StudioPRO 1800 Watt Double 16"x24" Softbox Continuous Lighting Kit with Carrying Case

Assembly of StudioPro 1800 Watt Double 16"x24" Softbox lighting kitI received my kit on 2 January 2016. It comes complete, but without assembly instructions. Fovitec does have an online video; search for "youtube Fovitec softbox" and you will find a video for one of their softbox products. While it is not this particular softbox it will give you the big picture and make what follows easier to understand.I have only just begun to work with the lights so I will not address the quality of the product in this post other than to say my first impression is that I like this product a lot. I bought this lighting kit to use for indoor lens calibration short term and indoor macro flower photography in the long term. Should I have a reliability problem, I'll update this post if I can or write another one if need be.I am writing this post because I wanted to relate what I did to assemble the kit as there are no wriiten instructions in the box and what I did worked well for me. After checking to see that all of the expected parts were there I began the assembly process. First, I studied the basic parts, especially the softbox material itself, the rods, the light head and one of the lights. The lights will be the last thing to be installed and do it gently when you turn them in so that they are snug. Cranking down hard on them is not a good thing to do. Just snug works.As I examined the parts I noted that on the interior of the softbox fabric there were four black fabric receptacles attached; one for each of the four rods that will hold the softbox in its rectangular funnel shape. The receptacles are at the open end of each of the four seams. One of those receptacles is different than the rest; it has a Velcro flap and if pulled open it will open the bottom of the receptacle so that a rod can easily pass all the way through it. That is very important and the video doesn't cover it. It's going to make what would be much harder fairly easy. I'll tell you about that later. At the other end of the seam the softbox material is gathered around a stretchable band that will form a circle and enclose the front of the electric head in the softbox leaving the back exposed where the switches, electrical cord, and light stand mounting assembly are.One of the first things you want to do in the assembly process is to get familiar with the way the metal rods will insert into the electric head later on in the assembly process when it will be more difficult to do. So take one and pick one of the four hole in the first step down just behind the front of the head that are nearest to a light socket. If you look into it you will see some white (at least I did on mine). Take the metal (aluminum) tip and gently but firmly figure out how to insert it into the hole. When it is properly inserted the stop on the metal cap will prevent the rod from going further into the head and the rod will be sticking straight out from the side of the head. I did this with each of the four holes that are closest to the light sockets as you go around the rim of the head so that I could detect any problem and see at what angle the rod need to go into the hole while it was easy to do. Take your time; work the aluminum tip in gently; it will stick almost straight out from the head once it is in. Once you get the hang of how it works and determine that those four holes are going to cooperate you are done with this step other than to put the rod aside with the other three. Later on is not the time to figure out how the rods and the head fit together as you will have to bend the rod to get the aluminum tip in the hole in the electric head. As long as you know what to expect you will be fine. It's really not hard, but you will have to apply some small amount of strength to bring things together properly.Now it's time to take the lighting head and with the back turned toward the back of the interior of the softbox enclosure (which is still floppy at this point) work it partially though the elastic band. (I did this bit of work on the top of a bed so that thing wouldn't slide around too much and nothing would get lost.) I first put the electric cord through, then the pole mounting assembly and then let the electric head follow, but the electric band and softbox fabric do not need to be perfectly positioned at this time. You will find it helpful if you loosen and rotate the pole mounting assembly so that it aligns vertically with the head. The elastic cord at the back of the softbox material will allow the back of the softbox to slip over the 1st full step on the back of the head, and that is as far it should go. At this point get the softbox and the head lined up properly such that the long or short axis of the soft box aligns with what will be the vertical axis of the head, i.e. so that the softbox will be straight up when mounted on the stand and the widest part of the softbox will be straight up. You may be able to put the hood on so that it is horizontal, but I can't tell for sure and I can't find anything to confirm it. (Pictures would make this process a lot easier to envision, but just watch the video and get the real items and read this through again and you will better understand what I am telling you.Now that we have the softbox somewhat properly positioned relative to the head (you can still rotate the fabric at this time) it's time to put the framework in place, i.e., the four rods that are included for each softbox. (I continued working on the bed.) Each rod has a cap on each end. In my case, one was black plastic and the other was probably made of aluminum. The aluminum one has a raised rim at the back. That rim will function as a stop (it permits the rod to go in only so deep) when that end of the rod is inserted into the electric light head. Looking at the head from the front you will find that there is a step down about 1/2 inch going toward it's back. At the bottom of that step is a circular flat that goes all the way around the light head and in that flat there are eight holes. We are going to use four of them; the four that are nearest to the light bulb sockets.Eventually we will be inserting the aluminum cap-end of the four rods into those four holes. We are going to start by putting one rod into a fabric receptacles located on the front of the softbox at the end of each seam. Save the receptacle with the Velcro strip for last. This order is important. The softbox is still a floppy box at this point so you have room to work the black plastic ends of the rods that are going into the three closed fabric receptacles. To make it easier to get the plastic end of the rod into a receptacle I used a medium sized Philips-head screw driver to open up each hole enough so that I could pinch it to keep it open and that made inserting the black plastic cap end of the rod much easier.Now we have reached the point where a bit of strength will be called for. You are going to take the end of the rod with the aluminum tip on it and insert it into the respective hole nearest a light socket for that rod. One end of the rod is in the receptacle already so you have to cause the rod to flex so that the tip can come into the head just like it did when you inserted it back at the beginning of this process. It gets a little harder as you insert each rod, but it is not really that hard. When you get to the fourth seam that has the Velcro strap to open and close the end of the receptacle pull the Velcro apart, open the receptacle with a screw driver and run the black plastic tip about six inches through and beyond the front edge of the softbox and leaving it sticking out. There will still be play in the softbox fabric as it is still loose at the one end with the Velcro strap. Once the rod is inserted in the head then hold the rod to protect the lighting head and push on it rod to expand it further into the softbox material until the plastic tip is even with the bottom of the receptacle. At that point quickly close the Velcro strap to hold the rod in place.Congratulations, the hardest part of assembling the softbox is complete. Set up the light stand and slip the softbox's mount over the top of the pole's brass mounting fixture and then tighten the knob to hold it in place. But, first remove the little plastic thread guard on top of the pole and loosen the bottom knob on the light box assembly so that you can slip it on the pole over the brass fixture and tighten the bottom knob. Now that the softbox is firmly mounted on the light stand's pole, you can put the bulbs in the head (gently) without cranking down on them, just snug. Get out the white cover and put it on the front of the softbox one corner at a time - very easy to do. Plug in the electric cord and turn on your continuous 900 watt softbox light.If you need more output from a single softbox it seems you can almost double the wattage. The following is a response from Fovitec to a question about the maximum bulb wattage capacity this particular electric head will support.Question:Maximum bulb capacity of the sockets? 45W or 85W?Answer:Hi Mike,Thank you for your interest in Fovitec products!Each socket holds up to a maximum of 85W.Warm regards,Fovitec Support TeamBy Fovitec on October 12, 2015And, you don't have to replace all four bulbs in a softbox. You could do just one or two that are on the same switch, for example. By combining 45 and 85 watt bulbs and even 65 watt bulbs in various configurations you can vary the light output from the softbox very easily. Also, there are two switches on the back of the light head with each controlling two sockets (left and right pairs). It's very nice to have all of this flexibility should you need it.Putting this softbox together is not really hard. You need to look things over and think about what you are going to do and get familiar with the parts you will be assembling before you start putting them together. You will find once you have done the first softbox the second will go together very fast. It's easy once you know how ;>)

