DIY Beauty Dish

[OzRay]

In case anyone is interested, I've built myself a beauty dish, slightly smaller than the traditional ones, as I wanted to be able to use it on-camera and off-camera:

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The light output is very even:

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I'm currently letting the paint fully harden before doing more testing etc, but what I've shot around the house so far shows that the dish works much better than I expected. To read about the full build go here: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/?p=1094.

 

[RobR]

Very cool! Well done!

 

[OzRay]

It's more of an experiment at this stage and hopefully it will work out as planned. The whole idea can be expanded to a much larger dish if needed, but then it's not going to be camera friendly.

 

[RevBob]

Outstanding! I look forward to seeing some photos taken with this. I just might have to build one for myself. Very cool DIY project.

 

[RobWatson]

Let's hope the wife is not missing critical kitchen gear ... A sure way to get into hot water, so to speak.

Likely worth the trouble!

 

[OzRay]

I do most of the cooking, so it doesn't matter

I'm working out the best way to do a set of balanced test shots at the moment, to find out how well the various configurations work, and where this smaller dish works best. It's not going to perform like a very large beauty dish, but initial tests indicate that it could be quite useful nonetheless.

 

[Ross the fiddler]

I'd be interested to see the results with it. The local discount store is a good source of dishes & containers like that & I do most of the cooking here too (since my wife is busy earning the real money).

 

[OzRay]

I'm working on Part 2 at the moment, but I need to re-arrange a spare room so that I can set up my background stands etc. The tests will involve some fairly ordinary shots of an inanimate subject, but it's easier to do it this way as I can take my time and try out a number of configurations, without tiring a live subject.

What's annoying is that I have a full studio system, but can't seem to secure just a little bit of space for my backgrounds etc. I'd use our garage, but that's at the bottom of the property and too cold or hot for that sort of arrangement plus, in winter, the damp etc would likely eat away my backdrop rolls.

I have a set of Elinchrom studio flashes, but I'm trying to see what I can do with my FL-50 strobes, as they are far more portable, even when using the Elinchrom umbrellas and stands.

 

[alex66]

Class DIY I rather fancy making one, have to look around whats available.

 

[jrsilva]

Very nice DIY Beauty Dish.
Congratulations. Well done.
That clear part in the center is an empty Recordable CD box pack?

 

[OzRay]

That clear part in the center is an empty Recordable CD box pack?

Thanks, the clear container is just a Tupperware style food container. The size was just right, a CD container would have been way too large.

 

[Ross the fiddler]

Very nice DIY Beauty Dish.
Congratulations. Well done.
That clear part in the center is an empty Recordable CD box pack?

That sounds like a good way to use up those empty CD/DVD containers!

 

[Ross the fiddler]

Thanks, the clear container is just a Tupperware style food container. The size was just right, a CD container would have been way too large.

Bummer!

 

[jrsilva]

Thanks, the clear container is just a Tupperware style food container. The size was just right, a CD container would have been way too large.

Hi Ray.

Thank's for clarifying,

 

[OzRay]

I've now done a full series of tests with the a number of variations. There's no point in trying to present things piecemeal here, so if you're interested in the project, the tests and photos are here: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/?p=1382. Overall, the beauty dish works very well, with some surprises, but bottom line, I think the DIY beauty dish can be very useful as a portable lighting option. I'm still to do shots with a live subject, so that will be a post for Part 3.