CowboyStudio 750W Premium Photo Studio Reflector Umbrella Continuous Halogen Boom Lighting Kit, 10 X 12ft White Muslin Backdrop and Background Support System with Carry Case

The kit is good because you can start functioning with it. The bulbs are oblong 250W halogens and very, very bright. The white umbrellas allow three levels of diffusion. None, thru the umbrella, reflected off the umbrella. The stand is sturdy and the plastic levers that apply or remove friction on stand sections allow the stand to telescope very easily. The levers apply more-than-adequate friction to carry the weight of the fixture and umbrella. The legs must be retracted very slowly and gently because the ring that holds the three legs to the shaft is very tight as it slides up or down the shaft. Very tight. You will need the thumbs of Hercules. The on/off switch is handy. It is inline on the pwr cord and of good quality with a nice snap. There is no dimmer. The umbrella fits thru a hole drilled in the metal reflector so that it will swivel along with the reflector. The hole was not deburred; it is very jagged and sharp so maybe use a rounded file to deburr it. The max ht. including the light reflector but w/o the umbrella is 7 ft. The hardware that attaches the reflector to the stand is good quality and well-engineered. It has separate tightening knobs for tilting and panning (panning is done by loosening the knob that holds the fixture onto the stand) and holding the umbrella. Other cheap light kits use a single knob that presses a metal sandwich onto metal ball (Smith-Victor Adapta-Light A8ULAn) which is a terrible system. An insulated rod protects your hand from the heat while you move the fixture around. The reflector is 8 inches in diameter. An undocumented bonus is a diffusion hood with an elastic edge that fits over the reflector like a shower cap. However, you cannot use it with the oblong bulbs supplied because the bulbs are too long. Still, I may find a use for them. The bulb thread is a standard screw thread of metal and ceramic. I am using this kit to make music videos and so far I find that, between these lights and a hair light in a track fixture, I can get a good variety of lighting. I find that, if I want some shadow, it is best to point one light at a surface for fill light because both light are too strong to point at the subject, even with the umbrellas. I can even point a light at a black curtain and obtain some fill. It is easier to subtract than to add light so I am happy with this kit.-Leon at PartyOfDevils dot you-know-the-rest

I bought these lights for additional side & back lighting for studio work... portraits, fashion, etc. They are exactly what I wanted. Easy to use, lightweight but surprisingly strong/solid... I use primarily monolights/strobes but find having a few continuous lights very helpful. My portraits are perfect & as I wanted thanks to these little lights. At one point, I shut them off & simply wasn't getting enough well rounded fill light from all my strobes. Happily pleased! They are also modern looking & would make for a nice permanent light source.The only problem, the new bulbs barely lasted a 4 hour shoot! One completely blew out so I was semi shocked because I didn't have backup. So, please stock up on plenty of extra bulbs in case.But you'll be happy you have these little guys in your studio.

One I received the leg was cracked / broken - so I just super glued it back. Material is very cheaply made, but did work for what I needed at the time. They will no last, and will try and sell them.

Hello. We were struggling with lighting for our Youtube TV station. We had lots of dead spots and had to work massive color correction in post to get rid of all kinds of issues w/r/t lighting (or lack of). That was only marginally successful (see BEFORE video below). So we went looking for a lighting kit and ran into this one which had the overhead light and two direct lights. We were VERY reluctant to buy this kit because it seemed like so much for a great price. How could it be quality? I was VERY surprised to see pretty darn good build quality and stable stands. The stands aren't the beefiness of my SLIK tripods, but hey, pretty darn good!The lights are halogen and do an amazing job of providing a warm, bright image to the video which just wasn't possible before no matter what we did with various lights (household) to try and compensate for. We were also thrilled about how small a footprint the lights pack down into (very important since we are headed to Costa Rica and space is everything in bags).In our setup we choose to use the overhead light pointing "up' at the ceiling (I know that's backwards) but it produced a really nice warm drape over the entire video as a result without making things pop out to heavy on the lighting.Well enough words. Here's the lights in action. Before is with no kit. After is with THIS actual kit.BEFORE[...]AFTER:[...]Take care,Frank (of the Frank and Sandy Show)

My Cowboy Studio purchase arrived in two days. All items were individually packaged and in good condition. I purchased this set for my daughter, a portrait artist, who sometimes needs to photograph a subject and to use for continuous lighting in her poorly illuminated apartment.All parts seem well made. I am especially impressed with how sturdy the stands feel and the cold sockets in the lamp housing. The bulbs/lamp housing did smoke just the smallest bit within the first 5 minutes. No smoke noted after that.I took one star off because:1. There were no assembly instructions included. Not rocket science, I know. But I am not a photographer; I have never used this type of equipment before. I wanted to set it up and test before giving it to my daughter. Just a single page with pictures would have helped. I went back to the original Amazon sale page and looked at the photos and figured it out.2. The bulbs, Halogen, are plenty of light but are very hot. I will be replacing the bulbs with comparable wattage, 5500K CFO bulbs.Overall, I would recommend this item.