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Archive 2013 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...

  
 
20four80five
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


What should I get for a low cost setup.
I'm looking for a beauty dish for portraits.
What do you all recommend for a LIGHT and DISH?

thanks.



Jan 16, 2013 at 03:43 AM
cgardner
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


If you are looking for a studio light it's difficult to beat the value of Buff's AB flashes (AB400 or AB800) and 22" Dish. I use the 22" Dish with and without diffusion cover on my AB800s.

It's a somewhat specialized tool. The disk in the center creates a hole in the center of the light footprint. It used to best effect is in a "butterfly" strategy where the key light is placed on a boom centered and very close to the models face to create a very steep highlight>shadow gradient over the face as it falls off front>back. That's the inverse-square cause and effect: the closer the light the fae greater the rate it falls off.

The problem that light placement and 1/D^2 falloff creates is that the forehead of the model winds up physically closer to the light source making it impossible to get correct exposure on the eye and mouth further away from the light without blowing out the highlights on the forehead. That problem is solved with dish by aiming the "hole" in the middle the disk creates on the forehead and the brighter part of the pattern on the face below the brow.

The characteristics of the footprint change with distance, along with the rate of fall-off. Used more than about 3' away the darker center starts to disappear and the footprint becomes more even. Because it is so flat and shallow it bounces a large amount of "spill fill" off the walls and ceiling. That can be a good thing if wanting light open soft shadows on a white background shot, but can make it difficult to keep a black background and shadows dark when trying to create dark moody look.

Because it spills so much light around I use mine back near the camera as fill. The direct light is even from that distance and a lot bounces off the room space creating a "wrap around" skylight effect. At the same time it creates a very small secondary catchlight in the middle of the black pupil which is very easy to remove with retouching. That's a problem when a larger source is used near axis for fill.




Jan 16, 2013 at 08:56 AM
kenyee
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


Get a Kacey dish.
Get an adapter for whatever light you want to put on it.



Jan 16, 2013 at 11:29 AM
BrianO
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


etchen wrote:
What should I get for a low cost setup.


I like the output from the Kacey dish -- and the Mola, from which the Kacey was copied -- but it's almost impossible to beat the price of the Alien Bees High-output Beauty Dish combined with an Alien Bees monolight.

A definite step up from the AB light would be the Einstein, from the same company.

In looking at your linked Web site, I have to ask: what were you using for light in your studio shots?



Jan 16, 2013 at 08:50 PM
20four80five
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


BrianO wrote:
I like the output from the Kacey dish -- and the Mola, from which the Kacey was copied -- but it's almost impossible to beat the price of the Alien Bees High-output Beauty Dish combined with an Alien Bees monolight.

A definite step up from the AB light would be the Einstein, from the same company.

In looking at your linked Web site, I have to ask: what were you using for light in your studio shots?


I'll look into this, thank you.
as for my current lights, I use 2 speedlights, lastolite ezybox and the second as fill.



Jan 17, 2013 at 06:37 PM
BrianO
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


etchen wrote:
...for my current lights, I use 2 speedlights, lastolite ezybox and the second as fill.


Your shots on your Web page look very good to me; better than many people can get with monolight strobes, let alone Speedlights.

Since you already have and are familiar with Speedlighting, the lowest-cost option I can suggest is the 20-inch RPS Studio BeautiDish (note the spelling). It's specifically designed to work with Speedlights, and includes the dish, two deflectors (one opaque silver and one transluscent white), and a diffusion sock for just under US$140.00.

http://www.canogacamera.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=12642

I've been using mine for a little over a year now, and really like the quality of light I get from it. I also bought the optional 30-degree grid, but haven't used it much. (I use the grid on my 11-inch BeautiDish all the time, as a hairlight or accent light.)

Here are a couple of views of my RPS BD:














Jan 17, 2013 at 11:24 PM
20four80five
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


BrianO wrote:
Your shots on your Web page look very good to me; better than many people can get with monolight strobes, let alone Speedlights.

Since you already have and are familiar with Speedlighting, the lowest-cost option I can suggest is the 20-inch RPS Studio BeautiDish (note the spelling). It's specifically designed to work with Speedlights, and includes the dish, two deflectors (one opaque silver and one transluscent white), and a diffusion sock for just under US$140.00.

http://www.canogacamera.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=12642

I've been using mine for a little over a year now, and really like the quality of light I get from it. I also bought the optional
...Show more

Thanks Brian. Appreciate the feedback :-)

I will definitely look into the RPS Studio BeautiDish. Looks like a fairly simple setup which I love!
do you have any samples of your shots with this thing?



Jan 18, 2013 at 02:55 AM
BrianO
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


etchen wrote:
...I will definitely look into the RPS Studio BeautiDish. Looks like a fairly simple setup which I love! do you have any samples of your shots with this thing?


Not at the moment; nothing that I would post due to my privacy policy. This spring I hope to shoot some comparison tests of various modifiers, and I'll post those at that time.



Jan 18, 2013 at 03:21 PM
Waki
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


Speedotron has a real nice beauty dish for just over $100. You have to do a bit of DIY on it to remove the mount and put whatever you want on there but its pretty cheap and it works real well.

FTX also provides several different sizes of dishes out to 22". He has one that I am sort of thinking about thats 17" and over 6" deep which would be interesting. FTX can do custom work in regards to interior finish and his prices are pretty good. He can supply any mount you can dream up.
http://ftxlightingtools.com/FTXLightingtools/Custom_Beauty_dish.html

I also use an 11" and 14" speedlight dish from Lumodi. Much lighter and plastic but they work very well.

Which ever you go with consider using a grid and diffuser sock. Both offer very different results and extends the usefulness of the dish even more. I put off buying one for so long and its by far my most used modifier now. I'm part of a co-op at a local studio and have gotten the other guys into beauty dishes after we did an open model shoot one Saturday. You can use any light you want to since most any mount works. I would suggest you use something though thats consistent in color and power shot to shot.



Jan 24, 2013 at 06:26 PM
Tom Dix
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Best Beauty Dish and Strobe...


I really like my profoto BD and use profoto pack and head system.
However, the Paul Buff BD and whatever mono fits your budget. Einstein is great and
The WLs or ABs are also quite good. Buff is Easy to recommend. Excellent for the $$.



Jan 28, 2013 at 12:48 AM





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