxes are a bit like pop up beauty dishes then i.e. not what they try to be
Mike
Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that I agree that those I have seen offer little if any improvement over a traditional, deep softbox of another design, and are not truly parabolic anyway, and even if they were truly parabolic, the parabolic effect is almost entirely destroyed by fitting diffusers. This doesn't mean that they aren't good softboxes, it just means that IMO they have few if any benefits to offer.
No, in the sense that I don't entirely accept your premise that folding beauty dishes are not what they try to be. That is in fact true of nearly all, but both Chimera and ourselves have come up with a 16 rib version that does what it says on the tin - it's the more cheaply made (although not always cheaply sold) 8 rib ones that can't work as expected because they send light off in all directions except the right one.
In fact, I would go further and say that ours (and the Chimera) are better than most of the metal beauty dishes, because they are as close to parabolic as we can get.
I say "most" because the only truly parabolic design of metal beauty dish is the Mola, it's far too expensive for most people to buy but it's expensive for a reason.
Coming down a bit, the Bowens version isn't bad, and neither is ours.
Most though aren't real beauty dishes at all, they are tooled by Chinese factories that made the shape for industrial lighting! - it's much cheaper to do that, even though it doesn't work, than to make new tooling for a shape that does work, and the factories that make them neither know nor care what's actually required.
FWIW, I think parabolic and beauty dish are just marketing terms. Or bull crap, to be blunt.
The science of true parabolics and beauty dishes is interesting though difficult to achieve in practise with regular studio equipment. Which makes me think that if there were real, significant benefits, then regular studio equipment would be designed to exploit them.
Either way, I have yet to see a convincing demonstation. Steven sk66 had a good go at it recently and posted a lot of comparisons and explanations but TBH they did nothing for me with subtle differences that I couldn't see taking my studio work forward by even a small step for man. There are plenty more important things on my shopping list, things that can and do make a big difference.
I don't agree with Richard (Hoppy) although I don't entirely
disagree either. I know that a well-designed specialist product DOES produce a very different quality of light to other tools. For example, a beauty dish cannot be emulated by an umbrella, a softbox or anything else. But, I accept that because properly-designed ones are rare, and the badly designed ones don't work, I understand why he says this. Again, if he compared the very best, properly designed beauty dishes then I think that he would agree with me - and, as always, I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is
