LINCO Lincostore 2000 Watt Photo Studio Lighting Kit with 3 Color Muslin Backdrop Stand Photography Flora X Fluorescent 4-Socket Light Bank and Auto Pop-Up Softbox - Only Takes 3 Seconds to Set-up

EDIT: Linco's customer service is REALLY good. They responded to my review and have corrected the issues! I'm going to adjust my review below. Updates are in <...> I'm by no means a professional photographer. I am a hobbyist at best, and do some photos for friends every once in a while. I have a second hand strobe set, but I find it quite cumbersome to put up, and when working with people who are not used to large softbox flashes, I can see the hesitation and anticipation of the flash in the photos. I wanted to try a continuous light set to see if I could get more natural expressions, and after comparing several light sets and going through the reviews, I settled on this one. Over all, I'm quite pleased. This is an entry level set, and for the price point, it's worth the money!! I've never used a boom arm before, and it took almost breaking my lights before I found enough heavy stuff to properly counter balance the boom arm. YOU MUST COUNTER BALANCE THE BOOM ARM. This was a learning curve for me, and I'm going to be buying or making sandbags to put down in the bag provided for holding the counterbalance. I wouldn't suggest extending the boom arm all the way out, as it seemed to bend ever so slightly. I love how easy setting up the softboxes are. They just pop out. Getting them to lock into place took a bit of finangling, but it's not too bad. With practice, this will become a breeze to set up! The lights are quite cool in temperature, so be sure to check your white balance, and if you can, do a custom white balance during your photos. But over all the light quality was really good. I was pleasantly surprised that the backdrop setup came in it's own carrying bag. I was able to fit the backdrop and stands in that bag, and the lights, softboxes, stands in the other extra bag that they provided (though quite snugly and it took some re-arranging and a Tetris playing mindset). <I was emailed instructions, though they sent them a few days after I received the light set. If you need to use the lights ASAP, I'd suggest emailing customer service and asking for the intructions so you can get them sooner.> <I have adjusted from 3 to 5 star rating because Linco's customer service rep was really awesome. I initially only recieved one of the 3 advertised backdrops, but they got in touch with warehouse and are sending me the missing black and white backdrops. I can't wait to get them and do another shoot with this set! They are also upgrading the clips that hold the backdrop because the bed-sheet I used as a temporary backdrop kept falling out of the original clips.> The white diffuser panels for the front of the softboxes are more of a plastic type material than what I've seen before, so it'll be interesting to see how they hold over time, but i'm thinking they'll be just fine for the next several years. I'm not bringing this up as a negative thing, as they softboxes and lights worked perfectly, just something to keep in mind; this is a great starter light set. (If you want super high quality and are a pro, go spend the big bucks elsewhere!)

This is a great starter kit. I definitely recommend getting additional sand bags for all of the stands. The only reason I knocked of a star was due to the quality of the top bar pieces. When put all together, the bar starts to droop, making the screen wrinkled a little. Another reason for the minus 1 star, again on the top bar pieces, the connection is simply loose. I had to fish out the metal piece because it had fallen inside. My fix for this was to go to home depot, get a thick 1/2" plastic pipe. I had to cut it in half to fit in my car, and got the connector piece for the middle. This is MUCH sturdier than the 4 or 5 pieces the kits comes with. If you can get a 10 ft or 6 ft pipe in one solid piece, that would be perfect. But my fix is fine too, however it doesnt fit in the carry case any more. Otherwise, I mean the kit is affordable, comes with 3 big screens, and nice lighting. Great starter kit for sure. Get those sandbags!

