beauty dish for a speed life?

[LarryPlane]

Any one ever used a mini beauty dish on as speedlite?

[colin C]

Re: beauty dish for a speed life?

They call it a beauty dish and everyone must have one ……….. great marketing! Fine if you are using it with full studio lights, as it needs to be fairly big to give the effect. Regretfully, anything useable on a speedlight is going to be too small, so it will just be yet another light softener/modifier.

For speedlights, I either use mine:

• Bare
• With a Stofen diffuser
• With a Lastolite EzyBox

I have tried most of the alternatives at various shows etc, but the above seems to cover all of my needs. Hope that helps.

[LarryPlane]

Re: beauty dish for a speed life?

Thanks for the reply. My main use would be at a cosplay event. Tackled this a few weeks back and tried it with ambient lighting, which gave variable results to say the least. What I need is a light modifier for close portrait work, preferably one that works with a speed life mounted to the camera.

The ezybox looks cool, but I can only imagine that on a monopod being held by an assistant.

[celtex]

Re: beauty dish for a speed life?

Hi Paul,

I looked at this, but I think that the size of any beauty dish for an on camera speedlite is just going to be a waste of time. I recently watched a video by Joel Grimes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYGCOyiVERE

He uses a 22 inch dish and you will see he is virtually on top of the model to get the overall lighting effect. when you move away it does not work. A tiny micro dish for a speedlight would have to be almost touching the person and as Colin says I still don't think you would get the beauty effect.

I think you would be better using a stofen on the flash and a rougue flashbender or similar set up something like this: http://photo-tips-online.com/review/...-reflector.jpg

hope that helps

Ian

[LarryPlane]

Re: beauty dish for a speed life?

Thanks Ian, I'll take a look at other options including your suggestion.

[celtex]

Re: beauty dish for a speed life?

If you can get your model by a light coloured wall or ceiling then joust bounce - it can give great results. I also wonder what a Gary Fong Lightsphere would be like