My DIY Beauty Dish

anonymouscuban

Check the DIY beauty dish I made for ZERO money. I had all these items laying around the garage so I decided to fashion a modifier for my speedlight flash.

Materials consist of a plastic planting bowl, one of those drip trays you place under plant pots, (3) 4" #10 screws, (2) 1/2" #10 screws, a few #10 nuts and an electrical outlet extender. Oh yeah, and a can of flat white and flat black spray paint. Took me about 20 minutes to cut and drill the holes and then a couple of hours of spray painting and waiting for coats to dry.







Flash at full power:


Flash at half power:


And a pic of my poor wife who is laid up in bed with a completely numb left leg because she just got a cortisone injection in her hip.

I was just holding the unit directly above and to the left of the camera and had camera on commander mode and speedlight as slave.



I will take some better pics with it this weekend and post. Still to early to tell how well it works but so far not bad. If it does pan out, I plan on making a more durable one out of a steel mixing bowl and a small flat steel pan I have.

divamum

That looks great ALex - can you take a shot of it which better shows how the two bowls/tray nest? I can't quite figure out what goes where....

The electrical outlet extender is an inspired idea!

I made a tupperware ringlight (total cost: $3 from the dollar store!) after I saw the awesome results Kerry got with hers on our shoot the other week, but haven't had a chance to use it yet. Am def intrigued by your beauty dish...

Nikolai

Nice DIY work, man!

anonymouscuban

Thanks Diva. I tried to take a better shot of the tray attachment but the bowl is a bit to deep to get a good angle on it. The tray and bowl have 3 matching holes drill into them. I attached them together with three 4" bolts. I inserted the bolts through the back of the bowl, then from the inside of the bowl, I screwed a nut onto each bolt so it is tight against the bottom of the bowl. This insentially is holding the bolts in place on the bowl. I then took and screwed another nut on each bolt but this time, only down about 1/4". I then inserted the tray onto the bolts. The tray now rests against the second set of nuts. I then secured the tray with another set of nuts seen in the picture below. So the tray doesn't rest against the back of the bowl. It's "suspended about 3.5" from the bottom of the bowl. Does that make sense?



If you're interested, I can disassemble it and put it back together while taking a pictures of each step. Let me know and I will do it on Sunday.

anonymouscuban

Nikolai wrote: »

Nice DIY work, man!

Thanks Nik. I need to play around with it a bit more. Not sure if and how moving the "dish" inside would affect the light. I can "push" it in close to the bottom of the bowl. This would place it closer to the speedlight. Not sure if that would have any affect on how the light is transmitted.

Also, you can see that the dish inside has a pretty large lip. I was thinking of trying a different dish with little or no lip. My guess is this would allow a bit more light to reflect against the sides of the bowl.. maybe not though.

Lastly, all I did was paint the inside of the dish white. I was thinking of either trying a metallic silver paint or attaching a piece of mirrored plexi to reflect more light back into the bowl. Again, not sure if that would even be worth the trouble.

Foques

Man, more topics I see from you, the more ideas I get..

But this one is asking for a DIY... step by step one.

I am planning on experimenting with pringles box as a snoot.... but the one you did takes the cake..

anonymouscuban

Thanks Arseny. I can totally do the step by step with pics on Sunday. Stay tuned. Till then, here is a masterpiece of a drawing to illustrate how the inner tray is attached to the bowl.

Obviously the thick black "U" is the bowl. The two vertical black line thingies are the 4" #10 bolts (there are really three). The blue line is tray and the green watchamawhose are the nuts.

divamum

A step by step would be awesome, although your diagram helps (how is the light getting OUT into the bowl around the insert, or is the tray situated so that there's a gap? It looks like two solid bowls, so that's the part I dont quite get, especially since the other DIY bd's I've seen use a CD spindle cover, which is clear plastic)

Btw, "watchamawhose" may now be my favorite new highly technical term

anonymouscuban

divamum wrote: »