The box arrived on a rainy day and I was terrified that there might be some damage, but it was double-boxed so everything arrived in great condition. No broken light bulbs, all parts included but no instructions, although it wasn't difficult to figure out. The softboxes open up easily and it's a little tricky getting them attached to the light head, you will want to do this FIRST and THEN install the light bulbs. Be SURE to keep the boxes and packing materials for the individual light bulbs in case you ever want to break down and travel-you'll thank me for that piece of advice. Trust me, opening the softboxes is the ONLY part that "assembled" in 3 seconds. Once you put the softlight covers on the front the light is wonderful to photograph with and it barely leaves a shadow, even on the white background. I assembled the backdrop frame easily and had to leave out a cross-beam on the top because it was so large. Even with three pieces it was about 8ft across with one more cross-beam unused. The backdrop needs to be ironed of course and it didn't extend all the way to the floor, as it only covered a little more than half of the entire backdrop area. I extended it up almost to the ceding and had to stand on a chair to put the clamps in place-I'm 5'9, so this backdrop frame is about as tall as you'd need it to be. I suppose you could get larger backdrop cloths if you needed them, but I DEFINITELY recommend the 6 backdrop clamps Amazon recommends as the ones that come with the set just aren't as easy to use as the larger clamps. You might want to purchase an additional set of 6 just in case. The photo of the ugly guy is me with just TWO of these lights on and the third one packed away in the carrying case for those jobs we might need to bring a long a little extra light. The backdrop comes with a carrying case, too so this set packs up easily and doesn't weigh a ton. Folding down the softboxes will take a little getting use to, they have straps to hold them closed and come with their own padded protection sleeves that zip right up for safe, easy storage. Never try to attach or detach the softboxes from the light head with the bulbs in it and ONLY use cool-burning florescent lights. The power cords are a little shorter than I expected and that WILL come into play when you use the overhead light. If you choose to use sand as a counter-weight, make sure it is in a THICK, WELL-SEALED storage bag. DO NOT put loose sand in the counter-weight bag as it only has a draw-string closure. I used decorative river-rocks bought at a hobby store that work just fine, but counter-weighting WILL BE an issue if you use the overhead light as it is shown in the product photos, so be careful. The light stands themselves are amazingly adjustable and the legs can be adjusted to a wide or narrow stance for cramped quarters. If you use these lights outdoors, you will probably want a sandbag or two to keep a gust of wind from pushing them over as they are pretty lightweight and once they are set up, they're naturally top-heavy. I'm a relative newcomer to the world of professional photography, so I want quality gear to be able to take those great shots, but I don't have a fortune to spend, either. This is a rather nice set-up for the money and I'm been both surprised and pleased with the price I paid, the quality of the equipment and the features it offers. This isn't "rugged" equipment for regular, outdoor use but if you have a home studio or even a professional studio, I think you'll be rather pleased with this purchase.

Linco Lincostore 2000 Watt Photo Studio Lighting Kit With 3 Color Muslin Backdrop and Background Stand Photography Studio Flora X Fluorescent 4-Socket Light Bank and Auto Pop-Up Softbox -- Only takes 3 seconds to Set-up I had a great presenter coming to Boise to do a two day training seminar on selling top cut diamonds for the staff of a new store opening here.. I wanted to have appropriate lighting to be sure he was not in shadows. I ordered the Linco kit more for the lighting than for the green-screen, but I took some time to play with the green-screen as well. It took me less than thirty minutes to set it up the first time, and it will take much less from now on, as once you do it, it is so easy to do again. The lighting really surprised me. The soft light boxes are actually soft, while adding enough light to the subject that I got great video of the presenter. I did some tests before and after while I was adjusting the lighting, and the improvement in the quality of the video was well worth the cost of the product. Not only was it very simple to set up, it really does all (except for the bulbs) fit incredibly easily into the carrying case when you are done. It is such a pleasure when something works the way it is supposed to. It took me a minute to figure out the instructions and I was thinking that they should have been a little more clear, but once I actually read them, it all fit together so easily that I had to chide myself for not just reading them better before thinking to complain. If you are looking for soft lighting to light up the front of your subject without creating harsh shadows, I think you will enjoy the efficiency and ease of use, along with the low pricing of this unit. I am not a professional photographer, but I got some very nice results during our two day event. Wink Jones HighPerformanceDiamonds.com

This kit is halfway decent for the price. Quick and easy to deploy and take down. There are a few caveats, however. 1. Be careful with the soft boxes. The sides are very fragile, and will rip away from their seams if not handled gingerly. Since they're auto-deploying, you have to maintain tension on them as you put the strap around them when putting them away. My hand slipped, the strap caught on one corner, and ripped the side all the way down. I'm now holding it together with gaff tape. 2. These are fluorescent bulbs. If you don't have your shutter set in an integer of the current coming from the wall socket, you will get flicker. This is extremely noticeable on iPhones and iPads. Maybe invest in some daylight LED bulbs for this. 3. The nuts holding the stands up are cheap plastic. Don't overcrank them, or add too much additional weight to them. I clamped a shotgun mic to the hair light, and the whole thing came crashing down. 4. The backdrops are okay for amateur use, or in a bind. Sadly, it seems like the backdrop stand (with the same plastic nuts) can't handle the weight of the heavier-duty chroma key backdrops. 5. The retaining clips on the lights themselves that hold the softbox on pretty quickly wear out and snap off. BIG drawback.

