DIY IKEA Beauty Dish
Yay! It's done! And thankfully the test shots I did last night were wrong, once it was mounted on the Alien Bee it worked great!
Though I guess this is more of a beauty bowl then a beauty dish. Maybe a beauty canon. LOL
And if you don't know why I bothered to make this thing, check out the explanation here and their examples are more clear cut. My results are a little more subtle.
Very much influenced by the Strobist DYI Beauty Dish.
Click if you're bored! :)
Step by step for making the IKEA beauty dish#1
The 20" FOTO Pendent Lamp from IKEA. With a name like that, it was just begging to be made into something related to photography. LOL :) I just used the dome and not the light itself.
Since it's a lamp, it's already painted matte white on the inside, so definitely saves a step in traditional Strobist Beauty Dishes.
#2
Three holes were drilled so that it will mount the center reflector. Also the center whole needs to be made bigger so that it will fit the mount on my Alien Bee studio flash.
#3
Cut out a circle out of matte thin plastic used for making signs.
Attached to the 3 very long screws.
Interestingly enough, I tried using metallic tape on the underside, but it didn't make any difference in the light at all. So I just used it as is.
#4
DONE! And mounted on the Alien Bee!
The hardest part was making the center hole larger so that it will fit the Alien Bee mount. It was a combination of drilling and cutting and then sanding with a Dremel. I definitely gave my new Dremel a workout! :>
#5
Shot of the light coming from the beauty dish.
#6
As you can see the light is very soft and even across the entire circle and then falls off.
The falloff isn't quite as even as this, but it's good enough for what I need it for.
And fair warning. I'm obviously not wearing any makeup and you get to see all of the lovely imperfections in my face. LOL
All of the test shots are on or around 1/125 and f5.6. And hmm, maybe I'm the only one seeing the difference in the photos. LOL If that's the case I really did waste my Sunday. But it was fun making this puppy. :>
Test shots with my ugly mug, you've been warned!
#7
LOL - I was keeping track of which lighting set up I was using (#1-3) and of course I was measuring the light so that all of them was about f5.6 at 1/125 shutter. I just thought this photo was funny, dare I say, almost Sailor Moon like. O_o
#8
Using a bounced light with an umbrella. You get a lot of light and it's great if you need to light a large area. It's a bit over kill for just portraits though, uses higher power settings.
But you can see it's causing some "hot spots" on my cheek, bridge of my nose and nose.
#9
Using a shoot through umbrella.
Also causes some hot spots (eyelids, chin and nose) but the light is very diffused and softer then bounced umbrella.
The light is also more focused, as you can see the background is darker since most of the light is actually hitting my face.
#10
It's actually not bad, I used this lighting set up for my last beauty shoot and it turned out great! So I'm not knocking this at all. :)
You can also play with this sort of light, and have more light and shadow.
#11
This was shot with the beauty dish.
#12
As you can see no more hot spots and the light is very even across the face.
There's a shadow on the (picture) left of my face, because the light is coming from (picture) right.
#13
A fill light on the (picture) left fixes that problem. Now there's very soft, even light across the entire face. Perfect for portraits and beauty shots.
Though obviously even with a beauty dish, it didn't make me any more beautiful. That would require a team of makeup and Photoshop artists for that! LOL