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Technical Details
- Ideal for portraits
- 2000 watts/45 watt fluorescent light bulb = 200 watt Incandescent lights
- Soften lighting with soft box
- Easy to control your lights with ON/OFF switch.
- Set up in minutes to offer you a professional result.
Product Details
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Product Description
Spyder 3 gives enthusiasts and advanced amateur photographers color they can depend on allowing them to faithfully reproduce on their computer displays and in their final prints. Datacolor products offer a more efficient digital workflow and allow users to achieve their creative vision quickly and accurately without having to become color gurus. The Spyder3Express colorimeter comes equipped with new state-of-the art optical design, 7 detector color engine and largest aperture in the industry making it the industry’s leading colorimeter. The easy streamlined user interface walks you through the calibration process. Spyder3Express provides consistent, predictable color on all your LCD, CRT and Laptop displays. Spyder3 helps photographers faithfully reproduce on their monitors what they see and capture with their camera. The Spyder 3 comes with Datacolor Spyder3Express Colorimeter, Software CD, Quick Start Guide, Screen Cleaning Cloth, 1- year hardware warranty Spyder3Express. System Requirements: XP 32/64, Vista 32/64, Win 7 RC ;Mac OS X (10.4 or higher) ;USB Port; Monitor Resolution 1024 x 768 or greater (with 1024x600 Net Book option) ;16-bit video card (24-bit recommended); 128MB of available RAM; 100MB of available hard disk space.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this lighting kit primarily because it uses color-corrected cfl's, which are low heat and work nice in small studio setups. The light output is nice and the kit assembly, although not easy, is not much harder than similar kits from other manufactures. My one complaint, which is significant, is that the hardware, such as the thumb screws and fasteners are very poor quality. The first time I fastened the fixture to the stand, the plastic yoke holding the thumbs screw assembly broke. I have good deal a familiarity with lighting kits, so I know not to crank down on the thumb screws, since most econo kits are flimsy, yet with just finger tight pressure the yoke cracked.
The kit would be fine, even very nice, if the hardware wasn't so poorly constructed.
2000 WATT Digital Photography Lighting Studio Portrait Video Continuous Softbox Lighting Kit Light Set + Carrying Case - 2 Light stands, 2 Softboxes, 2 light heads(5bulbs each), 10 Photo Bulbs by ePhoto INC VL9026s
The kit would be fine, even very nice, if the hardware wasn't so poorly constructed.
2000 WATT Digital Photography Lighting Studio Portrait Video Continuous Softbox Lighting Kit Light Set + Carrying Case - 2 Light stands, 2 Softboxes, 2 light heads(5bulbs each), 10 Photo Bulbs by ePhoto INC VL9026s
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
After years of shooting outdoors, I decided it was time to learn about shooting with artificial lighting. I found some great hints in FACES: Photography and the Art of Portraiture which I recently reviewed. This kit looked like a good place to start.
When other reviewers discuss the quality of documentation, they are being too kind. It would serve ePhoto well to hire an actual English speaker to write the instruction page. It's easier just to toss the paper in the bin and figure out how the thing goes together. Complaints aside, it does assemble quickly. The build quality is adequate but not spectacular (that's why this kit is less than half the price of professional gear). The "iffiest" bit of construction is the adjuster that controls tilt of the soft box. It would be easy to damage. I've found that it's best to loosen the adjuster completely, position the soft box, and then tighten the adjuster again.
As advertised, the kit does come with a carry case. The case is pretty nice, considering the price, but I'm not sure how practical it is. The boxes must be completely disassembled and the bulbs removed from the light heads. The photographer must find some way--perhaps towels--to wrap the bulbs for transport. While the bulbs are adequately packaged for shipping, the foam crumbles easily and will not support reuse. I think the kit will survive several assembly cycles, but must be treated pretty delicately.
