The Square Perfect Light Box

As I mentioned in the last post, I was tired attempting to mess about with getting acceptable photos of my models when posting to the blog. I'd thought about building a light box on my own, but as I get older I'm quickly looking for other solutions involving my credit card instead.

So off to Amazon I went. I did my usual search filter of lowest price first and average customer review and found the Square Perfect Light Box for $37.77 and 4 stars on the review. Granted it only had 4 reviews but 3 were 5 star and the 4th was 2, and that was because of the brightness of the lights. And now that I have this set in my possession I have no idea what they are talking about because these lights seem pretty bright and I can't imagine even needing to set up all four. I ordered it Wednesday morning and it incredibly arrived Thursday afternoon!? Gotta love Amazon Prime shipping.

The "box" itself comes packed inside itself - that just sounded strange writing it and even more so reading it lol?! But you get what I mean. And because everything is self contained you can hide it off in a corner or closet when not in use.

It has Velcro strips along the top of the case to keep every thing tidy inside. And as you'll see below the Velcro plays a big part in the overall design and function of the box.

It even has a carrying strap on the case if you need to travel to take photos.

It comes with 4 LED lights that all have adjustable heads and retractable stands, as well as a separate  adjustable camera stand.

I did get a different set of bulbs with one light, the one on the left - I plugged the lights in really quick just to make sure everything worked and it did seemed like the bulb on the left was brighter than the other three. Who knows, maybe that is how they are supposed to be packaged and it's not a mistake.

There is a metal wire that is inside the white walls goes around the entire "box" and Velcro that runs along the length of the left and back bottom sides hold the "box" together.

There is another piece of Velcro that runs along the top of the back where you attach your background fabric - which really almost has a vinyl feel to it more than a fabric feel.

You get four different colors for your backgrounds - white, blue, red, and black - and with the Velcro I mentioned above it makes it really easy to swap out colors. The only thing I'll need to do is run a cool iron over the background fabrics to get those creases out.

When I was checking out through Amazon there was an instant 10% off coupon for the kit, so final price was $34.00. An absolute steal as far as I'm concerned. Everything feels pretty solid and not "cheap" in any way, especially for a box that measures 24"x24"x29". You could probably argue that the metal wire giving shape to the box is a bit on the thin side but really I can't see it taking any type of abuse that could bend it or cause an issue. And the Velcro seems pretty solid too. The only real issue I see from just this initial setting up is storage of the lights, stand, and especially the background fabrics - because you don't want to be pulling out the iron every time you want to photograph something.

So there you have it, hopefully I'll throw a model or two in it tomorrow and give it its first real test :)

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor