About a month ago I started talking about the beauty dish at the workshops I was running. This was inspired by some of the DIY’ings of some of my co-patriots on the flickr strobist group. David Hobby also had some rambelings referring to the beauty dish as well, so I decided that I would try it myself.
It did talk a lot longer than I expected due to all of the paint drying time however; all told I spent $25 including the spray paint at around $6.00 per can, so I can’t really complain too badly. It took all of my crafty skills, including sewing, painting and metal smithing and luckily (quite intentionally) I took pictures to try and document the process.
Stuff you will need
- A bowl that is as “parabolic” in shape as you can get. The one I got was a utility bowl from the dollar store.
- Glossy black spray paint
- Matt White spray paint
- An eavestrough flange. Basically is a spout with a flat side that has four holes pre drilled.
- Bolts to fit in the eavestrough flange thing
- Washers for the bolts
- Locking nuts, the kind with the nylon washer built in.
- 3 1/2″ convex mirror, $2 at Wal-Mart
- A blank DVD/CD case cover
- Silicone or bathroom chalking
Tools:
- Dremel tool with cutting wheels
- Sharpie
- Sand paper
- Screw driver and wrench for the bolts
First thing I did was sand the bowl because it is plastic and the paint will not stick if the bowl isn’t sanded. It was shiny to being with so I just sanded it until the shine was gone, that seemed to work pretty good. Though I still have to prime it, but not as much if I hadn’t sanded.
Next I traced out the gutter flange thing at the back of the bowl.
Then cut it out
- Aly pointing out my handing work
Closer View
Inside, before paint.
The next thing to do was paint it, this took sometime as it was a bit cool out and therefore the paint took longer to dry. Also, at least 5 coats were needed on either side to make it so light would not escape out of the back of the dish. I used glossy black on the back of the dish as I thought it would look cool, you can use whatever colour you like provided that it’s opaque when you’re done.
Paint, Paint and more paint
I decided I would test this out before I made anything permanent, so I taped the mirror to the CD cover thing and taped that to the dish. I found that a distance of about 2″ from the front of the flash works best in this application, however; you might want to try different things to see what the effect of the light will be.
Product testing
I took care of the overspray afterwards.
Self Portrait
Test Shots:
This really brings out the yogurt.
Dylan and Syd, test subjects.
Catch lights
I made some further modifications to the stand (CD lid thingy) by cutting some holes in the sides of it, it lessens the loss that you get due to it passing through not quite clear material.Painting the top was done by masking the sides then spraying a couple times; this also had to be sanded. I did this to further the direction of the light, rather than having some of the flash pass through the reflector.
Notches cut in for the strap.
Reflector mounted in with silicone - it won't move!
Self Portrait 2
Completed - The back
I made a sort of reverseable Velcro strap to hold the dish to the flash. You can see here that I have the flash mounted to a stand. On the left you can see my elinchrom skyport receiver, which is attached to the dish by some Velcro that I added to the dish on that side. It’s a nice neat little package!
The dish in action
Another portrait of Tami, against her will.
Tomorrow, I will actually use this dish on a portrait client! I shall post the results once editing is completed.
Happy DIY’ing