Now these are my first studio lights, and I am not a pro, so take all of this with the grain of salt of inexperience.There are four components to this kit:Light Stands - I really like these light stands. They are easy to set up, feel secure and well made, and have threads at the top to use them with other gear such as off-camera flash. So I will probably get more use out of the light stands than the rest of the kit.Light Head/Softbox - The light head allows either two or four lights to operate. One interesting note is that although the product pictures show 4 amp fuses, the actual product has 3 amp fuses. That is just enough to allow 85 watt bulbs (the unit comes with "45 watt" bulbs). The softboxes seem to be a little difficult to assemble as noted in other reviews, but from what I can see this is just the nature of softboxes in general. I did note that the inside of the softbox was quite warm after being on for about 15 minutes; with my inexperience I don't know if this is normal but it left me wishing for vents. No instructions were provided for softbox assembly, so I had to search YouTube to understand the general concept. I am guessing anyone with previous experience assembling softboxes will have no problem, but I would have liked instructions. The light heads also have holes through the center for umbrellas, although no umbrellas are included.Bulbs - The bulbs are rated as 45 watts with an equivalent to 225 watt incandescent. They are clearly not that bright in reality; they seem to put out the light of about a 30 watt CFL or about 120-150 watt incandescent. Still plenty bright but there is no way a single box is putting out 900 watt equivalent. Three of my bulbs have some sort of rattle in them, but they all worked. I tested these during the day and the light from the softbox matched the sunlight coming through the window pretty well.Carry bag: The bag is excellent, padded and with plenty of room for all of the components (including the boxes for all the lights) plus some to spare. Interestingly, the dual zippers open the side of the bag rather than the top. I'm assuming there is a reason for this but I'd have preferred the top of the bag to open.So the light heads are fairly basic and the bulbs not as bright as they should be but the great light stands and case are probably worth the purchase price alone. It's a good starter set. One star off for the lack of instructions and the bulbs being clearly not as bright as claimed.

They work very well for my product photography and video -- even brighter at 1800 w than I expected. Assembling the softbox was a challenge. The directions do not match the product -- no velco strap, it's now elastic around the light head and constantly slips out of place when trying to put the wires in place. The locking mechanism on the softbox that allows you to adjust its position on the stand could be improved ... it doesn't hold well and I'm afraid it might not stand the test of time. As for taking these apart and using them for travel, I'm not going to do that as it was too time consuming to get them together the first time. The stands are great ... I have had other stands just like them for many years and they continue to perform well. When I first opened/unfolded the softbox material, I notice a small 1/4" tear in one of the sides. Not enough to worry about but didn't say much for their quality inspection.

Here's the think about this softbox set. Great quality on the light stands, holders, lights, and softbox. What is not cool is that the paper instructions that come with the kit mediocre and you'll have to refer to YouTube for more instruction. Once you do though, the only videos I found was for the 5 light set up and not the 4 light set up which is this kit. So when you're putting it together, it's going to slip of the light holder because they didn't make it so you could secure it to the light holder with velcro, which doesn't make any sense to me. No matter what kit you purchase under StudioPRO, all the softboxes should be made to attach with velcro. I needed only a 2 light kit because of the 2 lights that I already had to add to. To not have an instructional tutorial for this kit and all the trouble to put it together is why I gave a 3 star rating.