using a beauty dish
I recently photographed Seregon again, but this time on location in Manhattan.
The lighting was simple - a beauty dish that was held up by my assistant …
What fascinated me about the beauty dish is that it seems to be a type of ‘holy grail’ lighting tool. On the photography forums, photographers who have never even used a beauty dish, will be quick to recommend it. So in that sense it seems like a beauty dish is the in thing to have when it comes to lighting.
I guess that was part of what drove me to get one when I bought the Profoto AcuteB powerpack for extra power for on-location lighting. The Q-flashes I have been using just didn’t have the oomph! that I wanted at times. When I got the Profoto powerpack, it was just a small step to get that beauty dish as well.
But in the first few times I tried the beauty dish, (with Seregon and Kathy as my models), I felt that the beauty dish was too specialized .. a niche lighting tool. But I have now changed changed my mind on the usability of the beauty dish – just on the basis of this latest shoot ..
Since it was overcast, I didn’t have to drown out the sun with flash – which is actually what I wanted to play around with on this shoot. But the cloudy day nixed that idea. We also unfortunately we rained out before I could play around some more, but the few images that I got, I really liked the light from the unmodified beauty dish used like this on location.
What also really impressed me was the speed of setting up. It takes time to set up a softbox (which is also bulky). The beauty dish however, is sooooo easy to set up. You whip it out of the carry case, fasten the clamp on the flash-head, and you’re set. Set-up time .. less than 60 seconds. And when it started to rain, it was just as quick to break it down. Un-clamp the beauty dish, slip it into the carry case, and zip up the case for the powerpack. I kept the powerpack in the Profoto shoulder bag.
Simplicity itself. Powerpack in the bag .. one fat cable to the flash-head which is clamped to the beauty dish .. and the beauty dish held up by my assistant. Lightweight, with tons of juice if need be … and with sweet sweet light.
Equipment used:
Nikon D3 (B&H)
Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S (B&H)
Profoto AcuteB 600R power-pack (B&H)
Profoto beauty dish (B&H)
For anyone who is curious what a beauty dish actually looks like:
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Hello!
Nice article. As usual interesting to read.
By the way, you have an error in href on Profoto AcuteB 600R power-pack. It points to Nikon 24-70 on bhphoto
Best regards,
Boris
Comment by Boris Glazyrin — March 13, 2009 @ 1:12 am
Comment by Neil — March 13, 2009 @ 1:19 am
Neil,
Many of your statements about light modifiers and light quality are based on the fact that: large light source (relative to subject) = soft light. How is it then that this beauty dish (which isn’t all that big) can produce “sweet, sweet light”?
Comment by Daniel — March 13, 2009 @ 10:27 am
Comment by Neil — March 15, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Niel, thank you so much for sharing. I applaud you for putting so much useful information on your site – it is clear that a lot of care and passion went into it. Do you have a pull-back so that we can see where the beauty dish is in comparison to the model? From the shadows, it would seem that it is over and to her right. Since you have sunlight mixed in, I was confused. Thanks so much.
Comment by James Johnson — March 22, 2009 @ 4:57 pm
Comment by Neil — March 22, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
Just curious, but in the second shot, did you use another strobe, or did you post process out the shadow on the ground? I would expect to see a much more pronounced shadow from a single beauty dish shot.
Comment by Mike — March 23, 2009 @ 7:26 am
Comment by Neil — March 25, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
I have recently acquired and have been experimenting with a beauty dish. Initially I found the light to be quite hard and contrasty so I have been reading up on them including all your posts on beauty dishes. I think my main problem was that I was too far away and have now bought the light closer to my subject. Also I dont think I was not taking time to meter properly and was hence over exposing getting some really ugly hot spots. Now I have calmed down and slowed down a bit I am getting much better results. Thanks for your help and advice.
Comment by Tony Sale — October 11, 2011 @ 3:44 pm