# from speedlights to Monolight



## yunisphotos (Jan 18, 2017)

Hi all,

so i currently have a 22in Beauty dish with a speedlight adapter. which i used with my canon.
http://amzn.to/2jnZElW

I'm thinking of buying a monolight with bowens mount. 
http://amzn.to/2jz9Gmz

my questions is. can i still the beauty dish if i buy an bowens adapter? 

does anyone had a similar situation?

thanks in advance


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## tirediron (Jan 18, 2017)

Yep... those beauty dishes are meant to change mounts quickly & easily (two screws IIRC); all you need to do is remove the speeedlight bracket and attach the Bowens mount and your new monolight will work just fine.

One thought:  600w/s is a LOT of power to be using with a BD.  They are generally used fairly close to the subject, and don't require a lot of power.  In my Veteran's portraits, most of the studio shots are done using a tightly gridded BD as key from about 5' and with no more than 100 w/s.  This is a sort of "non-traditional" use, and more conventional application would have it used even more closely.  My thought is that this 600 w/s light may not be able to go low enough to make it useful.  I would consider a 250 w/s for using with a BD.


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## Derrel (Jan 18, 2017)

Yes, I think you could likely bolt on the Bowens mount; the hole in the rear of the dish looks fairly large, so making sure the Bowens mount has metal to bolt to would be the main priority, but I think it ought to work. I adapted a Bowens-mount beauty dish to a Chimera speedring-connected-to-a-Speedotron-Universaal-Mount with four long machine bolts and wing nuts (wing nuts inside the dish). (YES--I mounted two things,together, as one unified unit:a speedring with _holes for the box rods_ AND a mount for attaching to Speedotron flash units.)

One way or another, with screws, or epoxy, and maybe some small wooden parts or whatnot, you shoud, be able to get a Bowens mount onto the back of the beauty dish.

As to the power of the monolight...

600 watt seconds of power delivering a guide number of 183 ft @ 100 ISO
That does, as Tirediron mentioned, seem a bit more powerful than likely needed for a beauty dish setup, but of course, there are other considerations you mifht have for how the light will be used.


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## yunisphotos (Jan 18, 2017)

thank you all for the feedback. i was not sure if an adapter will fit on the BD.

I'm looking to over power the sun. since i already have the BD i was thinking maybe I can use it as well.
I also have an umbrella which will work. But im not a big fan since lights goes everywhere


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## tirediron (Jan 19, 2017)

Unfortunately, there isn't really a "one size fits all" solution.  For over-powering the sun, 600 w/s is probably a good choice, but for studio work with a BD?  Maybe... maybe not.


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## Rick50 (Jan 19, 2017)

I have two 320ws AlienBees and they produce too much power for my small home studio so I have added another speedlite (now have 3) for indoor portrait work. If / when I get outside and shoot groups then larger strobes will be required. But for individual shots I can still  use my speedlites outdoors.
I sort of got here by accident. When I started with lighting I just went ahead and bought 2 Canon 600EX speedlites and the ST-E3-RT Transmitter. So this has worked for me but all this stuff costs money so tread carefully.


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## yunisphotos (Jan 19, 2017)

Thank all.
I do have one speedlight and sometime is not enough power for what i look for. my business is 100% outdoor. I don't have home studio ,so I'm not worry about too much indoor.

here an example of using the speedlight with BD. it was a cloudy day so the speedlight worked fine. 







I usually shoot an hour before sunset due to that limitation. that's why i want more power and create the same style.


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