Beauty dishes?

[SabrinaO]

What is the benefit of using a beauty dish over a softbox or umbrella? Or is there any benefit at all?

 

[Village Idiot]

What is the benefit of using a beauty dish over a softbox or umbrella? Or is there any benefit at all?

Benefit is subjective.

The light characteristics will be different. You won't get spill like with a shoot through. They're usually a slightly heavier modifier and great for locations where wind could be an issue.

I guess the only benefit is if you want that type of light for your subjects. If you're trying to do body length rim lighting, then a strip box would be a better choice, but that's just an example of "benefit" being in what you're trying to accomplish in your photo.

 

[Derrel]

A beauty dish give off light that is "hard", yet "soft". Hard mostly in the sense that it is a small light...a big beauty fish is only 22 inches across and that is a SMALL light source. A beauty dish is "soft" in that its light is diffused by the dish, and the center baffle keeps direct, hot light from the flashtube from going straight outward. Beauty dishes can give off a pretty neat-looking eye catchlight. The center of the beam is beautiful lighting, and the edges fall off quite rapidly. Beauty dish, softbox, umbrella...all three are different things.

 

[SabrinaO]

Thanks Village! I read that beauty dishes produce more contrasty light, but ive seen examples of softbox vs. beauty dish and i really didn't see much of a difference.

 

[SabrinaO]

A beauty dish give off light that is "hard", yet "soft". Hard mostly in the sense that it is a small light...a big beauty fish is only 22 inches across and that is a SMALL light source. A beauty dish is "soft" in that its light is diffused by the dish, and the center baffle keeps direct, hot light from the flashtube from going straight outward. Beauty dishes can give off a pretty neat-looking eye catchlight. The center of the beam is beautiful lighting, and the edges fall off quite rapidly. Beauty dish, softbox, umbrella...all three are different things.

Aha! Thats what the center piece is for! I guess it works the same as a softbox inner baffle too then. Im going to look at more examples of beauty dish lighting .

 

[gsgary]

This was lit by a beauty dish with a grid directly above