Make Your Own Beauty Dish From a Metal Mixing Bowl
Feb 26, 2016
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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We’ve featured a few DIY Beauty Dishes in the past, from the very cheap to the super cheap, but few of those builds would blend into a professional studio quite as well as this one.
In this video, French photographer, Antony Gomes, and the team at Shootr show us how they built theirs.
Starting with an Ikea mixing bowl, a few bolts, some spray paint and some tools, ultimately resulting with an impressive looking beauty dish with attached speedlight bracket, the video takes us through every step of the process.
Given a total cost of around $80 including the flash bracket and a little bit of manual labour, this is a pretty inexpensive option, and the results speak for themselves.
If you happen to understand French, you can also read all about it over on the Shootr website. If you don’t, there’s always Google Translate.
My only problem now is finding some adult supervision so I can build one!
What do you think? Are DIY Beauty Dishes worth it? Or would you just rather just buy one and save the time and effort of making your own?
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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4 responses to “Make Your Own Beauty Dish From a Metal Mixing Bowl”
After just repairing the cheap beauty dish that I bought, I wish I had just gone this route!! Thanks!
I think that this one is bit heavy beauty dish, specially if you are going to shoot outside. Found one on youtube that is made from plastic teracota bowl and it is really good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuExFcfpzpg
Well done build.
If you are in Canada you can pick up a 22″ beauty dish for $100 shipped from amazon. Uses the same speedlight bracket.
http://www.amazon.com/Cowboystudio-16-Photography-Beauty-Canon/dp/B003M5R9HM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_421_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41nCbuMx8tL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR158%2C160_&refRID=14AKKM6XZBG236TSN575