Anyone who has spent time working with flash knows that lighting modifiers can dramatically impact the way the light looks. Sometimes, the differences can be subtle, but even the smallest differences can impact the overall feel of an image. For that reason, it’s important to get to know the lighting modifiers you use and understand how they differ and how they’re similar. To illustrate this point, we’ll look at two MagMod modifiers, including the MagMod Beauty Dish and the MagBox Pro 24” Octa. You’ll see a hands-on, side-by-side comparison of these modifiers and walk away with a solid understanding of what each one offers.
Let’s get into it.
Video: MagMod Beauty Dish Vs. MagBox Pro 24” Octa
Gear Checklist
Here’s a look at the gear used in this video/article:
How to Compare the MagMod Beauty Dish Vs. MagBox Pro 24” Octa
When you’re just starting out with flash photography, it can be tricky to get a grasp on how one lighting modifier affects the light vs another modifier. One of the quickest ways to get to know how they’re similar and different is to compare them in a side-by-side test.
In this case, we’re going to compare the MagMod Beauty Dish and the MagBox Pro 24” Octa across three different areas.
- Ease of Use and Size/Portability
- Light Control
- Light Quality
Ease of Use and Size/Portability
In terms of size, both of these modifiers are roughly the same, which means they’re also nearly equal in terms of portability. The MagMod Beauty Dish might have a slight edge here, however. While it’s relatively large and circular, it’s also very flat, and its low profile makes it a bit easier to carry around on the go.
If you’re at all familiar with MagMod’s products, then you can probably guess that they’re also both very easy to use. The Beauty Dish, for example, requires only a simple pop and it’s ready to go right out of the case. Similarly, the softbox snaps into place almost instantly with minimal effort.
Okay, let’s go on to our next comparison.
Light Control
We can compare these modifiers in a controlled test and take a look at the overall pattern of the light that is going to fall on both our subject and the background with each modifier. In terms of our light source, we’re using a Profoto B10X Plus on a C-stand, and it has been boomed at roughly a 45-degree angle off-camera so that we get a bit of light direction. We positioned the light about four feet from our subject’s face. Lastly, the camera is on a tripod to get the exact same shot no matter which light modifier is in use.
Test #1: MagBox Pro 24” Octa
We will start this section of the test with the MabBox Pro 24” Octa. We’re using light diffusion on the MagBox because it’s uncommon to shoot with a softbox that doesn’t have a layer of diffusion on it. In contrast, it is common to use a beauty dish without diffusion, but we’ll cover that in more detail below.
Test #2: MagMod Beauty Dish – Bare
With the beauty dish, we have a couple different types of modifiers, but we’ll start with a bare bulb shot because that is a common go-to when using a beauty dish.
Let’s take a look at our first two shots side-by-side.
Right away, there’s a very clear difference. We’re getting a more specular light with the beauty dish, which means that it’s more reflective and direct than what we’re seeing from the MagBox Pro 24” with diffusion. This is due to the dish’s silver lining.
We’re also getting a lot more light output from the beauty dish because there is no diffusion layer.
That said, let’s see what happens when we add the diffusion layer onto the beauty dish and do another comparison.
Test #3: MagMod Beauty Dish – Diffused with “Sock”
We’re going with the same settings across the board.
Again, we can see some pretty clear differences.
First, we lost a bit of brightness, which happens whenever we diffuse light. At the same time, you’ll notice a more gradual pattern in terms of where the light lands and the transition from shadow to highlight. Lastly, we can also see a difference in the actual shape of the shadows as well.
Now, let’s take a look at the softbox with diffusion versus the beauty dish with the sock.
As you might expect, the difference is minimal because both modifiers are roughly the same size and both are using diffusion with the same lighting setup. That said, we do see some subtle differences, the biggest one being the graduation in lighting between shadows and highlights. The transition seems a bit more even and circular with the beauty dish, which makes sense because of the shape of the modifier. Some might argue that the beauty dish creates a more natural looking light, but the differences between the dish and the softbox at this point are subtle.
Test #4: MagMod Softbox Vs. Beauty Dish with a Grid
Now, let’s go to our last layer of light control: a grid. We’ll add a grid onto both the softbox and the beauty dish. With the beauty dish, we can add a sock first and put a grid over it, or we can add the grid first and put the sock over that. The outcome from either setup will vary just a bit, but having an option to switch around the order of modifiers will give you a little more light control.
In this instance, we’re going to diffuse the beauty dish first and then add the grid to have more control over the light output. If you want a little more of a feathered edge, you can place the grid on the dish first and then put the sock over the top. At the end of the day, it’s just another layer of light control that you get with a beauty dish versus a softbox. With the softbox, you can place the grid over the diffusion layer, and that’s really the only option you have.
For this comparison, we’ve left all the power and camera settings the same, so that part of the comparison is identical. That allows us to see exactly what these modifiers are doing.
The Beauty Dish
Let’s begin with the MagMod Beauty Dish.
The first thing we notice when we compare the beauty dish portraits that were captured with either just a sock or the combination of the sock and the grid is that the shot with the grid got a lot darker, even over the subject’s skin tones. The grid, however, gives us a lot of light control. Again, we can see that funneled circular light pattern and we’re controlling much of the light spill.
The Softbox
Now compare the gridded beauty dish to the gridded softbox.
