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Studio Lighting - Stainless Steel Beauty Dish
Photographer J. Chris Hansen built the soup bowl beauty dish for his photography studio. It was all well and dandy while it was mounted on a speedlight. But when he tried to mount the beauty dish on an Alien Bee flash they melted. Luckily for us, Chris did not give up and upgraded the design to use stainless steal bowls. From here it is all Chris.
I have been following all the beauty dishes and ringflashes that have been made. I made a number of trips to the Dollar Store and the hardware store for reflective gold and silver paint. I created some really nice dish reflectors for my Canon 550 EX flash using plastic mixing bowls, shish kabob sticks and reflective paint. The portraits of my daughter looked great. The next step I felt would be to make some beauty dishes for my Alien Bees Studio Lights. Immediately a problem occurred. The modeling lights got too hot and began melting the plastic. Hmmmnnnn. Possible fire danger here! They also didn't look very professional.
The solution came to me while browsing at the hardware store. They had stainless steel mixing bowls on sale. Nice big ones too. So I bought two bowls, some 1/8' allthread rod (36"), a steel bit, a steel cutting jigsaw blade (fine cut) and finally some nuts and washers for the allthread rod.
Basic Instructions:
1. Cut a hole in the bottom of the large bowl to fit on the Studio head.
2. Drill four evenly spaced holes 90 degrees apart just a little below the rim on the large bowl.
3. Cut the allthread evenly in 1/2 to make two 18'' pieces.
4. Drill four evenly spaced holes every 90 degrees about 1/2 way down the side of the small bowl.
5. Nest the bowls into each other then raise up the small bowl and thread the allthread through the small bowl to center it above the large bowl (center the bowl). Put on the washers and nuts on and tighten them up.
Mount on Studio Light and shoot away. Typical distance should be 2-3 feet from subject.
Here are two sample shots taken with the stainless still beauty dish.
Have fun, God's light and love to all, Chris
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More Light Making Things With Hole in The Middle:
- The Cheapest Ring Light Ever
- What Can You do With Six Speedlights and a Coffee Can
- The Square Ring Flash
- Just Fab's Turkey Pan Beauty Dish
- The CD Spindle Ringflash
- Disposable Camera Ring Flash
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Comments
Looks Great!
The best thing about this particular DIY is that it looks like a professional piece of equipment. Often times people ask me about DIY lighting and my typical response is "It's okay to use DIY lighting when your just starting out or if the projects are personal or artistic. But you really want to look like a professional with real gear when you start charging people for portrait sessions." This beauty dish looks like professional gear and I love it. If I didn't already own a beauty dish, I would start making this one now!
Damien Franco
but...
aren't beauty dishes flat white? so as to make a nice soft but directional light?
Wear ear plugs
Be sure to wear some ear plugs, don't be like me and try it without some protection on :) wow super headache!
I did this 3 years ago, used
I did this 3 years ago, used zip ties and it worked great, no melting, but no modeling light. I haven't used it in over 2 years though, I keep meaning to scuff the inside of the larger bowl and paint it flat white (spray can), imho the aluminum is too harsh of a light.
Hexfire is right - wear ear plugs, it is LOUD when you cut through it.
Similar project to build whole unit.
Great minds think alike!
I developed a similar project using a mixing bowl. I also went two stages further. I built the rear unit that houses the lamp / tilt mechanism, and added parts to the bowl so that they could feature barn doors, (I am using them for video)
I'm currently working on a project to add a softbox unit that will fix to my lighting unit. It will be 30" across and probably use the 200W CFL lamp as used by the "hydroponic" industry!!
My site will also feature other DIY projects; the next is a camera stabiliser rig using bearings and an iso-elastic arm, (aka Stedicam)
Let's keep Sharing
I love to see all the things people create for photography. If it weren't for some of the other DIY projects I would have never thought of a Stainless Steel Beauty Dish. We feed off of each others ideas.
I have come up with one modification since its design. That is to put a light white cloth over it to soften the light. I am also thinking of using different colored cloth to create a gelled look.
You can check out some of my other crazy ideas on a Blog i just started up.
http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/
God's love to all of you,
Chris
My version
I went the more "traditional" route and used a flat shield reflector and painted the whole thing white inside and black outside (high temp barbeque paint). My target was the Alien Bees version...I got close, but you need a 20+ quart bowl to get to that size and I couldn't find any stores around that carried a bowl that large. But, the 13qt one I found was nice and shallow. The shield reflector is an 8 in HVAC duct cap I found at Home Depot and cut it down to size.
Closeup of shadows and light fall off.
re: beauty dish
Daniel.
This is a great setup and wonderful result. The light falloff is just fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
I took the liberty to have a look at your site - I love the kids section.
I'm with Steve...
aren't beauty dishes supposed to be white? I only ask as I've built something similar to this with stainless steel but the color was off (lots of blue/green).
being that its stainless
being that its stainless what would be the difference from that and the same setup with flat white spray paint inside?
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