How about the light quality? I've converted a small room to a studio and I've found these lights are sufficient, if occasionally marginal. I'm able to shoot at ISO 100 up to about F/7.1. After that, the shutter speed is too slow, so ISO has to go to 200 or 400. If you're also shooting with flash or another light source, then these soft boxes will fill nicely. The advertised color temperature is 5500. I've been measuring 5200-5250, which is still pretty good: color accuracy has not been a problem for me. It's worth pointing out that the 2000 watts claimed by this kit is an incandescent equivalent. The actual power draw is 450 watts. That's much easier on the home circuit breakers. The individual rocker switches are also very convenient for getting just the right amount of light. The power cables are fairly long, allowing you to move the lights around the space without constantly searching for a new outlet.
This kit appears to be just what I hoped it would be: decent quality flexible lighting at a reasonable price. If it holds up to a couple of years of careful treatment, then I'll be quite happy.
When other reviewers discuss the quality of documentation, they are being too kind. It would serve ePhoto well to hire an actual English speaker to write the instruction page. It's easier just to toss the paper in the bin and figure out how the thing goes together. Complaints aside, it does assemble quickly. The build quality is adequate but not spectacular (that's why this kit is less than half the price of professional gear). The "iffiest" bit of construction is the adjuster that controls tilt of the soft box. It would be easy to damage. I've found that it's best to loosen the adjuster completely, position the soft box, and then tighten the adjuster again.
As advertised, the kit does come with a carry case. The case is pretty nice, considering the price, but I'm not sure how practical it is. The boxes must be completely disassembled and the bulbs removed from the light heads. The photographer must find some way--perhaps towels--to wrap the bulbs for transport. While the bulbs are adequately packaged for shipping, the foam crumbles easily and will not support reuse. I think the kit will survive several assembly cycles, but must be treated pretty delicately.
How about the light quality? I've converted a small room to a studio and I've found these lights are sufficient, if occasionally marginal. I'm able to shoot at ISO 100 up to about F/7.1. After that, the shutter speed is too slow, so ISO has to go to 200 or 400. If you're also shooting with flash or another light source, then these soft boxes will fill nicely. The advertised color temperature is 5500. I've been measuring 5200-5250, which is still pretty good: color accuracy has not been a problem for me. It's worth pointing out that the 2000 watts claimed by this kit is an incandescent equivalent. The actual power draw is 450 watts. That's much easier on the home circuit breakers. The individual rocker switches are also very convenient for getting just the right amount of light. The power cables are fairly long, allowing you to move the lights around the space without constantly searching for a new outlet.
This kit appears to be just what I hoped it would be: decent quality flexible lighting at a reasonable price. If it holds up to a couple of years of careful treatment, then I'll be quite happy.
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I just got done spending over an hour unpacking and putting these together for the first time. This isn't going to be a thorough review of the product itself, but rather a word of warning for what you're getting yourself into, and a few tips. I'm also doing this partly because the manual is ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS.
First, I'll start off with my thoughts on the assembled lights. They feel moderately sturdy.. the piece that lets you adjust the angles feels pretty weak, and as others have mentioned, the plastic tightening knobs are flimsy. The tripod is thin steel, but seems to stand well. The lights are pretty bright, I have no complaints there. There IS a little bit of a blue tint to the light, but it's very minor. It's not pure white, but close. I love being able to switch on and off all bulbs separately, it gives a lot more control. Each fixture has a removable fuse and came with a spare fuse for both. The cords are a good 10-12 feet long. The diffuser material and reflector housing don't really straighten out when everything's put together, there's a lot wrinkles in it.. not a big deal, but it does make them look a bit cheap. There's a very faint hum emitted from the lights, but it's nothing that's going to get picked up by a microphone if you're doing video, you have to have your ear right up to it, and even then it's hard to hear. Overall, I'm content with them. I don't love them, I don't hate them, but they work well and do what they were designed to do. Would I buy them again? That's a tough call. Only time will tell how long they're going to hold up.
Now for the fun stuff. As my title reads, if you want a portable continuous softbox kit, look elsewhere. There is so much involved in setting these up and breaking them down, it's insane. It's a lot like setting up a tent. Each softbox consists of 15 parts, all of which need to put together and taken apart each time.
