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Friday, May 27, 2011

Beauty Dish vs White Umbrella


Yesterday I shot a beauty assignment with one of my favorite models.  I often use a profoto beauty dish for beauty assignments like this, but yesterday I decided to use a white umbrella's with my profoto strobes instead.  The reason for switching from the beauty dish to the white umbrella was because the assignment called for me to photograph jewelry on the model.  While the beauty dish is one of my favorite lights for shooting beauty I didn't want the specular highlights on the jewelry so a softer main light was needed.  
Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of every lighting source  helps you make the best decisions on selecting the lighting for each job.   There is no one light that fits every situation and this is one of the reason why its so important to test your light and discover how each light looks under different conditions.  During your light testing phase you will learn about the quality of light and when to use different lighting tools to make better images.  
The image of the model washing her face was shot with the profoto white beauty dish which worked well in that situation.  The image of the model with the jewelry was created using the white umbrella and was better suited to shoot the  assignment because of its soft quality.



Always Dream Big!

Instructional videos:  www.Gallery.MatthewJordanSmith.com

3 comments:

mazekraemer said...

The Umbrella really makes a difference. I just started working with off Camera flashes and lightformers and I'm thankful for every tip I can get. Looking forward reading more of your stuff. Sorry for the bad english, it's not my mother thounge.

Carmen said...

beautiful shots!

myaliasfotography said...

Great info!
I'd taken a break from doing strobist work [what with breaking my 1 of 2 speedlights], but this is inspiring to get back into it :D