How to Choose a Beauty Dish for your Photography Lighting

Beauty dishes are a staple in flash photography, designed much like a standard light reflector, with a wide open dish design, and often utilising a deflector dish in front of the lamp to bounce the light around the dish and reduce the risk of hotspots in your light. Hence their name, the Beauty Dish is regularly used for beauty and portrait photography, due to the way the light modification can enhance facial features, create a round catchlight in the eye, while also being flattering on skin and producing sought-after highlights on cheekbones. 

Different sizes and shapes of beauty dishes can produce differing results on your lighting, so it's worth ensuring that you're choosing the best dish option for your photography. 

See similar: A Guide to Photography Lighting Modifiers

Beauty Dish Design and Shapes

There are two different types of beauty dish we have available; one being the Standard Beauty Dish and the other being the Collapsible Beauty Dish.

The standard, traditional version of the beauty dish will be made of solid metal (most likely aluminium), which means that minimal setting up is required. This makes it great if you are using it in a fixed location or studio; simply attach is to your light and you’re away. This design offers a smooth circular shape to the modifier that you are less likely to find from most softboxes, and is the best option for a clean, circular catchlight in the eye. 

The Collapsible Beauty Dishes are foldable and compact which makes it easy to carry around and portable between different shoots, but means they use an octagonal shape rather than a smooth circular shape, however the outer diffuser provided with these collapsible dishes uses a circular shape to project light through. To set up the Collapsible Beauty Dish, you simply have to push down each rod until they lock into place, much like some types of softbox. To fold the Collapsible Beauty down you would again just need to push down on each rod and release the locking mechanism.

Here is a YouTube video which demonstrates this mechanism so you can see it in action. How To Set Up Your Pixapro Collapsible Beauty Dish

Beauty Dish Sizes 

The standard metal beauty dish can come in a range of size options. The smallest is 30.5cm, which is designed for Bare-Bulb Speedlite fittings such as the PIKA/AD200 flashes and the now-discontinued Hybrid360 flash. Larger options in the PiXAPRO range are available in 42cm and 70cm with a shallow dish design and interchangeable speedrings for different light fittings. The new Godox 55cm BDR-55 Beauty Dishes are much deeper in comparison, and are designed for Bowens S-Type lights only. 

Our collapsible beauty dishes currently are available in 60cm with a fixed Bowens S-Type fitting, and in the smaller 48cm Bare-Bulb Speedlite fitting as well. 

When it comes to size, it depends on what you're shooting and the effect that you would like in your photographs. As a general rule of thumb, smaller modifiers will produce a harsher light, and larger modifiers will produce a softer light because the light will bounce further around the modifier and diffuse itself further. A smaller surface area means the light focuses in tighter and packs the same amount of light into a smaller beam than a larger modifier would.

If you're going to be shooting mainly tight headshots, then you may be able to get away with a 42cm beauty dish, however the 55cm and the 70cm options will give you more coverage and softer lighting. 

See Similar: Tips for Shooting High Quality Headshots

Another Option

If you need a beauty dish-styled modifier larger than 70cm, our PiXAPRO Rice Bowl softboxes will be your closest option! Available in 65cm and 105cm, these Rice Bowl umbrella softboxes are available with silver and white interiors, and can be used the same way as a beauty dish due to their deep, curved design and their included removeable deflector dish! The 16-sided round shape of the softbox also allows for circular portrait catchlights, and makes it a very versatile modifier option. 

Beauty Dish Interior Colour Differences

The vast majority of beauty dishes will be available with Silver or White reflective interiors. In terms of the softness of light, both types of beauty dish will be similar (provided that both beauty dishes are the same size, and are at the same distance away from your subject), however the Silver Beauty Dish will give you a more contrasting light with more specular highlights due to the silver reflecting your light more efficiently. The White Beauty Dish on the other hand, will result in more natural looking lighting, and may reduce specular highlights.

Check out Richard Bradbury's YouTube video on the difference between white and silver interior softboxes for a great example of the kind of differences you can see in your images. 

A Silver Beauty Dish will also accentuate the texture in the skin more than a White Beauty Dish would, while White may be more diffused and help to fill in more shadows. 

White Interior	Silver Interior

Grids and Diffusion Covers

It may also be important to note whether the beauty dish you're choosing comes with grid accessories and a diffusion cover to help you modify your light further.

Honeycomb Grids are used to restrict the spread of light, preventing light from spilling onto areas that you don’t want light to fall, such as on the background when you are shooting a low-key image. The smaller and tighter the grid, the more restricted the spread of light will be. With honeycomb grids, there is a slight loss of light compared to the beauty dish without it. There is also a slight loss of softness since the spread of light is being restricted.

See similar: Tommy Reynolds Live Workshop - Demonstrating how adding a grid to your beauty dish can impact your light.

Diffusion covers, or diffusions socks, work the same way as on a softbox, and can be placed over the front of your beauty dish to soften the light spread to further reduce harsh shadows and flatter skin texture. Much like the grids however, diffusion covers will also cause you to lose light, so you may need to increase the power of your flash to compensate. 

The collapsible beauty dish options come with both fabric grids and diffusers, while the solid PiXAPRO dishes are supplied with a solid grid and fabric diffuser. The new Godox BDR dishes have the option of purchasing with or without a solid grid, however don't currently offer the option for diffusion covers. Check what your preferred dish comes with in the "Whats in the Box" section of the listing before purchasing. 

Conclusion

Having gone through the details and specifications for each beauty dish, it is safe to say that each of them has their own particular usage. Whether you're looking for a larger studio-suitable option, or for a more compact and portable dish, we have options which can suit most shoots! As for choosing between silver and white interiors of the beauty dish, this will all end up being down to your own needs as a photographer. Regardless, we always recommend having a Beauty Dish as part of your kit as they are very useful and can offer unique and flattering lighting for a range of different shooting styles.