Please excuse my ignorance here. I'm trying to understand what makes the light from a beauty dish different than say a softbox or an umbrella. I've never used one. I would guess that the light is somewhat less diffuse, more directional and more contrasty. A grid would seem to make the light more directional.
Am I close?
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-Dan Rode
http://rodephoto.com
Great question.
There is nothing special about a beauty dish, it is just another type of light modifier, one of many types.
There is perhaps, a perception of it being special, much in the same way, wireless flash, radio triggering, HSS, those things that velcro to the top of a speedlight, wedding brackets, etc, etc, etc, only due to the belief that just owning such translates to taking great photographs.
A beauty dish is just another tool and a good one will do its specific job very well but it certainly isn't the tool for every job. All modifiers do different things (or they should do).
If there are any modifiers that can claim to have a revolutionary effect at all, I would say only the likes of an Elincrom Octa or Gary Regester Wafer would come anywhere near meeting that brief.
A beauty dish is quite a generic term, especially now as there are so many brands of them available, some good, some not so good.
A common purpose of a good beauty dish is for fashion/beauty/portraiture, head and shoulder shots, where it gives a pleasing lighting effect with no unsightly or harsh shadows but still with enough bite so as not to look at all, mushy. Its effect can be tempered or increased by adding grids and/or diffusion screens or covers.
If you get the chance, read up on or watch anything by Dean Collins.
The Photoflex tuitional stuff isnt too bad, either.
If I remember correctly, I think Hensel (or maybe it was Bron) have something on their site explaining and demonstrating, very well, the ins and outs of hard and soft lighting, etc in a way that should really get you to have a good basis for beginning to properly understand lighting.
Good luck
