Step Aside MOLA… Enter the BEAUTY WOK!

Its me the David Griffin A.K.A. "The Prince of Cheap" and I am BACK AGAIN!

Its time - its time! Its time for me to give up another short review of another cheap tool! After months of searching and searching for a beauty dish I finally found one. It was a 16 inch dish that save my life and reinvigorated. Then I was thinking. What would happen if I had a larger dish that I could use to cover a larger area? What could I do if I had a way to cover a larger subject or multiple subjects in the same snappy yet soft light that I was getting out of my 16 inch dish? Enter EBAY!!!! Drum roll please… ENTER THE 28 INCH BEAUTY DISH FOR $179!

Here you can see the dish without its diffuser or grid.

Here the dish in all its glory with its 20 degree metal grid attached.
As with any dish the rules still apply to this one. Its about the same size as the Mola Seti (the 28" Wonder beauty dish from Mola that also has a silver interior). Now let me say this right now. In no way and by no how is this dish "better" than the industry ordained and hailed Mola Seti. In my opinion, its the only substitute if your in the market for a beauty dish larger than 24 inches. The dish is yet another Chinese Wok converted with a frontal dish reflector and comes complete with a grid and white nylon shower-cap diffuser (that's right I said shower cap!).

Here, you can see the light spread with the grid attachment on when the face of the dish is 2 feet away from the black background. The light with its grid is soft and VERY directional. It barely reaches out to its sides when you attach its 20 degree grid. As you can see closely its approximately 12 inches wider in diameter than the 16 inch dish in my previous post! This dish is HUGE… this dish is HEAVY… this dish makes ULTRA soft yet snappy light!

Here's the dish without the grid attached. A very wide spread of light with snappy contrast and great falloff! That make this the perfect tool to highlight your subject.

In this example the light is hotter in the center and falls off more rapidly in the edges. It appears that the nylon diffusion sock seems to enhance the beauty dish light pattern.

For the images above I used my large 28 inch beauty dish for my main light a silver reflector underneath, the Alien bee ABR800 Ring flash for fill and 2 strip lights for rim lighting. No background light was used. Check the setup diagram below.

The Beauty Wok is what lent the above beauty images they're soft lighting effect. The crazy thing is that the large dish was placed over 5 and a half feet away!! for its size its an amazing tool! Had I used a dish or not used the 20 degree grid light would have spilled onto the background causing me to have to use flags and many other complex things. This tool is crazy!!

CONCLUSION:  You know damn well that that Mola Dish (as good as it is) just flat out cost too much, unless you work in a $300,000 a year studio! This is the best $200.00 piece of lighting equipment you can buy after you've gotten your other necessary tools. If your into shooting bands and the likes, this is the tool to use to highlight them. In fact, if you study most of what tools seem to get most use, the beauty dish would probably rate very - very high! If you have a few dollars to spare… get it! Its a solid piece of gear! I use it and I love it! My fantasies of one day buying a Mola Mantee Dish have left the room like a bad fart.
Here's where to get this cheap tool:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Softlite-Radar-Reflector-Grid-70cm-S-Type-BOWENS-

Mount_W0QQitemZ140287638072QQihZ004QQcategoryZ79008QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Check out more of my work at www.davidgriffinphotography.com Its where I use all this cheap stuff

Just a thought: I'm not bashing the Mola Setti. Its just that its too Posh for my budget. The light that I've seen come from it is nothing short of exquisite… but not enough to make me think that i should pass on this for it. In fact, I don't hate on anybody's gear, I just hate on the prices… shamelessly I might add.