Another way of softening the output of your Mola beauty dish is to use a diffusion sock. Unknown to a lot of people is that Mola actually makes 4 different types of diffusion socks for their entire range of Mola’s; (22″ – 43.5″)
- Standard nylon diffuser
- Mesh diffuser
- LW diffuser
- LW vented diffuser
Standard nylon diffuser;
nylon diffuser on B&H
When you purchase a new Mola, it ships with the standard nylon diffusion sock as seen below (installed on a Mola 28″ silver Setti)
Mesh diffuser;
mesh diffuser on B&H
The mesh diffuser is how it sounds, an interwoven mesh of material. This results in a very subtle diffusion of the light, around 1/3 stop loss of light and is great for just a hint of softening.
mesh diffuser shown below…
standard nylon vs the mesh…
LW diffuser;
LW diffuser on B&H
Similar to the ‘standard nylon diffuser’, the light weight diffuser is a breathable polyester fabric which allows more air to pass through the fabric. It is not as dense and diffuses a little less than the ‘standard nylon’ diffuser. (about 1/3 stop difference) This will help reduce the ‘ballooning’ effect when the lights fan / heat will fill the soft light and balloon the diffuser outward with some flash heads.
LW-diffuser vented (HMI);
LW diffuser-vented on B&H
Like the light weight diffuser above, except this diffuser has an additional 3/4″ vent at the top. This vent makes it ideal for tungsten and HMI continuous lighting which generate heat.
Both of these LW diffusers will allow you to continue to shoot with lights that generate heat, or lights that are prone to overheat quickly and have thermal cutoffs.
TIP: some shooters will double-diffuse Mola’s by installing 2 diffusion socks for an even softer, subtle fill light. Recently featured Mola user; Fiona Quinn uses this from time to time.
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Maintaining your diffusers;
