BEAUTYDISH

Q. I've read in a lot of your other threads that you use a beauty dish quite often but usually it is a gridded beauty dish.  Is this a specialized beauty dish that accepts a grid or do all beauty dishes accept a grid ( looking through B&H the only gridded dish I saw was a Hensel).  For example I just got a Alien bee beauty dish, can a grid be used with this and how.

I have heard that there is a focus distance to a beauty dish that is ideal is that true?


1) you can use an Speedotron grid on a Alienbee 22inch beauty dish, may take a tweak to the clips but it fits, also on hensel 22inch dishes, again tweak the springclips t stay on tight.

2) there is not a true point of focus, but a relative focus area, the shape will focus the light somewhat and I have often found that a great range for great effect on a BD with no direct light from center is anywhere from 1 foot away to 4 1/2 feet away, beyond that and its fine but begins to lose the effect of it being a beautydish and becomes more of an umbrella, except that a gird can make the light into a smaller tighter area than a huge sprad of an umbrella. 

Because I know its coming I will give some more info on them.


Below are a few examples, all with grid several different dishes, I am not a huge fan of an unmodified mola, the spedotron blackline dish is my favorite followed by a hensel silver with deflector, not the center grided one or at least not using a center grid,  I do not use dishes without overall grids unless I am outside using it as a sun from far away.   Broncolor makes a nice one also. 

As I said I only use them with grids, without it you might as well use an umbrella, much cheaper and lighter.  The speedotron has a diffused center I would place a mirror behind it reflecting the light back at the head and a black circle to cut the center so no light comes through, you could also leave a white center once the mirror back is in place light cannot go through anyway.   many other brands of dishes including alienbee are 22inch diameter and as such the speedotron grid will fit any 22inch,  you may have to adjust the clips to hold it tighter or just weld it one I woudl it never comes off and if I needed it without one outside I woudl use something else instead I also  have a few custom made with tighter degrees but the speedotron is cheap, easy and works great no need to have any made unless you have some lighting companies looking to do something for you. 

I like to control spill, flags can but the grids are very directional more so than a flag or barndoors or snoot even if its a tight grid.  I have grids on almost everything except umbrellas, fresnels, and obscure things like likesticks, globes, and glowing objects, I use them on Softboxes, Octobanks, octoboxes, striplights, lightbars, even my snoots have a grid.  I would grid my grid if I could,  I think I have a control issue I need to deal with.....

Now I am including many samples, mainly because I figure if I gave some examples it would show some range of a BD without a major variation in photographer style vast difference is technique or majot model quality location shifts that cloud the issue more, so hopefully you get more of a feel for what the dish can do for you.

I never use the sock, but no its not the same, the sock diffuses the light and spreads it out more, if you use a grid the silver has more specular punch and snap and the white a bot softer snap to it but both will follow a grid path well and tight a diffuser will all but kill the grid effect and control

You can always paint a white with mettalic silver or a silver you can sand down and paint white if you really have a need and desire for them.

And what the silver dish does in a more general sense compared to the white, in non technical terms, (depending on which silver, smooth or rough, patterned or bumpy etc) is it creates high and brighter sources of light from the mirrored surfaces as compared to the less bright reflections out so when adjusting for the light to keep the highlights you lose some of the lower end and get a more vast shift from highlight to shadow creating deeper shadows and bright highlights.  A white dish has a more uniform light reflecting outward creating uniform highlughts and shadows (within reason) which acts as the highlughts and fill on the surface of the skin thereby softeneing the shadows.

That is obviously non technical and it is designed more to help people get a vision in their head of what is happening with the dish.

NO,  if you could do it with limited equipment there would be no point to them still being made, this is not like fashion, people in this field buy based on desired outcome, not look, so if you could get it from another item you would.  That said a BD without grid is not much different from an umbrella, and the nearest effect without getting a large reflector and making a BD which is just making one, would bt to get a small softbox or octodome, say a 19" to 25inch and then with no diffuser on it mount a mirror in front of the light and bounce the light back so its basically a beauty dish, than get a grid for the box.  This will likely cost more than a BD and grid would so I see no point.  Many people never used a BD and have great stuff, if you look around my main site there is plenty more there that is not done with a BD and its all OK looking for not using a BD and grid to get it   so its not needed, its an option that some use rarely, some never some often and some shoudl have them taken away and there camera replaced with a brick so as to not cause my eyes to bleed when seeing what they produced   but in any event use what you have available and make it work how you like it, you will find that its SO NOT THE TOOL, the tools do nothing but give you some options and make things easier or harder to do, and basically they give you something to keep you busy playing with so you don't get bored and fall into the same old routine everyday.

And I love frensels,  I have broncolor, speedotron and hensel ones, in 6inch, 4 inch, 8 inch 12 inch and 14 inch they are all killers!!!!  very cool, and at up to 6400ws on the brons and 4800ws on the speedos I can light up the moon when I need a full one 

©Stephen Eastwood 2008 www.StephenEastwood.com www.StephenEastwood.com/bio www.StephenEastwood.com/tutorials