ePhoto Photography Studio Video Lighting Chromakey Green Black White Screen 3 Muslin Backdrops Lighting Kit Background Support Kit by ePhotoInc H9004SB-69BWG

EDIT: Two years laterI've had this thing put up in several different configurations, moved it around, taken it here or there, but mostly had it set up in a semi-permanent arrangement in my home office to do YouTube videos. Here's what I've found:- The backdrops that come with the kit are just not that great. They are made of a thin yet coarse cloth that is resistant to ironing. All the folds and angles play tricks with chroma. I ended up hanging a higher quality backdrop over top of it to get an even background- The bag it comes with is held together with imaginary stitching. You might as well make a bag out of paper towels.- The key light stand is quite difficult to put together. The adjustable attachment for the boom is possibly the most difficult contraption to adjust. There is simply not enough bolt length available to easily change the angle or height. You only have an extremely small amount of turn on the wingnut between "too tight to move" and "explosion of parts and booms".- With the key light extended fully you will need a lot of weight on the opposite side. You'll also need to weigh down the base as well. If you don't weigh down the base it will fall over no matter how well balanced you weight it.- With all that weight on the key light stand and boom, there is a lot of bending and wobbling. It's not going to break from what I can tell. If you bump the stand the key light will wobble a lot.- Fortunately replacement bulbs are easy to find and relatively affordable. You WILL break the key light bulb.- The backdrop stands work really well as an outdoor movie screen!- You will need to buy clips to help keep the backdrops smooth and steady.- As I said in my original review, this is not truly portable. There is too much work you have to do to get it set up. It takes 30-45 minutes to go from bag to ready.I still like the kit though. It's very nice for someone like me who is not too serious but wants something to help the occasional YouTube video to look better than your competition.ORIGINAL REVIEWI ordered this because I wanted to up my game with the video computer training I am doing. Hanging a small sheet of muslin on a shower curtain rod taped to a tripod just wasn't cutting it. I got some birthday money and found this kit after a short search.One thing to note is that there are at least four nearly identical kits floating around out there being offered by a couple of different companies. Some of them have the three muslin backdrops like this one, others have a much larger single muslin sheet. Some have different wattages of bulbs. The prices of the various kits have no relation to what is in them. Just be careful to look at all the different kits out there and find the cheapest one.The kit comes in a bag in a box in a box. The bag is rather large, about 75% the size of a golf bag. As other reviewers have mentioned, it's not the sturdiest bag ever constructed so be careful with it. Inside the bag are a number of other boxes, bags, and things in cellophane.Most of the boxes are for the lightbulbs and light fixtures. Do not throw those away! At least not until you have something else to put the bulbs in. Why? Because this kit, while being touted as portable, is only technically portable. Trust me on this - I'll explain later.The picture of the kit you see is not accurate. They took a bunch of pictures of separate items and put them together in the shot without regard for scale. You'd think the muslin sheets rolled out like carpet, but when you have the backdrop frame at maximum height at 8' the backdrops only roll out a foot. You want it to look like the picture you need to buy different muslin or lower the bar to half height. The bag in the picture is 1/3 the size of the actual bag. The stands are all pretty close to the same size.The instructions that come with the kit are on one side of an 8 1/2x 11" paper. There is good information on there but it's still going to be somewhat confusing when you start assembling. The hardest part was putting together the two 16x24" soft boxes. You have to assemble it from scratch, and this is where the portability of the kit fails. These softboxes don't just fold back up and go in to the bag - you have to disassemble it completely. Remove the cover, all four bulbs, pull out the soft box rods, and remove the light fixture. The 20" softbox does break down easily, but the ridiculously large bulb (It's about a foot long) definitely has to come out.Tip: Don't set the 20" softbox on the ground, the megabulb sticks out a little bit beyond the edges of the sofbox. You could break it.Another tip: When assembling the 16x24" softboxes, pay attention to how you line up the 4x light socket. There's no way to adjust it after it's put together, you have to take it apart if you get it lined up wrong.If you can figure out the softbox assembly, that's a start. The next confusing thing is articulating joint that connects the stand to the arm for the 20" soft box. It's a ridiculous looking plastic contraption with various sized holes in it. You'll see what I mean when you get yours. It's obviously made to accommodate many different sizes of poles and you're going to have a guessing game on your hands when you assemble your kit. Just look for the one that is slightly too tight. On my kit the joint screws/levers on the ends pop off right about when you have it loosened up enough to get the poles in the joint. Very frustrating. It's going to take you some experimentation to get that figured out.After you get the boom set up, don't forget to put the weight bags on the other end of the boom. You're going to need that to balance out the heavy weight of the softbox+megabulb on the other end. You can see the weight bag in the picture here, it has a clamp and a hook to which you hang a double bag for weights (not included).Overall this kit is really a great starter kit and for someone like me it'll probably be the only thing I'll ever need. I honestly think this is best suited for a permanent installation. If you want to cart it around you just need time and patience. Also it would be a good idea to get some kind of bulb carrying case instead of using the boxes they came in. And believe me, if you ever want to break down this kit - keep all the bulb boxes!I haven't actually used the kit yet so I'll post more when I put it in action. One thing I noticed is that the muslin sheet is a little bit see through. It also desperately needs to be ironed. Will that make a difference when filming? Not sure yet.

