- One (1) Tripod/Light Stand
- One (1) 300 Watt High Quality MonoLight Strobe Flash
- One (1) Sync cord
- One (1) 150 Watt Model Light
- One (1) 24″x 36″ Softbox with Speed Ring
Product Description
MonoLight:
The section mounts onto any customary lightstand with a 5/8″ or not as big ascent stud. It has a round peep blood vessel which is illumination offset during 5600 deg. K, a beam series of 60 during ISO 100 as well as a recycling time of 5-7 seconds. It additionally comes with a 150 watt removable displaying lamp. The Budget Studio monolight Flash can be triggered by a camera with a enclosed 12′ sync cord, by an additional peep being dismissed as well as activating a built-in Photo-Slave, or thro… More >>
I received my unit quickly from Cowboy Studio and when I opened it and checked everything I found there were not instructions for the softbox assembly (not really necessary but would have been helpful). The monolite came with an operation manual (1 sheet that is not well written but is adequate). My sync cord was missing but I have contacted Cowboy and anticipate they will get that out right away based on my previous experience with them. I could see not mention of the slave flash feature in the “manual” and did not find switches for it on the monolight but after testing, it does work and apparently the slave flash trigger is on all the time.
I shot my Nikon SB600 off in front of the softbox at 1/32nd power and it was still enough to trigger the monolight.
Just a note that the monolight manual does not address: It comes with a protective plastic cap covering the flash bulb and it took me a while to figure out how to get that off. There is a small silver lever on one side and if you press that toward the back of the monolight you can then turn the plastic cap counterclockwise to remove it. The screw in modeling light came well protected in a foam sleeve and screwed in with no problem.
Assembling the softbox would have been significantly easier if they had just a few minimal instructions. Here are a couple of tips I learned that to me were not obvious and would have helped.
1. The elastic center of the outer softbox fabric cover fits into a groove in the softbox mount that is over the front of the mounting plate (where the rod holders are) and the back of the mounting plate (where the 4 screw in bolts are which mount the softbox onto the rim of the monolight)
2. When installing the 4 support rods for the soft box, each corner of the softbox material has a little pocket for the protected end of the rod to enter but ONE of those pockets has a velcro end to it. This velcro end allows you to slide that rod through and past the pocket. Get all three other rods in place FIRST and then just slide the rod in this velcro pocket to tighten the whole thing up as a LAST step. That is monumentally easier than fighting to flex that last rod into a fixed pocket.
3. Be sure when inserting the end of the rod into the mounting plate that it goes in all the way. I inadvertantly did not have one in all the way and when trying to flex the rod into it’s pocket on the softbox it broke the rodholder on the mounting plate. It was however still usable.
I almost gave this whole unit 5 stars … (I’ve tried out the softbox and the monolite and am very pleased with the overall quality and functionality – especially for the price.)
I needed more light output for my small in home studio than I had with just my small speedlites so this is my first “plug-in” power strobe. I am glad I got the 300 watts over the smaller wattages and find that most the time I only need half (or less) of the power. I like that it is continuously adjustable from full power down to I think 1/64 power.
My reason for only giving the whole package 4 stars is that I am somewhat disappointed at how small and flimsy the light stand is for a unit of this weight. I’ll likely use the unit on a more sturdy stand and just use this lightweight stand for a small speedlight flash – which will be fine.
Rating: 4 / 5