Darron Birgenheier
20" DIY Beauty Dish made from a $6.00US woven-bamboo salad bowl
This is a shop-made "Beauty Dish" light modifier. To build it, I bought a $6.00 20" woven-bamboo salad bowl at Resco, a restaurant supply house in Reno, Nevada.
I cut a rectangular hole for the Speedlight's nose to poke through. I drilled two holes to attach an L-bracket to the back of the dish, below the rectangular hole. A plastic rail from a cheap light stand umbrella adapter is screwed down to the L-bracket, allowing the Nikon SB600 Speedlight to sit at just the right height to poke through the center hole.
The baffle in the center of the dish is a plastic ceiling box cover, obtained for free from the Reno Habitat For Humanity store. The baffle stands off of the dish about 4 inches, held there by two #6 machine screws. The stand-off distance is adjustable, and I found that all the way out from the dish worked best.
I painted the baffle and the inside of the dish with flat white spray paint, purchased from Walmart for $.96US per can (cheap!). I will probably paint the outside flat black at some point, but that is strictly a cosmetic measure.
I made a handle from an aluminum bicycle seatpost, which is attached to the L-bracket with the same screw that retains the plastic hotshoe mounting rail. This allows the rig to be easily hand-held for macro and other no-assistant-needed shots. I use Nikon's CLS system to allow full TTL exposure with no wires required. Works very well!
I'll post additional photos of the details in a day or two.
I found that the most even coverage of the dish was obtained when the flip-down "14mm" diffuser over the flash reflector was deployed.
The SB600 was set to 1/4 or 1/2 power here, and f/8 at ISO100 on the camera.
20" DIY Beauty Dish made from a $6.00US woven-bamboo salad bowl
This is a shop-made "Beauty Dish" light modifier. To build it, I bought a $6.00 20" woven-bamboo salad bowl at Resco, a restaurant supply house in Reno, Nevada.
I cut a rectangular hole for the Speedlight's nose to poke through. I drilled two holes to attach an L-bracket to the back of the dish, below the rectangular hole. A plastic rail from a cheap light stand umbrella adapter is screwed down to the L-bracket, allowing the Nikon SB600 Speedlight to sit at just the right height to poke through the center hole.
The baffle in the center of the dish is a plastic ceiling box cover, obtained for free from the Reno Habitat For Humanity store. The baffle stands off of the dish about 4 inches, held there by two #6 machine screws. The stand-off distance is adjustable, and I found that all the way out from the dish worked best.
I painted the baffle and the inside of the dish with flat white spray paint, purchased from Walmart for $.96US per can (cheap!). I will probably paint the outside flat black at some point, but that is strictly a cosmetic measure.
I made a handle from an aluminum bicycle seatpost, which is attached to the L-bracket with the same screw that retains the plastic hotshoe mounting rail. This allows the rig to be easily hand-held for macro and other no-assistant-needed shots. I use Nikon's CLS system to allow full TTL exposure with no wires required. Works very well!
I'll post additional photos of the details in a day or two.
I found that the most even coverage of the dish was obtained when the flip-down "14mm" diffuser over the flash reflector was deployed.
The SB600 was set to 1/4 or 1/2 power here, and f/8 at ISO100 on the camera.