1x Slip-on diffusing material
1x Clip-on (4 clips) diffusing material, goes under the slip on
4x Tension rods
5x Bulbs
1x Fixture assembly
1x Reflector housing
1x Stand/tripod
1x Power Cord
The reflector housing goes over the fixture assembly. The fixture goes into a small hole in the reflector. There's a slit in the reflector held together by velcro to make the hole big enough for it to fit into. The four tension rods are what make the reflector pop open. Before installing the tension rods, make absolutely sure the fixture is rotated the right way.. you're not going to want to have to do this again. There's a large end and a small end on each rod, the large ends go into the 4 corners of the reflector, and the small ends go into the sides of the fixture. There's actually 8 holes around the fixture, just skip one each time. There are also little white loops that each rod must go through on the way. If something doesn't seem to fit right and the reflector is sliding off the fixture, one of your rods didn't go in far enough to the fixture (this happened to me twice). The holes go about 3/4" deep, you really have to work at it to get them to go in all the way. After all 4 rods are in, wiggle everything around a little to make sure one of your rods doesn't pop out. If they're not all the way in, you're going to wind up with some broken bulbs. After the reflector and rods are installed, put all the bulbs in. Now is a good time to make sure they all work, so plug it in. The small white diffuser fabric with the clips on the corners gets clipped to the white loops that the rods go through. The fabric is GOING to make contact with the bulbs, there's no getting around this (which has me a little concerned it may be a fire hazard). After that, just slip on the outer diffuser material and affix the velcro on all 4 sides. Once that's all put together, it should feel pretty sturdy and is safe to lay diffuser-side-down.
The only thing left to do is screw it on to the light stand and plug it in. Oh, and then do the next one. ;)
While that may not sound terribly hard, keep in mind that every time you put it together or take it apart to transport, you have to do ALL of that again (everything must come apart), and you also need to put all the parts into their bags, and safely store each bulb. You're looking at about 15-20 minutes to disassemble and 20-30 minutes to reassemble.. each (including packing/unpacking). The styrofoam that the bulbs came in is very brittle and isn't suitable to reuse.. so I advise wrapping each bulb in a cheap rag and putting it back into the bulb box it came in.
What I'm personally doing, is storing the softboxes preassembled, and keeping the light stands and power cords in the big tote bag that came with it. This way it's quick setup and take down.. only problem is storing them, since they're pretty big. There's no way I'm ever going to mess with putting these back together.
Hope this helps someone.
First, I'll start off with my thoughts on the assembled lights. They feel moderately sturdy.. the piece that lets you adjust the angles feels pretty weak, and as others have mentioned, the plastic tightening knobs are flimsy. The tripod is thin steel, but seems to stand well. The lights are pretty bright, I have no complaints there. There IS a little bit of a blue tint to the light, but it's very minor. It's not pure white, but close. I love being able to switch on and off all bulbs separately, it gives a lot more control. Each fixture has a removable fuse and came with a spare fuse for both. The cords are a good 10-12 feet long. The diffuser material and reflector housing don't really straighten out when everything's put together, there's a lot wrinkles in it.. not a big deal, but it does make them look a bit cheap. There's a very faint hum emitted from the lights, but it's nothing that's going to get picked up by a microphone if you're doing video, you have to have your ear right up to it, and even then it's hard to hear. Overall, I'm content with them. I don't love them, I don't hate them, but they work well and do what they were designed to do. Would I buy them again? That's a tough call. Only time will tell how long they're going to hold up.
Now for the fun stuff. As my title reads, if you want a portable continuous softbox kit, look elsewhere. There is so much involved in setting these up and breaking them down, it's insane. It's a lot like setting up a tent. Each softbox consists of 15 parts, all of which need to put together and taken apart each time.
