Today, Profoto released the OCF Beauty Dish, a collapsible 24-inch beauty dish for use with their popular B1 and B2 heads. Designed to be ultra-portable while still offering the highly sought-after quality of light afforded by a beauty dish, it looks to be a great solution for on-location photographers who desire portability without compromising creative lighting capabilities.
Beauty dishes are often a double-edged sword. Whereas they offer a quality of light that many fashion, portrait, and wedding photographers seek for its high contrast, dramatic look, they are rather cumbersome to transport and often prone to denting, which affects the way light is reflected and transmitted by the dish. Profoto seeks to solve both these dilemmas by offering a collapsible option. Weighing only 1.3 pounds, it's sure to be a favorite of on-location photographers, who can easily transport it without fear of damage and have many options for its use, from traditional placement on a stand to handholding.
The OCF Beauty Dish comes in silver and white and includes a deflector plate, front diffuser, and carrying case and requires a speedring for use. However, from now until June 7, Profoto is offering a free OCF Beauty Dish with the purchase of a B1 or B2. Available to ship today, you can order it below:
Profoto 24" OCF Beauty Dish (White)
Profoto 24" OCF Beauty Dish (Silver)
Profoto B1 Monolight with free OCF Beauty Dish
I know Phottix has had the collasable BD for over a year, and Broncolor also came out their own. Is Profoto different in the way it folds?
I look forward to trying this beauty dish. I was not happy with the look I achieved from their traditional beauty dish. Sounds crazy...but that's just me!!
they list it as being for B1, B2 - but is there some reason it wouldn't for for the D1 Air's? - I thought the D1 & B1 were the same size mount?
I suspect its because of the heat of the light, especially when its not a LED modeling light. I bet there is a concern that the deflector plate will burn
Like Sultan said. It's because of the heat from the halogen bulb in D1 and other Profoto heads. Should work fine if you turn off the bulb.
So this is like a Westcott Rapid Box then?
Meh, those monos will never fill a beauty dish as well as a proper protruding tube flash head will.
Robert makes a good point on recessed flash tubes but that hasn't stopped people from using a BD. I'll be curious to see the price tag and the flood of adtutorials. Beauty dishes are never fun to travel with.
You can put a glass dome on the B1
That still doesn't make the flash tube protrude from the case. The light is already being constrained.
I'll get mine tomorrow :) ;) I was surprised how cheap it was compared to other light shaping tools from profoto !
You can view my video about this product on youtube. I am a fan of Profoto lighting and own 6 B1 heads and 2 B2 heads for my location work. This product has a flaw and for the price is just an insane overlook from a quality manufacturer standpoint. I sent mine in a month ago and just got it back and they would not fix it as I did not have a receipt since it was bought for me as a gift. Did I mention this has a 2 year warranty and yet it has only been a year since it was released? Mine is basically brand new and broke the 2nd use. It is up to you, but I would stay away from these. My other profoto modifiers have held up very well over 2 years now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzR6u2mIL3o