This is an amazing kit, especially for the money. The light stands seem to be as sturdy as my Impact-brand stands ( Impact Light Stand, Black - 6' (1.8m) ), although I haven't traveled with them yet so I don't know how well they will hold up to repeated folding and unfolding. The 4-socket light heads seem well designed, although it took a bit of effort to get them mounted to the soft box -- since I don't plan to travel with this kit much, I'm not worried much about routinely getting them on and off. The soft boxes easily open up and spread out to their full shape. The CFL bulbs were well-packed and arrived in perfect condition. I'm used to using just one bulb per stand, so the light from these stands is great. The diffusers aren't really as tidy on the soft box as the product photos suggest, but they easily go on and off and do the trick. Other reviewers have commented on the black "muslin" backdrop, and the material I received is a polyester fabric, not cotton -- so it is not what I know as muslin, and it seems more reflective than it should be. But, since I mostly use this kit for macro photography and often set the item I'm shooting on another background ( Non Reflective and Reflective 15.850 x 15.850 in. AbleDIY Black & White Acrylic Display Boards for Tabletop Product Photography - Reflective / Matte / Flat Finish Backgrounds ), I lose a lot of the back drop detail and it hasn't been a problem for me so far. I've attached a couple of shots I've taken with the lighting kit and white background to show how well a lighting kit like this helps with shooting smaller objects (Canon 70D with the 18 - 135 mm EF-S lens at f/16 for the camera photo and f/11 for the pyrite photo). The kit arrived with minor damage to the packing box but with no damage to the contents. The back drop fabric was loose and was laid on top of the rest of the gear before the box was taped shut, which may be the reason the white back drop came with a stain. I expect the stain will wash out, and it's near the edge, so I don't think its a problem. Otherwise, I am more than pleased with this lighting kit so far and am excited that I don't have to struggle so much when trying to get the best lighting for my photos.

Purchased a couple weeks ago. Went together well and it sturdy though I believe there could be several improvements. First, the set comes with 150w equivalent CFL bulbs. Would be much better if dimmable LED bulbs were included instead. Much easier to move around without the risk of breaking. I ended up purchasing LEDs bulbs and may even look into getting a few RGB LED bulbs to change color temperature. Second, I found it a bit difficult to attach the reflector spring bars to the light housings. Third, the power cords are quite short, you will definitely need a few extensions to make things work. Additionally, the lights utilize an bulky inline power switches. Having the switch mounted on the light housing would be much better. Also, I suggest purchasing a lamp dimmer switch as 2000w can be too bright on occasions and removing bulbs here and there can really be a pain. Lastly, the background cross bar is comprised of up to four fixed-length segments which limit the width options. I believe there should be one adjustable segment in the set.The set is also supposed to come with background clips, but as of yet, I have not found them. I ended up spending an additional $80 for LED bulbs, $20 for the dimmer, and $10 for the background clips. Overall, it does do what it's supposed to and seems to be decent enough quality.

