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My previous design of a small home-made softbox for my SB800 flash was quite crude (basically a cut-up Weet-bix box) and it is looking a little worse for wear so I decided to make my own small DIY beauty dish.

I found a square 25cm plastic bowl from the Reject shop ($2.50 for a pack of 2) and I already had some spare pieces of mount board handy which would become the rear section of the beauty dish, using the same "slip-on" method from my previous design.

Along with some tape, a glue stick and some aluminium foil I created this:


I have some baking paper that can be attached to the front with small bulldog clips (for added diffusion), though it seems OK without it.
Next time the Wife goes to Spotlight I might see if they have a small off-cut of ripstop or something similar.
I might also try covering the outside in black to help keep all the light within the softbox.

Here are a few quick test shots I took with the new setup (with my reluctant models - aka kids)







Re-edited image:


This will be a little more robust than my earlier design and is also very lightweight.
It gives me something to tinker with until I can get my hands on some "real" light modifiers...

Great idea Dave, seems to work ok. I had thought about the same, even got a white round deep dish. Brought it home the next day it was sitting under a pot plant.

I love simple solutions to photographic lighting! The most underrated, but useful is a simple large sheet of white material to bounce light back into the shadows. Your diffuser works beautifully and just as well as many commercial and over priced products.

Thank you for sharing your ideas with us. You demonstrated quite convincingly that one does not need to spend always lots of money in artifacts. I guess the major expense was on subject bribery. Very good portraits.

Thanks guys and very true about not needing to spend alot of money - though I am eyeing off some better equipment (a Westcott 26" Rapid Octa Box and a couple of umbrellas), as I aspire to move into some portrait photography in the future.
For now this is good practice though.

Here's a few new ones from today with a more willing subject (my sister), after Easter lunch...
These have been PP'd a little with some minor skin softening (using a clarity adjustment brush in Lightroom) along with a touch of boosted saturation to the eyes.