Like it's not enough the weather's gone ugly, the days are shorter as well, so darkness falls faster than I usually expect lately. What do you do when you run out of ambient light and still want to shoot your girlfriend? Use a flashgun, of course. Small portable strobes don't have to always be harsh and give an unpleasant light.

Just like studio heads, portable flashguns can also be used off-camera and shot through modifiers. This article is about exactly that, a light modifier, merely a beauty dish, and namely, a 46-cm flash mounted dish. First, for you guys that still don't know what a beauty dish is, I'll explain briefly - the beauty dish is perhaps one of the most versatile light modifiers one can use, because it's softer than a direct strobe since it bounces the light in two surfaces before reaching the subject, but also providing a focusable light beam that gets a contrast unmistakable into the pictures. That's about it, as I said, briefly.

“We were constantly being asked to produce a beauty dish; something that would lift and flatter the face for portraiture.  We think we’ve come up with one of our best modifiers yet. The beauty dish delivers studio quality effects while being completely portable for the photographer on the move.” said Speedlight Pro Kit’s Dennis Kok.

Coming from Speedlight Pro Kit, the flash-mounted 46cm beauty dish consists of two key elements, merely a large white collar and an inverted silvered cone mounted within. The dish gets mounted on the flash in order for the light to get bounced back off the cone's silvered surface onto the white material, offering the subject an even and flattering lift. The most effective way of using the dish is using it on a stand-mounted flash, but yet again, it is light enough to be used handheld with ease, as in placing it very close to the subject when requiring more light. Also, the closer the dish, the softer the light. Pricing for this is $82.98.


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