TL;DR: For the price, this set is actually quite good for a budget continuous lighting setup. If you're getting started, don't have a whole lot of money to spare this might be perfect for you. Although I would reccomend this shooting with around anywhere from 1.2 - 2.8. If your widest aperture on your lenses is 4.. 5.6, etc. Then you'll be pushing into higher iso's and losing quite a bit.. But, if you even just have a cheap 1.8 lens, this should be no problem for you. This actually exceeded my expectations. It's not perfect by any means, however, it honestly is a good set value wise. Just some quick info about me, I've been doing photography for about 15 or so years. I've done a little bit of everything. Since last year, I've been doing some "budgetography" blogs and tests where I like trying to find the sort of needle in the haystack or diamond in the rough so to speak. Something that performs well, that you normally wouldn't expect to. With that said, I've had a lot of experience not just with cheap equipment lately but also some very expensive and very professional equipment in the past. I'm currently shooting with a D500/D810 and my daily driver for my lens is the Sigma 85 1.4 Art Lens. Comparing not just the price but results have been quite fun doing my budgetography. This has been no exception. I've been going back and forth on how I want to go over this. I'll go over some pro's and con's, then get into some more technical details later. PROS The Set Overall: This set is obviously quite cheap (Price wise). Generally getting other continuous lighting setups at this price range will either only have 2 lights, or no backdrop, etc. So overall for what you get, it's a really good value. No real complaints here as far as how much you get. Backdrops: The backdrops that come with the set (Green, black and white) are fine. The white obviously shows considerably more wrinkles than the other two but that's normal. There's definitely higher quality backdrops you can get, but the ones you get in this are reasonable. They feel pretty decent and I don't have too many issues with wrinkles once I stretched out the backdrop with backdrop clamps/holders (For the Black and Green) the white one was more difficult, but that's normal with Muslin in my experience. I would never, ever recommend that you iron a muslin backdrop (The only thing you should ever even consider is steaming). In general you can "pull" out most of the wrinkles and you might have to photoshop any more stubborn ones out. That said, this is NORMAL for most muslin backdrops. If you want something that will never have wrinkles you will need to move to a paper system. Which is quite a bit more expensive (Generally starting around $200 - $300+ for the equipment, the small paper rolls are also around $30 - $50 each) in setup if you want something decent. So if you're looking for a seamless backdrop, no wrinkles, you can look into something like the Savage Seamless. With all that said, I've had sets in the past that were much, much worse around this price point. So, all in all the backdrops are pretty decent, and you can definitely get your own later on that will make this feel more fancy and premium. But no real complaints here! If you're used to Muslin backdrops, you should know what to expect! Lights: The lights are pretty reasonable as well. They don't pump out a huge amount of light, but they do work quite well and they don't get too hot which is a huge bonus. I left them on for several hours and they held up pretty well I didn't have any issues there. So, shooting someone in front of these lights, isn't an issue. Some lights (Like halogens) can put out a considerable amount of heat for any model(s) in front of it and making it uncomfortable to use. If you're not shooting with faster lenses... Let's say around 4 - 5.6 you'll have to probably shoot at around 500 - 800iso. I'll get more into that later though. But if you're shooting with a somewhat fast lens around 1.4 - 1.8 you're more than fine here. CONS Cords/Cables: I will say that the cords to plug in these lights are relatively short. They're about 7' long, which might sound like a lot but it really isn't that much considering the positioning of the lights and the heads. Extension cords and power strips will likely need to be used for most studio settings. It's not a HUGE issue, but just worth bringing it up. Stands: The stands... Where should I even start. I would probably wager that in total, all of these stands together might've cost the company about $5 to make. It is very cheap metal, it's pretty weak and they can't hold much weight/pressure. If you push down on the lightstands and backdrop stands with just about any amount of pressure (I'm talking about just a few lbs of pressure, nothing massive. It takes almost no effort), it will drop even if it's tightened all the way. Which can be annoying depending on what you're shooting and if something tugs on them, etc. They're very flimsy, it's very cheap and thin stamped metal. They can EASILY be bent/broken with little effort and or on accident. The knobs are pretty cheap as well. I would say that the stands in this set are the cheapest part of this set. They definitely feel comparable to some $10 - $15 light stands off amazon. Getting a lightstand that's in the $30 range blows these light stands out of the water in pretty much every way to just give you a general idea. Having a $30 light stand vs these, is quite literally like having a dollar cheeseburger at mcdonalds compared to a $20~ burger at somewhere else (Red Robin or whatever). Sure, the $1 cheeseburger is fine, it might get you by. But it feels cheap, and lacking in just about every department. Softboxes: The softboxes aren't as easy to set up as they make it look, however, after you put them together a few times it's pretty simple and quick. I can now set up the softbox with the back plate and screw in the lights (I never put in the back piece with the bulbs already screwed in because you can easily damage them) within 15 or 20 seconds (Screwing in the lightbulbs literally takes most of that time lol). That's from being completely taken apart, then assembled and ready to turn on. So it's not too bad assembly wise. Technical Details and Random Other things: I've been using my Sigma 85 1.4 lens quite a lot lately and I shot this with my D500 for the most part (Mainly because my cat decided he wanted to be in the pictures, so yay... Cat pictures!) shooting wide open at 1.4, 1/160th - 1/200th of a second I was shooting at around an ISO of 160 using the black backdrop (For most of the cat related pictures). They look pretty decent to be honest. I'm actually surprised with how much light these guys actually put out, for the cost I'm actually more than happy with the results. Shooting with the white background I was able to shoot to my lowest ISO at L1.0 on the D500. But I don't usually shoot wide open, I usually shoot a few stops down. With my Sigma 1.4 I usually shoot at 2 and 2.8, I still got very acceptable results from that. At f2 and 1/200th of a second I was shooting at around ISO 100 for the utility knife in my attached picture. These lights are about 4k temperature wise in regards to white balance. Nothing too crazy there. Shooting with the white backdrop ontop of the black doesn't do much. Sometimes if the white backdrop is transparent enough, you can get a faux gray. But with these you won't. They're pretty opaque. A minor annoyance is that my white backdrop is ever so slightly (About 1") longer than my black backdrop. But not a big deal. The sand bag that's included is fine. Putting dirt and or rocks in there is ok. However, I just used some (Unused and new lol) kitty litter in a baggie that I put in the bag. That way I don't have to worry about cleaning it out. But overall it's good and it works. Final Thoughts: When I first got this and set it up I thought no way would these actually be able to give me anything decent. But I'm honestly impressed, I didn't expect these to be anywhere as good as they are. Granted, if you don't have any fast lenses... I probably wouldn't go with this. Instead, I'd probably go with an off camera flash setup (Which you can make very easily for about the same price as this, however you would only be able to have 2 OCF's for the price of all this). But if you have a lens around 1.2 - 1.8 then this is very worth it. If I had to purchase these again I definitely would. While they're not the most sturdy, for how much you pay and what you get.. It's just so worth it. There's great value here. Just... Don't iron the muslin backgrounds.