Generic 22" Speedlite bracket Gridded Beauty Dish

Posted by Las Vegas Photoshoot Locations under
Generic 22" Beauty Dish with 30° grid, speedlite mount.

Again with a beautiful model instead of a picture of what I'm reviewing, what's gotten into me?

The 22" beauty dish I just got put me back $120. the 16" version was available for $75. Both are a bit of an investment, but well worth it for the amount of control they allow.






I've been wanting a beauty dish for ages. Seeing what other professionals have been able to do with them really got my creative juices flowing. I've made about half a dozen various Do It Yourself BD's, most of the popular designs floating around the interwebs, but none compare to the amount of control a real one brings.

As far as build quality goes, there's some good and bad. 

The good:
The dish itself is solid, the internal reflector has two positions, allowing for precise control. The grid seems well made, and though the clips can get loose, they'll keep it in place.

The Bad:
The bracket leaves a lot to be desired. Moving the speedlite closer or further from the dish, and moving the dish itself up and down to alight the flash to the hole work well enough. However... the ball head locking screw sucks.  The head of the screw is plastic, and if you turn it too hard, it breaks, and you cannot tighten it hard enough to keep the ball head in place, and the dish just droops. I fixed this by going to Home Depot and getting a screw with a nice thumb head. $0.50 and it's good to go.


I got mine from "ephotodiscounter" on ebay, after searching for 22" beauty dish canon. (the canon in the search made sure that i found a speedlite mount) There were others available, but for the price, and the reviews I read, this was the one for me.

I've now shot a few times, and am a very happy camper. The first time, I wanted to test it out with the sock, just to get a nice, even spread. I took a fantastic model, Andrea, to a spot just outside of Las Vegas and shot this:

The second time, I wanted to test out the grid. (aside from shooting my hand, or dog in my living room) So I again booked Andrea for a shoot. This time I took her into the mountains and threw her into some water just below a waterfall, freezing from being fed from snowmelt. This test resulted in the image at the beginning of this review. The grid, plus full power YN460II flash allowed me to completely knock out the ambient (5:00pm when the image was shot) for a very dramatic image.

If you want a high amount of control over your lighting, check out beauty dishes. If you're working on a strict budget, pick up the 16" version for $75, otherwise save up a bit longer for the big one, in this case bigger is better. Beauty Dishes can fulfill a lot of your needs. Socked, they're similar to a 22" umbrella, unsocked, a bigger spread with some control, and precise, clean control when you pop on the grid.

Happy Shooting.

1 comments:

On March 20, 2011 at 8:24 AM , Unknown said...

Nice work! It is wonderful to see the use of a beauty dish.