Customer Reviews

PBL PHOTO STUDIO FLUORESCENT LIGHTING KIT 850 WATTS WITH UMBRELLAS Steve Kaeser Photographic Lighting

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The pair of lights are good value for the money. They were relatively easy to assemble and use (adjust). I am a beginner with indoor lighting. The lights give off a strong white light that brings our details in house interior photos.

__ But

The bulb rests on the umbrella's metal rod. I called the vendor, cowboystudios.com and they said that is not a problem since the bulbs do not get very hot. I agree, the bulbs do not get very hot, but I am concerned that any sudden accidental jerking of the lights when moving could cause the bulb to break because of the contact between the bulb and the metal rod of the umbrella. Those new style florescent bulbs are energy saving, but they contain mercury and must be very carefully cleaned up when you break one.

I wish the lights came with instructions. My first attempt at assembling them almost met with disaster. I grabbed the light just in time before it almost fell over and broke. I did not realize that the light must extend over one of the tripod legs -- not inbetween them.

I guess I could search the web for instructions and tips on using lighting, but I would have appreciated a cheat sheet on using the lights.

Wow...I love these lights. I am an amateur photographer. Ask me a technical question and you will get a stare back at ya! Hahaha! I just do it for fun and have a very nice expensive digital, Photoshop Elements 7 and these lights along with digital backgrounds I use. My neighbors love me...I love to take pics of their babies and kids! It is a win win situation and these lights are perfect if you don't have a lot of money to spend. Very nicely put together with totes to store them in. I just think they are great and at such a reasonable price!!!! Very good service too. I emailed them on how to put together (I am sure they think I am an idiot) but answered me right away with a video instruction attached! What a great company!

Easy to assemble and with compact flourescent lights it is cool to work with because they don't give off as much heat as regular bulbs. The lights are very bright but cheaper to run than normal because they are CFL. Very inexpensive pair of kits in one box but provided exactly what we needed for home video making for our youtube channel. The tripod assembly even comes with its own carrying bag which helps make it portable.

OVERALL I agree with most reviews here - it is good considering the cost, and will fill a need many of us may have. Cowboy Studios is good. I was missing the carry bag and they shipped it with courteous communications.

LIGHT BULBS:
Notice the ad does not say what is the actual bulb watts. So I asked and Cowboy replied it is supposed to be 85 watt bulbs but they sent me 105w because they were out of 85w. My bulb label says "105 W., 5500K, 110V, 60HZ". I measured the watts of the "105w" bulbs as 70 watts using a "P3 P4400" P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor. (Each "105w" bulb is measured as 70 watts, 127 volt amps, 0.61 power factor, while supplied with 120v, 60 hz.) If you get the intended 85 watt bulb, I would guess its actual watts to be even lower. The watts, and equivalent incandescent watts seem exagerated. My bulbs had no indication of where, or who, manufactured it.

LIGHTS AND UMBRELLAS TOGETHER
The color temperture of the lights seems very good for photography - meaning very white, like sunlight. With two "105 watt" lights and 2 umbrellas only 6 feet from my subject,the brightness is only moderate, so I still use fill flash, or tripod. With F3.8, ISO 400, my shutter needs about 1/20 second unless I add flash. If they had shipped the correct watts, I may have been disapointed. The lights are too big to be centered at the foci of the umbrella. Much (or most) of the light is spread around the room and not put on the subject. If you have a white room it will help a tiny bit of the stray light to get to the subject.

THE CARRY BAG:
Notice the ad has no indication that a bag is included at all, or the bags size (the ad may change after my review). I did not recieve one so I asked for one and they sent it. It is a zippered cylinder about 5.3" diameter by 30" long. It is good quality. It holds everything except the big bulbs. For the two bulbs, with their protective styrofoam, you will need another bag about 14x12x6. Previous orders got bags big enough to hold everything including the bulbs and extra cords (see Eric C. Anderson's review and comments).

Please vote if this review was helpful or not. Thanks. Sincerely, Lakelyb.

This very inexpensive set of lights includes a great carrycase, and gives beautiful color balance for your video shoots. With the extremely low power consumption. lack of heat generation, and portability with the carrycase, I don't think you can go wrong. When I tell my friends how much I paid, they can't believe it!

I was not aware of the included carrycase, so it was a very plesant surprise. It is large enough to easily carry all of the lighting equipment, plus extension cords and outlet boxes and other stuff as well.

So, if you need lighting to shoot video indoors, and don't want to spend a lot of money, this is for you!

I was a bit worried by the other reviews of this items that said that no instructions for setting up the lights was included. This is true, there were no instructions in my kit. However, the only instructions I needed to set up my lights in less than 10 minutes were the pictures of the lights provided on Amazon.

The entire base and stand is one telescoping unit. The light socket attaches to the stand and also holds the umbrella in place. The bulb screws into the socket. There are no other pieces.

Simple to assemble and packaged in an attractive carrying case. I like this item very much.

I purchased these lights to photograph my artwork. I've used them with my 35mm film camera shooting slides and my digital camera. The results are great. Additionally, everything collapses for easy storage.

This product has great quality for the price - the light is very intense, and will suffice for most amateur indoors work with a good digital camera. We have used it for high quality You Tube videos with no problems. Very easy to assemble, and a great "bang for the buck"

I wanted something cheap to play and learn lighting, mostly to help for indoor on-location shoots at clients houses. Newborns, kids, headshots, etc. Also to use for a photobooth type set-up for events. Works great for all of this and love that it's not hot for my clients to sit under.

Arrived very fast, easy to set-up, issue with one bulb and they quickly replaced it for me, sturdy enough, easy to transport on my own, highly recommend for amateaurs/beginner professionals - but I have nothing to compare it too, so do your research.

Light is natural/daylight - looks good, umbrella is silver inside - not white (not sure if that is good/bad/makes no difference#, reflection in eyes looks like a propeller when close up - Will try to post examples) but worked great even though I don't know what I'm doing.

Great, awesome customer service from Cowboy Studio - will buy from them again.

I have to say that I was extremely leary about purchasing this product because it just seemed to be too great of a deal. Well, after receiving this light set I can say that I am very happy with my purchase. The bulb are VERY bright and offer brilliant white light. I take photos of my wife's handmade products and this set is amazing to do just that. The unit came in a box which had a black canvas carry case. Each part of the light lighting assembly was individually wrapped in it's own plastic bags, for the metal parts, and the light bulbs where VERY well packed in boxes with molded styrofoam. I read a few past reviews where people stated they almost broke the umbrella stand and light during the initial set up because there were no instructions. Now, I don't consider myself the be a physicist but with knowledge of how gravity on this earth works I was able to set this light unit up without any problems whatsoever. I highly recommend this product to any photographer who needs crisp light for their shots. All in all, I thought this was going to be a gamble, and I'm glad to see that one of mine finally paid off.