Apart from changing its mount, the most common mod applied to the 22" Speedotron beauty dish involves replacing its stock translucent central diffuser with opaque material to make it behave more like other BDs. That was one of the first things I did with mine.
Here's another easy mod that will also change the character of the light produced by the Speedotron dish:
What you see in the photo is a Speedotron dish with its central translucent diffuser surmounted by a 15-degree grid. As you would expect, the grid limits dispersion of light coming through the central diffuser. Unchecked, this dispersion tends to dilute the desirable beauty dish effect. With the grid, a bright central core is projected with rapid radial fall-off.
The grid used in this experiment was sourced from Paul C. Buff. It's the 15-degree grid made for PCB's 8-1/2" reflector. This grid fits comfortably within the Speedotron's three diffuser retention points.
Mounting the grid was straightforward: Some time ago, I had replaced the three stock brass paper fasteners that Speedotron supplies with the dish with three 1/2" 6-32 screws. This was done to allow easy installation of an 8" aluminum disk as seen in this photo:
This photo shows one of the 6-32 screws passing through the rim of the central diffusion disk:
To secure the grid on top of the diffusion disk, 1/2 long, internally threaded, 6-32 nylon standoffs were used (http://www.drillspot.com …008_female_round_standoff
). The Buff grid is approximately 1/2" thick. Here one is seen threaded onto the exposed 6-32 screw:
The grid seats nicely inside the three nylon standoffs. To retain the grid, three computer case thumb screws (which, fortuitously, happen to be 6-32) were used:
Though not really necessary, I will probably be adding washers under the thumb screws.
The gridded dish with the modeling light off:
Other than shooting light patterns against a backdrop, I haven't yet had a chance to test the gridded dish with a live subject or even a mannequin for that matter. However, I think this mod has potential. We'll see.
Dave F.