A step by step would be awesome, although your diagram helps (how is the light getting OUT into the bowl around the insert, or is the tray situated so that there's a gap? It looks like two solid bowls, so that's the part I dont quite get, especially since the other DIY bd's I've seen use a CD spindle cover, which is clear plastic)

Btw, "watchamawhose" may now be my favorite new highly technical term

Let's see if I can "splain". OK... so as you mention, there is a 3.5" gap between the tray and the bowl. The tray is serving as a reflector, so the light from the flash hits the tray and bounces back against the surface of the bowl. The light is then reflected a second time out from the bowl. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Just like this:



I guess because the light is reflected twice, it produces a really nice, soft light. I was pretty close when I took that shot of my wife and it produced no hot spots.

BTW, my "technical" jargon comes from years of doing DIY projects with my wife as my assistance. She understands exactly what I mean when I say "can you hand me the yellow pointy pincher thingies" but not when I say "needle nosed plyers".

anonymouscuban

Oh... and I did see the idea with the plastic CD case. Thought it was: a) too "rookie DIY" looking and b) I was worried that the plastic would decrease the light output and c) too many parts and too much gluing involved. Mine has no glue and I can disassemble and reassemble it.

divamum

She understands exactly what I mean when I say "can you hand me the yellow pointy pincher thingies" but not when I say "needle nosed plyers".

That's called "being married" :giggle

reyvee61

Wow, very cool work indeed!
Kudos to you for sharing this with us!

ian408

The proof is in the pudding. So far, it tastes like pudding Nicely done

dogwood

Here's another version with step by step photos. It uses a 50-pack CD/DVD case with an round auto parts mirror to bounce the light around. I built one and it's okay -- I still prefer a studio strobe and the Paul C Buff beauty dishes when possible.

http://davidtejada.blogspot.com/2008/04/beauty-dish-for-sb-800.html

Caspian

Brilliant! Is the remote trigger wired or wireless and what do you use? I have an event this spring where I really needed a beauty dish like this and I wasn't sure how to do it. You have solved my problem.

divamum

And the wondrously ghetto (and effective) turkey-pan version. Alex's is way classier and, obviously, more robust, but my frugal McGyver self loves this version just on principle

http://www.diyphotography.net/just-fab-s-turkey-pan-beauty-dish (uses a fong modifier to hold it in place)

or this one
http://www.knick-knack.com/howto/camera/diy-beauty-dish.html

mpaulie

I've been wanting to make one of these for a long and just haven't gotten around to it, this may be the push I need. Can't wait to see more shots using it.

Hackbone

Very cool. Wish I would have seen this a year ago. What is the part that the flash is inserted into?

Surfdog

This DIY project is awesome. I will putting one together this weekend. I also wanted to share my really quick and cheap answer to softening my flash that, although it ain't too perty, works well in a pinch and is very easy to stow away. It's not a new idea, but still a good one.

All it takes are foam sheets which can be bought for about $1.00 at craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael's, and some self-sticking velcro tape from any fabric store. I have made several different sizes which easily slip in the side of my suitcase camera bag. Here are photos of the "foamy" on my SB800 and a sample photo from a recent wedding using my large foamy and SB800 positioned to my left.

Surfdog

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Surfdog

,

Surfdog

Sample pic:

anonymouscuban

Hackbone wrote: »

Very cool. Wish I would have seen this a year ago. What is the part that the flash is inserted into?

Hack... it's an electrical outlet box extender. It's when the electrical box is set to deep in the wall, you screw this onto it to extend it. You can get them at any home improvement store for about $1-2.

BTW, I had no chance to take photos yesterday. We are hosting a Poker Tournament in our home for a Diabetes charity and my wife had me busy doing stuff to get ready for it which is next weekend.

anonymouscuban

Danny,

That is pretty cool. Looks easy and cheap to make and it doesn't look bad at all. I've seen a lot of homemade snoots and modifiers like this that are all covered in tape and velcro that look like crap. This is pretty clean. I'm definitely gonna make one of these.