Profoto Beauty Dish : Which one..??

Micheal, You will need to determine what you want your images to look like. The dish with the silver interior will yield a higher contrast image while the white will be a softer light. I shoot a lot of beauty shots and choose the white. Drop me a note and I'll send you a jpeg of an image shot with the white interior Softlight.

Tony

Neither is "better" (tho' the question should be asked: "better at what?").

Do you want a narrower angle of illumination or a broader angle of illumination?

I prefer the line of reflectors made by Mola.

"Mola"?

I did a google search and got every thing from "Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter" to some site that started with "All hail the Mighty Mola" into which I went no further...

Ellis, have you got a better link?... t

Ellis is referring to the Mola Softlights: www.mola-light.com .

Strictly speaking, the Silver Dish was developed by Profoto for still lives where specular highlights are desired on objects; the White Beauty Dish is the one for beauty shots. But who is to say that you cannot use the Silver Dish anyway you wish.

Mola Softlights make larger ones; check out their website. Unlike softboxes, these dishes do focus the light somewhat optimally at a prescribed distance so the effect is a little different with darker shadows.

thanks for the comments. What I am mainly looking for is a higher contrast modifier for my setup, I have been using medium/large sized profoto softboxes for younger-aged headshots and I am now getting more into beauty shots ( close-up beauty & make-up shots for clients ), I just wanted to know what would be a better modifier. I mainly shoot fair skinned between the ages of 18-23 ( females ). Those MOLA modifiers look interesting indeed. Maybe I should go towards them instead of the profoto dishes.

what are the pros & cons of the white & silver dishes.. I know that the silver gives more contrast..

I also use a ring flash w/softlight reflector.. but I am looking for different techniques on shooting.. the more you learn the better.. right?

thanks

the MOLA Euro is $679.99, thats one expensive piece of metal. geez

(link)

why not just get the silver dish and use a white diffusion cap? that way, you get the best of both world.

Walter Melrose has this to say about his Mola Dishes when someone asked about the availability of a silver finish:

The process is anodizing, although the reflector would be silver and reflective, it would not be polished. We have not produced this style of surface for more than 10 years. The reasons are as follows:

A silver surface is much cooler in colour temperature and tends to add a cyan cast to film. The silver surface does not allow the light to follow the contours of the reflector as they were intended. Although the silver surface gives the impression of greater output it does not apply to function, our white surface is 90% reflectance and very efficient.