With the gridded beauty dish, we have a little bit better light control than with the gridded softbox. Both yield great results, but when we look at the images side by side, we can see that the light pattern on the gridded beauty dish is a bit tighter. The light is not hitting as much of the background, and it’s a bit more circular due to the shape of the modifier and the design of the different grids.
Test #5 Bonus: Beauty Dish with Grid Over Vs. Under the Diffusion Layer
Now, let’s place the sock over the grid on the beauty dish to see the difference between the two setups. As you get more practice with off-camera flash and modification, you can already start to guess what’s going to happen based on your different choices. For instance, consider this switch in the order of modifiers on the beauty dish. If we put the grid underneath the diffuser, we should get plenty of light control, but with a little more light spread than we got with the opposite setup.
You’ll notice that we also get a much darker image, which means we’re losing more power with this setup, and we’ll have to compensate for that with our camera or power settings. To make this comparison make sense, we’ll adjust the flash power so that we can focus more on the results.
Here’s the same shot with a higher flash power setting (three stops higher than before). And now, here’s a quick three way side by side comparison.
What you’ll notice is basically three different layers of light control.
We get the most light control with the option in which we placed the sock on the beauty dish first, and then added the grid over the top of it. Next, the combination that used the grid over the sock lands somewhere in between. And lastly, we have the beauty dish with just the sock.
Test #6: Beauty Dish with Grid
Let’s do one last one. We’re going to do the beauty dish with just the grid.
Essentially, adding a grid over the bare beauty dish gives us a fourth layer of light control, all sort of built into this modifier.
Now, let’s look at four images side by side that highlight the similarities between these setups.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we’re seeing:
- MagMod Beauty Dish + Sock: This gives us a beautiful pattern against the wall with a nice circular light.
- Beauty Dish + Grid + Sock: This combination and order gives us our in-between shot with light control and the interplay of light and shadows.
- MagMod Beauty Dish + Sock + Grid: This combination gives us a lot of light control with a diffused light source that is very directed toward our subject.
- Bare Beauty Dish + Grid: The bare beauty dish with a grid yields a hard and specular light source with tons of light control.
As you can see, the beauty dish is such a versatile modifier. With a single modifier, we have four different options for controlling light.
Light Quality – Head Shots
And now, let’s compare the light quality between the MagBox Pro 24” Octa and the MagMod Beauty Dish. To do this, we’re going to use a headshot setup.
This is a very typical clamshell lighting setup used for headshots. We have a reflector on the bottom and the primary, modified light source up top. It’s set up in a butterfly light configuration, which means that the light is falling directly top-down.
Rather than worry about posing, we’ve asked our subject to look directly into the camera. This will allow us to focus on what is happening with the light modifiers, including their reflective nature, quality, and more.
Let’s go ahead and take our first shot.
MagBox Pro 24” Octa Headshot
Here’s our first shot using the softbox with just a diffusion layer. Now, let’s go ahead and add our grid.
With the grid on, we have a lot more light control, which limits the amount of light that will bounce off of our reflector using this clamshell setup.
You’ll notice in the image on the right that the background got quite a bit darker as a result of using the grid. We do still get a tiny bit of light reflecting off of the reflector, but it’s not nearly as much as in the first shot.
If we go in close, we can see a kind of telltale sign that we’re using an octa, which is the actual shape of that light modifier in the eye. That’s going to be one of our comparison points.
MagMod Beauty Dish Headshot
Now, let’s see what we get with the MagMod Beauty Dish.
The results from the sock and beauty dish combo look very comparable to the softbox with diffusion.
You might see a little more secularity in the light quality, which means you can see more light directly coming back in the camera, or that it’s more reflective. On the subject’s skin, then, you’re going to see more of the highlights, which is nice. It’s kind of a look in and of itself.
The strongest difference, most likely, is going to be in the catchlights, although we’ll have to zoom in pretty close to see it. By zooming into the eyes and looking at the images from the different modifiers side by side, we can see the telltale donut shape of the beauty dish.
Now, let’s add the grid.
Remember, we said earlier with the beauty dish and that tighter grid we get more control and less light. Look at how dark the background is in the image on the right. Even the catch lights of the eyes are darker as less light is reaching the reflector. In addition, we see darker skin tones and darker shadows overall. This tells us that we have more light control with this setup (using the beauty dish) than with the gridded softbox setup. Both are fantastic, but we have more light control with the beauty dish.
With the MagMod Beauty Dish, we still have more setups to test. Let’s move onto the bare beauty dish.
This is the quintessential beauty dish look with a relatively soft light that’s also specular. It’s soft because the size of this modifier is fairly large in relation to how close it is to our subject. At the same time, the light quality is also specular because of that silver lining on the inside of the beauty dish.
So, we get a look with the beauty dish that we just wouldn’t get with the softbox, and we can see that when we go side by side.
Lastly, let’s throw that grid on and see what that looks like.
The light control with the beauty dish and the added grid is phenomenal.
The bare beauty dish produces a soft, yet slightly specular light. Then, with an added grid, the bare Beauty Dish produces a similar light quality but is funneled into a tighter light pattern. We also have the sock and grid grid combo, which creates a diffused but also very controlled light, kind of in between and very close to a softbox.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this comparison between the MagMod Beauty Dish and the MagBox Pro 24” Octa proved helpful. Each of these modifiers has a little something different to offer. From these exercises, you can begin to see the versatility in MagMod’s new Beauty Dish.There are a lot of combinations to choose from, and while the differences are subtle, each setup gives us more control over how we use light to create our portraits.
