beauty light

[lee nadel]

hi has anyone had any experience with the speedotron 22'beauty dish. thanks

[ScottPhotoCo]

I have a Mola beauty dish and quite like it.

[StoneNYC]

I have a Profoto in both white and silver with honeycombs, what's your question?

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I have two of the Speedo dishes. They are nicely made and compare favorably (especially in price) to the Mola dishes, however Mola has many more sizes.

[Scott Davis]

I just got a Fotodiox 18" beauty dish from Amazon. It came with a grid and a diffusion sock, and the mounting ring is interchangeable so if you switch lighting brands, you can just get a new mounting ring without having to buy all new accessories. I also have this fancy one on the way from Bowens, the Bowens Softlite, which works like a traditional beauty dish, but also has a split-personality diffuser - the outer ring is frosted opal diffusion, and the center core has a 7" grid and no diffusion, so you can combine both soft and hard light in the same shot.

The upside of the Fotodiox unit is that it was cheap. While the brand name ones may be prettier or made from heavier-grade aluminum, they all work pretty much the same, so I don't see a really good reason to pay a several hundred dollar premium for a Profoto or Broncolor. The Bowens Softlite is different in that it does something that other beauty dishes don't do with the split diffusion/grid, so for that I'm willing to pay a bit extra.

[Peter De Smidt]

I have a regular 22" Speedotron reflector. It's a quality piece. Like Scott, I also have a Fotodiox beauty dish, maybe 36"? The main difference is that the Fotodiox had a piece to bounce direct light from the flash. On the plus side, the grid is very useful. There are a few quality issues, but none are serious. Generally, beauty dishes offer a more specular light than soft boxes or Octo, although the important thing really is relative size compared to the subject, i.e. how big the light source looks from the subject's position.

[Scott Davis]

I have a regular 22" Speedotron reflector. It's a quality piece. Like Scott, I also have a Fotodiox beauty dish, maybe 36"? The main difference is that the Fotodiox had a piece to bounce direct light from the flash. On the plus side, the grid is very useful. There are a few quality issues, but none are serious. Generally, beauty dishes offer a more specular light than soft boxes or Octo, although the important thing really is relative size compared to the subject, i.e. how big the light source looks from the subject's position.

Also bear in mind that the quality of the light will change based on the interior coating of the dish as well... the one I got is smooth white. You can also get them in a sparkly silver finish, and I recall seeing some that were gold inside as well, although when I was shopping for this one I did not see any. I have seen the center reflector get painted gold to add just a touch of warmth to the light.

[Ari]

Yesterday, the postman dropped off a sort of multi-purpose softbox, I should say octabox, rather.
It has a built-in beauty dish, and can quickly be converted to softbox use, with grid as well.
The interior I chose is silver, but they are available in white.
As soon as a flash trigger arrives, I'll see how it performs under real-world shooting.

About $100 on eBay for the Alien Bees version.

[Neal Chaves]

Here's a little test I did with a Norman 22" beauty dish vs. a medium Photoflex soft box. Light loss was almost exactly the same with both modifiers. The Beauty dish has a slightly warmer color rendition and produces a round reflection as opposed to a rectangular one for the soft box. You be the judge.