1x Slip-on diffusing material
1x Clip-on (4 clips) diffusing material, goes under the slip on
4x Tension rods
5x Bulbs
1x Fixture assembly
1x Reflector housing
1x Stand/tripod
1x Power Cord
The reflector housing goes over the fixture assembly. The fixture goes into a small hole in the reflector. There's a slit in the reflector held together by velcro to make the hole big enough for it to fit into. The four tension rods are what make the reflector pop open. Before installing the tension rods, make absolutely sure the fixture is rotated the right way.. you're not going to want to have to do this again. There's a large end and a small end on each rod, the large ends go into the 4 corners of the reflector, and the small ends go into the sides of the fixture. There's actually 8 holes around the fixture, just skip one each time. There are also little white loops that each rod must go through on the way. If something doesn't seem to fit right and the reflector is sliding off the fixture, one of your rods didn't go in far enough to the fixture (this happened to me twice). The holes go about 3/4" deep, you really have to work at it to get them to go in all the way. After all 4 rods are in, wiggle everything around a little to make sure one of your rods doesn't pop out. If they're not all the way in, you're going to wind up with some broken bulbs. After the reflector and rods are installed, put all the bulbs in. Now is a good time to make sure they all work, so plug it in. The small white diffuser fabric with the clips on the corners gets clipped to the white loops that the rods go through. The fabric is GOING to make contact with the bulbs, there's no getting around this (which has me a little concerned it may be a fire hazard). After that, just slip on the outer diffuser material and affix the velcro on all 4 sides. Once that's all put together, it should feel pretty sturdy and is safe to lay diffuser-side-down.
The only thing left to do is screw it on to the light stand and plug it in. Oh, and then do the next one. ;)
While that may not sound terribly hard, keep in mind that every time you put it together or take it apart to transport, you have to do ALL of that again (everything must come apart), and you also need to put all the parts into their bags, and safely store each bulb. You're looking at about 15-20 minutes to disassemble and 20-30 minutes to reassemble.. each (including packing/unpacking). The styrofoam that the bulbs came in is very brittle and isn't suitable to reuse.. so I advise wrapping each bulb in a cheap rag and putting it back into the bulb box it came in.
What I'm personally doing, is storing the softboxes preassembled, and keeping the light stands and power cords in the big tote bag that came with it. This way it's quick setup and take down.. only problem is storing them, since they're pretty big. There's no way I'm ever going to mess with putting these back together.
Hope this helps someone.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent kit for starting your photo studio... but not so portable
One of the things I like about the description of this, was that it came whit its own carrying case. But it is no easy to assemble. Read more
Published 3 days ago by heg
Great lights, challenging assembly
Overall, these are great lights that do the job. The bulbs could be a little brighter but I love that each is controlled by its own switch so I can turn them off and on and... Read more
Published 16 days ago by Copper Tomato
Bad build quality
I bought this kit last year and I have used it for a few times. First of all the softbox is never useable, super hard to put them together and really badly made. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Chun Fung Simon Yu
Great!
I bought these a year ago. Work great in small or large spaces. Light is relatively "white", I say relatively because I haven't done any testing. Read more
Published 1 month ago by KJ
Apathetic Build Quality
You some times when you're assembling a really poorly constructed product you get the vague feeling that it was sold to you be people you secretly have contempt for you? Yeah. Read more
Published 3 months ago by bbcarlson
lights are good, but the hardware is terrible
The lights, stands, umbrellas, poles everything is great and I think worth the price I paid on Amazon. But, the adapters that are used to put the lights on the stands are horrible. Read more
Published 4 months ago by h
Good for the money.
While LED lights are the newest thing these 5 lamp CFLs do the job for very little cash. These are not heavy duty fixtures. Read more
Published 4 months ago by D. Hayashi
Lighting is good but Contruction not the best
These were very difficult to put together. The construction and materials are not the best, but once it was put together it served its purpose. The lighting is pretty good. Read more
Published 4 months ago by HFP
Lights are a little weak
This light system is very nice for anyone that wants to practice studio lighting. The instructions are worthless, you should have a little knowledge on how studio ligh ts work and... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Herb Cintron
Great Light Quality, Crappy Light
Step 1 - Got the light kit.
Step 2 - Set it up.
Step 3 - Was happy.
Step 4 - Had a photoshoot
Step 5 - One of the lights totally stopped... Read more
Step 2 - Set it up.
Step 3 - Was happy.
Step 4 - Had a photoshoot
Step 5 - One of the lights totally stopped... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Neko
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