Mini Beauty dish

Sorry but heres a terribly newbie question!

Anybody had experience of these and what exactly do they do / good for?

http://www.viewfinderp​hotography.co.uk/produ​ct_view.php?prod_id=91​8

I was looking for umbrellas and stands etc for my ocf setup and came across this, wondered what peoples opinions where?

Phil

penfolduk wrote in post #8575786
Sorry but heres a terribly newbie question!

Anybody had experience of these and what exactly do they do / good for?

http://www.viewfinderp​hotography.co.uk/produ​ct_view.php?prod_id=91​8

I was looking for umbrellas and stands etc for my ocf setup and came across this, wondered what peoples opinions where?

Phil

I'd be curious to see samples but I'm skeptical of mini dishes like this because the light source, while it is larger than that of a rectangular slash head, it's not really increasing the size by much. The light will still be high contrast and using tupperware-style diffusion will kill a lot of light but it's hard to say what kind of results you're going to get.

I see a lot of people asking about those products but still haven't seen anyone showing samples or posting a review.

The nice thing about a beauty dish is that the light is neither soft nor hard. Its the perfect middle zone of both. And producing that middle zone is done purely for its size. If you increase the size of a beauty dish, its only going to soften the light. Making it smaller will make it harsher. My guess that this thing wouldnt do much to the light at all, from it being bare. But who knows, I could be wrong.

Does anyone know what size this dish is exactly?

check out kacey enterprises bd.
i got it & love it. it'll work w/your flashgun, & strobe. def a great investment

Hi Phil,
Just stumbled on your question regarding the viewfinder speedlight kit and thought I would add my opinion so quickly joined up...Nikon user I’m afraid so realise I’m straying into enemy territory here but hope my advice may help you.

I keep meaning to do a review for my blog on this kit but as always can't seem to find the time so here is a mini one.

First thing to note is the beauty dish is only 6" in diameter and is not really any use as a beauty dish. I find the reflectors are actually too large for the dish so cause a circular shadow to be thrown in the centre. You can however make your own translucent deflector from any old bit of plastic such as a milk carton...a bit of trial and error needed here! However this combined with the white diffuser does give really useful soft even light.

In fact the beauty dish on its own without any deflectors makes a great small reflector which is why I purchased them in the first place. So think of the dish more as a reflector than a beauty dish. The grids work very well and surprisingly so do the colored diffusers and you can always tape your own gels to the front as well.

The snoot is excellent as well as its grids. In fact for the price the kit is very well made and the included grids and diffusers make the kit a must for any strobists and far cheaper than buying any major lighting brands accessories. I use Elinchrom with soft boxes/umbrellas/beauty dish as my key and my speedlights with the snoot/mini beauty dish for background colour, hair lights or anything else I want to shape with light and I now find I use this combination in preference to large studio strobes.

Get them and just play around you will be amazed by how useful they are. Below is a link to my website where you can view images. The studio shots of the red, grey and blue backgrounds are all lit using this kit. In fact on one shot you can actually see the mini dish with a red diffuser on to add more bite to the red backdrop. The blue background is made by using the blue diffuser on a medium grey backdrop as seen on the grey shots with either the snoot or another mini dish for hair/rim lighting

Hope this helps but unfortunately you will still have to purchase your beauty dish from somewhere else!

Link here

penfolduk wrote in post #8575786
Sorry but heres a terribly newbie question!

Anybody had experience of these and what exactly do they do / good for?

http://www.viewfinderp​hotography.co.uk/produ​ct_view.php?prod_id=91​8

I was looking for umbrellas and stands etc for my ocf setup and came across this, wondered what peoples opinions where?

Phil

In short, They do nothing and they're good for nothing (except possibly use as a hairlight or a background light as someone else suggested). They're so tiny in comparison with a real beauty dish or an umbrella that there's no point using them. I will say that viewfinderphotography are good people to deal with though.

If you want an on-camera light source that will really make a difference then you're looking at something like a Lastolite Apollo XL softbox. If you can live with having the light off-camera then there's a whole array of full-sized light modifiers you can use.