Further explorations with the beauty dish, and also with some bounce-flash technique.
This time, Seregon was my model.
With a previous shoot using the Profoto AcuteB 600R lighting kit (B&H) and the Profoto beauty dish (B&H), I found that the grid on the beauty dish gave me lighting which was too hard for my liking, when using the beauty dish as my single light. The image above was taken with just the beauty dish. A Q-flash provided the highlight on the grey backdrop.
I love this photo of Seregon, since it shows her personality clearly. So the success of this image hinges on the model being a delight to work with, and also the lighting. (I have to take a little bit of credit here too.) The post-processing of the image involved converting the RAW file to a warm-tinted B&W image using a preset in ACR that I like. After touching up a few blemishes, I used a Photoshop action to create a softer image and a slight vignette.
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With this image, I used the beauty dish, but added a fill light from camera right at 3 stops under my main light. The light here was from a Q-flash softened by a Westcott Bruce Dorn Strip Bank (18?x42?) (B&H) … and this gave me lighting that I really liked – directional but soft. Camera settings: 1/250th @ f11 @ 200 ISO)
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Just as an experiment, I thought I’d see what was the best results I could get from an on-camera speedlight bounced into the small living room. The following two images are from that sequence. Camera settings: 1/250th @ f4 @ 640 ISO. It’s obvious that I can’t match the brute power of the Profoto powerpack with that of a speedlight. But in carefully choosing the direction that I bounce my flash, I can still get similar-ish results in terms of directional lighting.
The only light source for both these images was an on-camera speedlight. No other light on the background .. yet, there is that interesting pattern on the backdrop. I got lucky here. In finding the best direction for this kind of light on my model, I bounced flash forward from the camera’s viewpoint, into the window that can be seen in this pull-back shot. The way that the flash bounced off the glass, gave that pattern. I love it. An unexpected little bonus. (And yes, that’s my sexy red van that can be seen in the driveway.)
To make sure that I get NO direct flash on my model, and that all my light is indirect, I used the Black Foamie Thing (tm). This is hugely important. I did not use any generic light modifier, but was very careful in how I directed the light from my on-camera flash.
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And just for fun, a grab-shot of Seregon as she flipped her hair back at the start of the photo session.
[ all images, except the pull-back shot: Nikon D3; Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR ]
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I’m in love with the light from the beauty dish. Finances won’t bring one into my studio any time soon, however I have been closely watching the DIY beauty dish for strobes around the net…sigh…someday. Nice shots.
Comment by Michael Warf — January 22, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
You know, I think I prefer the speedlight photos to the almighty profoto example(s) in this particular case. That’s pretty darn unexpected. Great post.
Comment by Charles — January 23, 2009 @ 2:26 am
Great shots! I prefer the speedlight shots too! The beauty dish pictures do look great (very Vogue!) but to my eye the speedlight ones are more natural and softer. You also lucked out with the pattern on the backdrop which is missing in the profoto lit shots which imo adds to whole look and feel. Excellent examples as usual.
Best wishes from accross the pond
Alex Harmer
Comment by Alex — January 23, 2009 @ 3:48 am
To me, the beauty dish is of niche use. I also prefer speedlights. It just goes to show that not every expensive camera accessory is necessarily worth the cost.
Comment by Stephen — January 23, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
Interesting differences of opinion here. I much prefer the studio lights as I find the contrast with the unlit side too hard on the speedlight shots.
I’ve been using a mini beauty dish on my Nikon speedlight to take macro pictures and also noticed the strong light fall-off that you mentioned in your last post. I hadn’t realised it was to do with the beauty dish until I read your post but it makes sense now. It can be quite an effective look when you get it right (which is not as often as I’d like in my case).
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us Neil.
Comment by Eileen — January 23, 2009 @ 1:58 pm
I also like the speedlight photos. They seem more natural to me and less harsh in terms of contrast. Great post by the way, very informative.
Comment by Pascal — January 26, 2009 @ 6:58 am
Great that you finally trademarked the black foam thingy :D LOL. Excellent post as usual.
Comment by Dave Tong — February 27, 2009 @ 4:47 am
Could you get the fall off of light similar to the beauty dish if you shot your speedlight into an umbrella, maybe adding a stofen to the flash head to soften it even more?
Comment by Rex — March 7, 2009 @ 9:58 am
Comment by Neil — March 8, 2009 @ 2:32 am
[...] recently photographed Seregon again, but this time on location in Manhattan. The lighting was simple - a beauty dish that was [...]
Pingback by planet neil - tangents » more beauty dish (model - Seregon) — March 13, 2009 @ 12:05 am
on the setup with flash, how do you meter? did you just choose the shutter speed aperture, and Iso that you want and let the TTl do its job? If you are using a manual flash with a softbox, what setting on the flash that you usually start with? do you set your flash head at max zoom? what do you usually use to light the background?
Comment by Adi — March 4, 2010 @ 11:03 am
Comment by Neil vN — March 5, 2010 @ 10:57 pm
Very nice model! That last grab shot with Seregon flipping her is brilliant. Looks like a very polished shot.
Comment by Tony Sale — October 11, 2011 @ 4:09 pm