DIY Beauty Dish for portable flash

[texxter]

This afternoon I built the David Tejada variation of a beauty dish for my SB-800 flash. It was really simply and fun to make. What I like the most about it is that it's ultralight!

The kids and my wife Stella were out most of the afternoon, so without interruptions it took me about an hour and $10 to build this thing. I really love the light it produces! It's dramatic with soft edges. The contraption eats up more than one stop of light, but that's ok by me, as I don't mind shooting with a wide aperture.

I could only have a few minutes of "volunteer posing" from my son and my wife, enough to show me that I will be using the beauty dish often.

Here are three pictures, my two models and the beauty disk itself with the SB800 velcro'd to it, again using David Tejada's idea. He's a great photographer, by the way!

D700 with 85mm f/1.4 lens, 1/250s, f/4, ISO200, flash at pretty low power, 1/16 I think, with the beauty dish about 2ft from the suject. In Stella's portrait I positioned the disk to be almost centered to get butterfly lighting. No reflectors were used as I was evaluating the light produced by the dish.

[Darkman]

I *LOVE* DIY lighting. I've got a ring flash made from a coffee can that I haven't had the chance to test yet. Thanks for this one. Now I've got a new project!

[Lexie]

Nice Paco. Thanks for sharing the images and the DIY link. I'm going to make one of these. Did you put mirrors in your also? If so how and what kind? I understand everything but how the mirrors are attached.

[JohnT]

Sweet. :-) Another thing to add to my list.

[texxter]

Thanks, guys. Debbie, I bought a convex mirror at Pep Boys for $2 and change. The mirror comes wth an adhesive back that sticks to the inside of the CD cover.

[Lexie]

OH!!!!!!!! Well Duh! After looking at the tutorial again, I see, I see!! Thanks again.

[srwatters]

One of the main disadvantages to using a speedlight for this type of modifier is that the head is designed to operate specifically as a direct device. Studio strobes have the advantage of the bare flash tube being exposed with the ability to direct the light in all directions and not just straight forward. The reason this device loses so much power is that you're relying on a convex mirror to redirect the output into the dish. The typical studio dish uses the center element to simply block the direct output and allow the side and rear output from the bare tube to reflect onto the dish surface. I think you might have better luck designing such a dish with the strobe firing back into the dish rather than using a double reflection style with the mirror.

Interesting project if you like to tinker. It does give softer light than direct, but I'd wager there is little difference when compared to a Fong dong style diffuser. YMMV.

[texxter]

Scott, I've got a real beauty dish for my studio strobe, which weighs a ton. It should be straightforward for me to run a test with the two beauty dishes.

Even if it diffuses the same as a Fong sphere, it costs 4 times less. But it's directional, and my understanding is that the Fond sphere is not, although I don't have one and haven't researched it. I could be wrong on this.

[babybluetx23]

the fong sphere is omni directional. i have one that i LOVE and use all the time. i have the cloud. it diffuses better then the original imho

[srwatters]

If you have the Alien Bee beauty dish, I'll agree it's a tank. The Hensel dish I have weights about 1/2 of what the Paul Buff unit does. I also have the option of changing the inner disc with a grid to give even more directionality similar to a fresnel lens modifier.

I'm not dissing your DIY device, just suggesting an improvement because as designed, it is too inefficient and you will end up stressing the flash tube to shoot it at lower ISO or smaller apertures. But then again with the D700 (or D3), you don't need all that much power. Another thing to look at is the ratio of the flat portion of your dish to the sides. Most purpose built dishes have much more 'back' than side as your DIY does. Another reason for the device's low efficiency.

I'm no lover of the Fong dong either, but when on location and I don't want to carry studio gear, it gives me the option of softer diffused light which can be mixed with ambient for some nice results. I used mine this weekend to shoot ID card mug shots for my 10 year old's soccer team. Much better than the stock diffuser or bare flash.