Lumodi 14" Beauty Dish Review

I picked up a Lumodi 14" Beauty Dish last year to try out. I was already working with an Ephoto 22" chinese made beauty dish from amazon that has been quite good to me. Let's face it, beauty dishes are a rip off. It costs a lot of money to get a real nice one. So thankfully there are alternatives like Lumodi to help get your foot in the door. If I had the money I would love to do a side by side of these cheaper versions versus the more expensive bad boys of the bunch. I would bet the difference in light quality isn't enough to warrant the price difference.

Anyway, back to the Lumodi. I have the white coated version, but Lumodi offers a titanium finish and a silver finish. Both will change your color balance slightly but as far as light loss, the white and titanium are about 2 stops, where the silver produces a little stronger light and only loses about 1.3 stops, which could be helpful shooting in the sun. Lumodi also makes an 18 inch dish and fairly new 11 inch version, both of which I would love to give a try. You could have all three of these and still paid less than half the price for the top of line dishes Mola has to offer. I will say, the Mola's are better, no doubt, but do they warrant the higher price? Will the light quality you get from a Mola be so noticeable that you will be glad you spent 500 bucks on the dish compared to $100 for something like a Lumodi or Ephoto. Probably not. But hey, it's a great bragging tool.

Alright, let's get to the real deal. When I got the Lumodi, I was a little surprised. It's all plastic and seems kind of cheap. I was always worried about leaving in the car in the Florida heat and coming back to a pile of plastic mush. Luckily non of the above happened. Although it looks cheap and like something you could make yourself, do you really want too? Not to mention Lumodi has it down perfect and charges more than fair prices for what you get. It would take you a lot of time just finding the materials to use and time is money.

Now when I say it looks cheap, it's not. Suprisingly enough, this thing can take a beating, and mine has not cracked, fallen apart, or melted so far. I have had camera equipment on it, left in my car when it's 98 degrees out, and even used it as an occasionally frisbee. The one negative I have had with the dish is the white semi gloss coated has been stained from dirt, dust, the sun, and some rubbing. Not everywhere but it random spots, so makes it look a little ugly, but it doesn't have any real effect on it's functionality. The biggest thing I wish they would change is the cheap stickers, Lumodi needs to invest in slightly better stickers, is that important, maybe not, but it does add some professional attitude to the product. The stickers on it now are printed very cheap and came off in like 2 weeks. When the stickers come off there goes your free advertising on shoots.

How does it work? The mounting is super simple, it has a cut out you put your flash head through and then a velcro strap to secure it. You can put your flash on a light stand with a standard flash shoe mount. If you want you could even use a sync cord and hold the flash to the side or above you and since the dish weighs so little it would be no different than holding your flash. The light quality is pretty solid. It does have limitations due to it's 14 inch size but that comes with the territory, it's a beauty dish made to be used on more close up applications, not a full body shot with a background. It's perfect for face shots, it can do upper body close ups well, and it could even work on some still life or product shots. You could probably push it to do a full body shot but it might not turn out great unless you want a lot of light fade off on the subject.

In conclusion, it does what it's made to do. Produce quality light for up close situtions that is affodable and extremely portable. And for that Lumodi nails it. Well worth the 60 bucks and I would do it again and again.

Check out Lumodi's Website for more.

You place the rubber strap around the flash head. 

The cutout and velcro strap to secure it

The Flash then slides into the cutout and you strap the Velcro around it

Has a plastic shield where your flash sits

Light Spread from the back

At a slight angle. You can see the light is a little uneven, it fades out nice and then has a bright ring on the outside which you may have to work around.

That's me, straight from the camera, no editing, that's the light it can produce by itself. It's at a standard 45 angle, not bad considering there is no fill light. You can still see the ring on the back wall though.