The 1200 watts in this don’t go quite as far as you’d expect. The inside of the umbrellas doesn’t seem as reflective as it should be, so I think this is probably closer to a 800W of actual light. Nevertheless, they work.

My only serious beef is that the flourescent bulbs all hum at 60z. With all 8 going it’s quite loud, but luckily my wireless lav mic that I use in the studio doesn’t seem to pick it up. But definitely beware that these lights are far from silent which is mainly why I’m only giving them a 3-star review.

One other oddity is that each bulb has it’s own power cord, so you’ll need 8 outlets (or a power strip) to plug them all into. I don’t know why the bulbs aren’t all plugged into one master cord because having 4 cords hanging down from each stand creates a lot of clutter. They conveniently don’t show the cords in the photo.

Despite the flaws, I still like these lights for the money. The color spectrum is nice and clean, and they do create nice shadowless fill lighting.
Rating: 3 / 5

I bought these lights on the recommendation of a video guru guy on the net b/c I knew nothing about lighting a video studio. My studio is small so the lights are a bit overpowering when I use all of them, but I really like the flexibility to turn on only a few at a time. The dangling cords are pretty annoying though. I had to buy a couple of additional power strips to plug them all in at once.

I’m ordering additional gold umbrellas (bought originally with white) to warm up the tone a bit. Also have used them bouncing off the white carpet which is a nice soft effect.

Overall, I’m happy. Those 43 inch umbrellas are sure big for my room though!
Rating: 4 / 5