Australian Flickr user Andrew converted a regular flash into a beauty dish by adding a 7″ stainless steel dish, a lid from a food tin, a “4n20 Pies giveaway stubby holder” and some pieces of Mechano.
Here’s an example of the effects he got with his dish.
6 thoughts on “DIY beauty dish”
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A beauty dish works because of it’s *precise shape*, not because it’s just some shiny metal. This is just bits of random junk stuck together that happens to bounce light. This doesn’t give you light *anything* like what a real beauty dish will give you, hobbyists would be much better off checking out the Instructables article on the DIY softbox.
Profoto, Dynalite, Broncolor, et al, all have slightly different shapes to their beauty dish but all have some sort of logic on how the light bounces to create a specific specular effect, unlike this hack. However, we all have to remind ourselves that photography isn’t an exact science – from development times in the wet darkroom or using your own hands as a shutter curtain, this hack goes with the spirit of experimenting and self-sufficiency that has secured photography its place on the Geek’s toy collection.
Also the sample images look horrible from a photo-critique standpoint. There’s nasty double shadows all over, and the actual faces look flat and lack any texture or decent quality.
Take Bill’s advice and build a softbox. And never, ever, ever use a flash in the shoe right above the lens while taking a portrait. It’s the most unflattering place to put a light.
Or better yet for a novice, skip the flash, learn how to take pictures outdoors with a sheet of foamcore as a reflector. It’s actually a lot easier to get decent lighting that way.