We have had our setup for several months now.We have used it AT LEAST three times a week since the day it arrived.Based on *excessive* use and the condition the items remain in, we have decided to review it and post it here.::Great product for a photographer on the go.Lighting:The lights are O.K. for pulling Key's if you have *decent* ambient lighting.If you are shoot a wide video shot, you might find that these lights alone will not fill the entire background with linear lighting making your key pretty difficult to pull.There was no mention of exact wattage on the site or this Amazon page; I can guarantee it is NOT near the 2400watt version on this site (a fellow video producer uses that one and it is definitely brighter).The Beauty Dish light is rather big, however, not very bright at all, and the bulb is quite expensive to replace.I do say to use caution when moving this one around. It will cost you.Overall, this lighting is fine for a mobile studio, with hopes of NOT shooting in a dark or poorly lit warehouse, unless your lights are almost SITTING on the subjects face.Backdrop:The backdrop is pretty decent.Like I said, we have been using it almost 3 times a week -as a moving studio.We only use TWO of the bars (both end pieces) as there is just too much sag with all 4. At that point, might as well find a way to pin it to the wall.The stands themselves could be made better. They are quite flimsy until you have them sitting correctly.The stand clamps are nice...they don't dent the risers when you tighten it (some other backdrop stands use bad clamps and by simply tightening it to your height, it will damage the riser rods. These do not do that.)One a scale of 1 to 10 in sturdiness based on:Wind: 3 - It WILL topple over if at full height and even with sandbags. Even a little bit of wind. Horrible for outside wedding photobooths or onsite video keying.Outdoors: 5 - Assuming there is no wind, it works pretty well simply standing there. I would suggest putting it near a wall or sandbagging it though.Indoors: 8 - Decent all-around kit. I have used better...but not for the same price as this. Matthews, avenger, impact will run you 3x the cost for similar setup.Full Cross Bars: 6 - Sags pretty bad with all bars and a Muslin backdrop. I would not recommend using them all for long period shoots.2 Cross Bars: 8 - Best with two bars, it is pretty much solid.Full Height: 8 - There is a *bit* of tilt when fully extended to it's max height (about 9 ft, give or take). I have seen better but at a higher cost.Accessories:The bag lasted us about a month before the zipper seam came undone. It was great while it lasted, but eventually we just threw it away and bought a professional bag.Which was more expensive than this whole kit.Which we also recommend getting if you are planning on moving this around more than once a week.Lightware Cargo 42 or Lightware Cargo 52- Huge and EXTREMELY Durable.Lightware is worth ever penny.::I would say that given our use, we would definitely recommend it for a photographer/videographer on a budge or just starting outt; but if you can, we suggest getting the other version from ePhoto (mentioned earlier that a friend has) as it is much better AND brighter.You can find that one here:ePhoto VL9004S3 2400 Watt Photo Studio Softbox Kit with Carrying Case with 3 Lightstands with 16x24-Inches Softboxes and 12 45W 5500k BulbsOr this one with backdrop included:ePhoto VL9026s_4 2800 Watt Digital Video Studio Kit with Carrying Bag with 2 Light Heads with 20 x28-Inch Softbox, 1 Boom Stand with 16x16-Inches Easy Softbox and 14 total 45 watt bulbsOr just buy the VL9004S3 and buy a separate backdrop system.::I hope this review helped some of you out there if you were thinking of going with this or something else.If we had to do it over again, we would still buy this kit.If you have a bit of a higher budget and don't mind a much heavier set, then probably go for a Matthews, Avenger or Impact Backdrop system and stick with the 2400Watt version of ePhoto for decent continuous lighting.Happy Shooting!