DIY Beauty Dish
By darren tse
29 January 2008
So i wanted to make a beauty dish, but didn't want to spend the money. I have seen many attempts on the internet, using everything from cheap Ikea lights to turkey pans. So after a nice takeout meal of Singapore Noodles, i looked at the aluminum container it came in and thought "wow, this is perfect!"
First, I took the aluminum takeout container and washed it out good: you don't want curry and pieces of roast pork falling on your model! Then I took a sharp knife and cut a strobe-shaped whole in the base in the middle. Now, I needed to make a little housing and some way of reflecting the strobe light into the pan. If you don't, you'll get a strobe hotspot instead of even lighting. Rummaging around my studio, i quickly found a very unused Sto-Fen diffuser. With a feeling of warped satisfaction, i cut it up with large slots on all sides so most of the light would come out. I left just enough of the rim to support the top, where i taped some aluminum foil to reflect the flash light back into the dish. VOILA -> instant beauty dish.
Now it still has to be perfected...I am going to hammer the aluminum dish into a more parabolic shape and withdraw the flash head a little bit, but otherwise it gives a nice even light with no obvious hot spots perfect for those beauty shots. I should also try and get a larger dish, but i don't think Chinese takeout comes in larger containers than that!The catchlight probably looks more like a ringlight than a beauty dish, but it works great!
Credits to my girlfriend Angie for posing, and not looking too puzzled by being flashed by a Chinese takeout container.
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