CowboyStudio 550 Watt Photo Studio Digital Video Lighting Fluorescent 2-bank Light - 2 X 55 Watt

I've been using 2 sets of these lights pretty religiously for the past 2.5 months (shipped January 22nd) on shorts, music videos, green screens, weddings, and real estate. They have been moved to tons of locations via car, and so my review very much reflects a somewhat professional level of use.Some notes:CONS* DID NOT COME WITH the diffuser gels OR 18' cords as per item description. The power cords are at best ~10ft and a huge hassle to deal with; for lights like this, the cord length is a sore disappointment.* The bulbs that these come with are definitely not daylight balanced. There is no doubt that they emit a green tone that needs to be corrected. Makes working with green screen ever so (very) slightly more difficult to boot.* The tension-locking mechanisms in the stands REGULARLY need to be tightened up. Keep a RATCHET handy. Or you will find yourself unable to extend your lights and looking like an arse.* The bulb-holding mechanisms are definitely sketchy at best. They tend to lose their grip on the 4-pin bulb ends and need to be reinserted. Happens frequently when moving the lights around, and sometimes they spontaneously eject bulbs just enough (probably due to thermal expansion after being on) to disable whatever bulb pops out. Very flimsy electrical design.* One set I have been testing daily as a room light to verify the lifetime and quality of the light. It has been been growing dimmer at an alarming rate. Don't expect these to perform at their peak for long.* The mounting brackets that attach to the lights themselves are completely trash. They are designed with a single screw that somehow manages to loosen itself up over time. Once this screw loosens up, you can no longer tighten the light to the stand. Furthermore, in order to remedy this, you must fully disassemble the mounting bracket to tighten the assembly up. It does not come apart easily, it does not go back together easily (you will need to re-situate 6-7 small pieces in a specific order). This has happened to 2 of the 4 in just 2.5 months.These problems do not seem to be limited to single-situation defects, but rather they plague the product in general.PROS* Cheap. Very very cheap.* Effective if you are willing to make small repairs, deal with quirks, have extra time to spend taking care of them.* Pretty close to as bright as they say they are. Not quite as good as real kinos.* Did I mention they were cheap?Bottom line: the kits are missing parts that would be extremely beneficial to their use. The kits are plagued with small problems that add up and become a nuisance quickly. If you can afford to get kino-flo lights, get them; they are so much more rugged and quicker to put together, with dimming capabilities and much much better cabling. If you need lights, they aren't a priority, and you don't mind constantly tooling with them to keep them in working order, then get these lights.For me, they are worth it at this time. But you better believe that when I get a chance, I am going to chuck these things out a window and replace them with some real lights.

These lights are a faaaaaar cry from Kino's. I understand they're a fraction of the cost, which is why we gave them a try, but they are simply not suitable for video. There were also several other disparities with product description...- To begin with, the first thing we noticed was the very cheap looking reflectors on the inside of the doors. They look terrible... But luckily they are fairly easy to get rid of. We called CowboyStudio before buying and were told that the reflectors do not come off whatsoever. However, we figured we could cover them somehow considering how cheap these are. Either way, they are completely removable if you need to do so... unless you get something different to what we got, which brings me to my next point...- The lights we received look somewhat different to the ones on this page. The doors only have 2 small flimsy hinges on the corners instead of the four hinges as pictured. We had trouble trying to keep the door on top from lowering on its own, but that might just take some tightening. Also the mounting system is very different. They do not have the swivel system as pictured. Instead there are 2 light stand mounts on each the long and short edges for vertical or horizontal mounting. Not a big deal there.- The stands were actually not that bad. I wasn't expecting much at all, but they are decent. We also got black ones as opposed to silver stands as described, which is a plus anyway.- The bulbs they come with have a very bad green tint to them. These can replaced with more accurate bulbs but of course that can get pricey. Still, if it were only for this problem, these would still be worth buying over the way more expensive kino flo's.But MOST IMPORTANTLY... They FLICKER! Very badly. Not so obvious to the eye of course, but the camera picks it up. It's visible at just about every shutter speed we tried. It is least noticeable at 1/60 but still there. This alone makes these lights useless for video use. They may be suitable for photography, but are unacceptable for video.For comparison, we put these next to a Kino Diva-Lite. The color was unbelievably off. And the flicker really made a difference. On Canon 5D Mark II and 7D, flicker started to appear at shutter speeds of 1/500 on the Kino. Obviously, these CowboyStudio lights were not engineered correctly for video.

Over all the lights I ordered work decently. I ordered two six bank and two four bank lights. The biggest annoyance is that the barn doors come loose every time you move them. I have to tighten the screws/nuts on each flag with each adjustment. I haven't found a viable fix as of yet. I have tried lock washers to replace the plastic ones that came with the units, but it made no difference. Just don't loose the wrenches and keep them close at hand.The bulbs that come with these are a bit green. I picked up some Kino Flo True Color replacements and they look great.I get no flicker until I hit high shutter speeds. I haven't needed to shoot high frame rates in front of these, so no problem.These lights are very bright. I bought them to light an 18 foot green screen. They work well for that application as well as many others. To adjust output, they have switches to turn on and off two bulbs at a time. At times I will pull a bulb to get the exposure needed.The stands are decent and fairly heavy duty even though the aluminum they are made of is a bit thin. I need to tighten the nuts on the locking mechanisms occasionally. You will need to keep a socket close by for that.Over all, for the price, I am happy with the lights. The need to tighten the barn doors with each move is annoying and a little time consuming and the green tint to the included lights has to be dealt with. But these lights are bright, fairly controllable with a flag or two, and are big enough to give a soft light.Given what I now know about them after owning them for a while, I would buy then again.Updated 11/28/2014