I Love Alienbees Beauty Dish.

I have been wanting to get a beauty dish for a while. I am not sure what took so long since they really are not all that expensive. Every time I watched a behind the scenes video with a photographer I liked they were always using a beauty dish. So I got bought one and I love it. If you are thinking of getting one, do it. I have a plethora of soft boxes and grids, but none of the touch the way I can manipulate the light source to EXACTLY where I want it into a certain contained area. The dish below is an Alienbees 22" Beauty Dish.

Although I just shot the photos below today, I have actually had this tool sitting around unused for over a month. My kids help me mess with it when I first got it, but I wasn't unable to unleash its purpose until today.

The Set Up.
....the blue paper I purchased for a newborn session that I never ended up taking with me. I found it, still sealed up in my studio space. I have a plethora of shit hanging around that I "needed" to get but still haven't used. (I am sure my wife is stoked to know that...) I tacked it to the wall and pointed the beauty dish at a 45 degree angle to where the model would be standing.

The Shot:
Below is model Shannon Noelle. Shannon shot some promotional images with my company before and was just returning to San Diego via Argentina and hit me up to see if I wanted to shoot. Unlike many of the "models" you find on modelmayhem.com , Shannon is actually a respectable full time working model (Adidas, Seedless, Affliction) and being able to shoot with a pro for free is awesome.

The shot set up is simple. There isnt much trickery to the actual setups of most studio lighting shots.
The real work comes in on setting the lights power vs. the setting on the camera to really dial in what you are looking for. On this shot I had the Alienbee's B800 powered to about 3/4 power and then my camera set at 1/200 f5. It seemed to be about the perfect combination is really letting the beam of light from the beauty dish shine and let the non light areas die off pretty fast in the image.

The resulting shots. These have only had minor RAW adjustments and not fully worked in post production.

If you have any question on gear or shooting or anything photography/nerd/geek related feel free to hit me up anytime!