So I used the Light Pipe I made earlier today to create a Beauty Dish-ish type of thing. The fresh (and really bad) haircut didn’t do me any favors here, but this was really more of a proof-of-concept project than anything else.

I didn’t take any in process shots. Apologies. But I just cut a hole in the bottom of a roasting pan, shoved the light pipe through, attached it with gaff tape, and stuck a hastily-folded hunk of aluminum foil to the end of it to bounce light back into the pan. It makes really beautiful light, but it chews that light like crazy (and swallows about 75%) before spitting some beauty at the subject. I was having to toss out full pops to get me about 1/4 stop overexposed. I’m not sure if that was due to the distance between me and the dish-ish, or because the light pipe protrudes beyond the borders of the pan, or both.

Anyway.

Proof of Concept, today’s 365 entry, was captured with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G, ISO100, 1/200th, f/8, with the SB700 at 1/4 power.

After some modifications (and cussing), the Beauty Dish-ish itself and (Not Quite) Beautified and its offspring (Adjusted and Adjusted with Abandon) were captured with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, ISO100, 1/200th, f/5.6, with the SB700 at full power.

Adjusted and Adjusted with Abandon received treatment from Topaz Labs’s Adjust 5 (now Adjust AI) . The first got the Retro Style 4 and Equalize treatments; the latter got Crisp and Portrait Drama, plus some contrast, saturation, and definition adjustments once I brought it back into Aperture. Fun stuff.

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