Everyone loves smooth, creamy portraits that a Beauty Dish creates, but hates paying the ridiculous prices for the units, usually starting at around $200. So why not hack yourself one? David Tejada did!

The commercial photographer decided to make one himself for his Speedlight (although this can be used with pretty much any large flash unit) after looking at some available online, which just weren’t worth the cost, in his opinion. So after finding a little bit of inspiration from Flickr member Tyler Burk, adding his own special ingredient in the form of a convex mirror to help bounce light, and just a little bit of effort, David has himself a REALLY nice looking beauty dish for a tiny fraction of what even the cheapest units go for online.

Made out of a garden pot, an empty CD spindle, a drain gutter downspout, some velcro, and spraypaint, this beauty dish creates some silky lighting for your portraiture, with a reported loss of light of only about a stop and a half, not too shabby for a DIY hack at all. The top image here is the bare flash, the bottom is with the beauty dish.