beauty dish vs umbrella vs softbox

Beauty Dish Vs Umbrella Vs Softbox

Beauty dish, umbrella and softbox are three of the most used photography lighting equipment. Atleast one of these tools can be found in any given photography studio. Though they do the same task (illuminate the subject), they differ a lot in terms of tone of light emitted, dimension and purpose. 

Umbrella

This is a large source of light which is effective in illuminating a large surface area. This is the reason it is often used as fill light. The biggest advantage of this tool is that it is affordable, portable and simple. It usually comes in silver, gold and transparent types

Since umbrellas spread light over a large surface area, it is not suitable for photography in case the professional wants to focus on certain parts of the subject

For such a situation soft box is more suitable. You can change the diffusion fabric to get diverse impact

Elinchrom Beauty dish is slightly different from the other two kinds. It creates semi hard light, unlike the two light modifiers explained above, which is quite effective for portrait photography. Elinchrom and Bowens beauty dish are two of the most popular tools used by photographers. Choose the tool wisely to get the right portrait