DIY Beauty Dish part 2

Figured I'd take a crack at making my own beauty dish, and document the process.
Parts used:
20 quart stainless steel mixing bowl
small convex mirror
bolts, washers and nuts
spray paint and primer

Tools:
epoxy
dremel (cutting)
drill (holes, wire brush)

More photographs and details here: http://flickr.com/photos/dangottesman/sets/72157611149474359/detail/

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• beauty dish
• mixing bowl
• photography
• DIY
• strobist

[unimatrixZxero]

Don't want to slam on your video dude. But a bit more editing would make it more watchable. Trim it to about 5 min or so. You have to many "um"s and "ugh"s in there where you are basically saying nothing. But great show of how the beauty dish(DIY) goes.

[dangottesman]

Indeed, it is a bit on the long side.

This might come as a shock, but the entire thing was improvised - no script - just me, the parts, and the camera. Hence the "uhms and ahhs".

Maybe I'll take a crack at shortening it up a bit when I have some more time, and write up a little voice-over track for it so I'm not tied to the video footage for audio.

Thanks for your feedback.

[dangottesman]

that's a great idea, but - without the support on both sides of the dish, the rods won't hold tight/straight.

If I put wing nuts on one side, I'd still need the regular nuts on the other side to keep the tension.

But I don't see why I can't have the rods go out the back, as opposed to through the reflector - that'd certainly look a bit cleaner.

thanks for the tip!

[avdalton4]

Absolutely informative video! Thanks for posting this and I think that I am going to go make one in a few minutes. I was thinking before gettting to the end of this video that the silver surface may work better, but you cleared up the need for the white spray paint ed surface! Thanks again! -dre

[devonmale69]

the raise dimples as you call it why not just remove them then the mirror will sit flat. As for the washer not gluing to dish well it looks like you paint it first so all you was doing was sticking it to the paint Ohh then later you show you don't know how to pait??? first key the surface which you found out later....

I think that the mirror should be more cone shape to spread the light more out to the sides will give more light I think make it out of plastic

[taregantt]

What did you use to mount your beauty dis to the stand and flash. and where can I get one

[JennyJenna]

GREAT job with this video! Thank you so much! I like the ums and ahs ;)

[Kevinwa1965]

hey ,

if you put a couple of coil springs between the mounting plate and the bowl you can place wing nuts on the surface, that way easy adjustments

[SunshineLunar]

Great video thanks!

Can you tell me what you used for the mounting plate? I picked up a celing outlet concealer but it ended up being to small for my hole so I need to find a bigger item to mount the 3" auto mirror to.

Also do you mind letting us know what the optimal distance was? I took a look at the flickr pictures and it looks like 1.25"

[si1entscorn]

looks really cool but id like to see how it actually works? there werent slides at the end, is there anything you would change next time you did it?