Got a Mola Demi? Would you do me a small favor?

If you are shooting a model up close to a wall or background I would prefer not to have any noticeable pattern and would adjust/modify the dish to get rid of it. It may be very difficult to see a pattern on a 3D object but it will be there. Much of this is personal preference. Mine is a smooth creamy coverage with some punch and nice fall off. Want it soft? add the sock... Funnest thing about playing with light modifiers is learning it and making it do what YOU want it to do. I'm not a fan of transparent center diffusers on a BD and prefer the light quality of a flat solid one. Concept behind a transparent diffuser is to try and eliminate the dark spot in the catch light. If that bothers me it's a couple quick clicks in PP.

J Kacey wrote in post #12257243
Since I'm a manufacturer I do not want to get into any testing or comparison. I own just about every quality dish made and all of my research is HIGHLY CLASSIFIED
I will offer this test image of our dish on a thunder gray background. One thing to keep in mind is by adjusting the elevation of the center diffuser you can greatly alter the pattern.

Thanks for posting this image, Jerry. That's a *very* nice light distribution pattern. I'm surprised to see it's so different from the Speedotron's pattern considering both dishes have seemingly similar contours. I wonder if by moving the central deflector your dish can be induced to generate the same bright donut seen in my Speedotron images.

Dave F.

pnmd wrote in post #12257419
RX600 with Mola Demi with stock Perforated Aluminum Diffuser

metered with Sekonic at f/16 and shot at f/16

Thank you for posting these images, Peter. This is what I was looking for. It appears that the Demi does not project the same bright ring of light seen in my Speedotron images. However, it does (with the PAD) produce a nice, bright core. Hmmm ....

Dave F.

Hermes wrote in post #12257869
Dave,

I'm not in the habit of doing test shots with my dishes against plain walls but still I'm sure my speedotron doesn't project that ring pattern. Looks like the deflector needs to be moved in a bit and/or a diferent insert used.

Interesting, Nick, to hear that your Speedotron dish does not produce the bright donut. It seems to be a known characteristic of the Speedo BD and has been demonstrated often enough on various fora (forums?). I see it with mine whether I use the stock frosted diffusion disk, the disk plus a 15-degree grid, an opaque central deflector, and even with no deflector at all:

I dunno, I think there's something to be learned from these types of tests, Nick. If I were designing a BD from scratch, this is how I'd start the evaluation process. Based on what I've seen from my, Peter's, Jerry's, and Rob's images, I'd be very much inclined to adopt a dish profile more like the Mola's and the Kacey's than the Speedotron's. I'd be looking for a profile that produces a bright core with pronounced and increasing falloff as distance from the light axis increases. The Kacey and PAD-equipped Mola produce that look. A PAD-equipped Kacey dish might be ideal. That said, in all fairness I need to add that I have never been aware of the bright ring phenomenon in images taken with my Speedotron dish of real subjects.

Dave F.

tetrode wrote in post #12260287
I'd be looking for a profile that produces a bright core with pronounced and increasing falloff as distance from the light axis increases. The Kacey and PAD-equipped Mola produce that look. A PAD-equipped Kacey dish might be ideal.
Dave F.

I could make you one..... Then I could make a $60 piece of glass to stack with the perforated aluminum deflector to get rid of the "bright core".

J Kacey wrote in post #12260589
I could make you one..... Then I could make a $60 piece of glass to stack with the perforated aluminum deflector to get rid of the "bright core".

You'd have to sell your $60 piece of glass to someone else, Jerry, because it's the bright core that gives a beauty dish its beauty dishiness (in my opinion, of course) However, what I was thinking of doing, was cutting a few circles out of a piece of this:

http://www.onlinemetal​s.com …step=4&id=1003&​top_cat=60

... to experiment with.

Dave F.

I was joking..... I have no intention of making PAD's.

J Kacey wrote in post #12260718
I was joking..... I have no intention of making PAD's.

Believe me, I know you were joking, Jerry. However, I wasn't. Experimenting with an ersatz PAD might prove interesting.

Dave F.

Actually I'mmthinking of switching back to the PAD if and when I go outdoors now that I know the Molas better, with any of them there is a leak where you can see the bare bulb if you are standing over by the BD's edge but that is not projected forward.

I know the Molas are expensive but once I got one I really wanted to use it a lot. I'd had a Elinchrom BD and maybe used it twice in a year and a half.

I liked the Demi so much that after I'd had it a couple of months I bought the Euro and put it to work right away. Maybe they are the same as some of the others but I'm well within my happy zone that I don't care. I'm trying to keep things simple and own as few tools as possible and welling to get the ones that make me the happiest.

I'm a little off topic a little on with this question...However, I'm ordering my kacey dish today and was curious as to his central deflector vs the eli ones. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

TwoShoes wrote in post #12261322
I'm a little off topic a little on with this question...However, I'm ordering my kacey dish today and was curious as to his central deflector vs the eli ones. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

I've experimented with both, what Jerry ships with the 22" BD works the best for me, although I'm still dialing it in.

This is not testing at a wall (see Hermes below).

tetrode wrote in post #12260704
You'd have to sell your $60 piece of glass to someone else, Jerry, because it's the bright core that gives a beauty dish its beauty dishiness (in my opinion, of course) However, what I was thinking of doing, was cutting a few circles out of a piece of this:

http://www.onlinemetal​s.com …step=4&id=1003&​top_cat=60

... to experiment with.

Dave F.

That's sort of what I was going on about earlier. If you point the dish with the PAD at a wall, it looks great, the light is smooth & even and to someone making a comparison using these sorts of pictures over the net it would seem the best choice.

Point the dish with the PAD at a person at anything other than a straight-on angle, and you get (in my opinion of course) a horrendous kind of cross-lighting with half direct, half reflected light and washed out shadows with multiple steps, which for my purposes made it unusable.

As you've shown, the speedotron may not look the prettiest pointed at a wall and that could well be the case with my one too, but I have never (and I mean never) had reason to comment on anything other than how well it lights faces in an actual shoot.

Hermes wrote in post #12261396
...
As you've shown, the speedotron may not look the prettiest pointed at a wall and that could well be the case with my one too, but I have never (and I mean never) had reason to comment on anything other than how well it lights faces in an actual shoot.

And, ultimately, that's all that really matters, isn't it?

Dave F.

Hi Dave,

I use the Speedotron dish a lot and I've never seen the ring transfer to a face or three dimensional object. It may very well be there and it's wrapping. I'm not sure.

I do know that when I look really closely at images using the dish I can't see the ring or any semblance of it.

For a while I really liked using the Elinchrom silver deflector in the dish but I"m actually not a fan of the dead spot in the center. I prefer to use the white translucent deflector to reduce, spread and diffuse the hot spot but I on't like to kill it completely.

I have no idea how the translucent deflector affects the projected ring on a two dimensional surface but I really love the light.

tetrode wrote in post #12261464
And, ultimately, that's all that really matters, isn't it?

Dave F.

... that and how cool it looks