What size of Beauty Dish

[Renovatio]

Hi,

I recently saw the results from a 70cm and was very impressed with the images.

What would be your reasons for choosing a certain size of beauty dish?
eg. 40, 55, 70cm

Is it as simple as the larger dishes provide greater diffusion or is there something else i am not considering?

Thanks.

 

[Garry Edwards]

The bigger the better, because the bigger it is the more versatile it is. It's a little bit like a softbox (except that the quality of the light is very different and you get a sharp cut off) in that a big one placed close can produce reasonably soft light, it can also be moved further away to cover a larger area or to produce a harder light. A smaller one can't produce soft light because it can't be made large enough, in relative terms.

In a perfect world I'd like beauty dishes to be 1M + and they do exist, but they're expensive, heavy and need a studio with a lot of headroom. IMO the very small ones for hotshoe flashes are useless.

 

[digitalfailure]

I'm pretty much governed by space at home, so I've just bitten the bullet and ordered a 40 odd cm dish. Should arrive in the next few days.

I should be able to use it both on the studio heads and on a speedlite too, so extra possibilites

 

[Renovatio]

thanks for the replies.

Forgot to ask, do you think the warmth from a gold centre section is a worthwhile addition to the standard silver?

 

[Garry Edwards]

thanks for the replies.

Forgot to ask, do you think the warmth from a gold centre section is a worthwhile addition to the standard silver?

No.