imagewest review

I

infurno

Active member
I know there are several posts about imagewest but I wanted to share my experience in case anybody was looking for another opinion.

I bought 2x 1,000w softbox lights on ebay for ~$300. They were very responsive with emails. The shipping was free but I need the lights ASAP so I called their number to change my shipping option to priority (~$5.00) spoke to 3 people. All very friendly and helpful. They even called to confirm my address when another came up on their system, thats a big plus.

They shipped the product same day I bought. Just got it in the mail this afternoon 3 days later. Everything seems to be in good order, the stands were better than I had expected.

Would recommend them to anybody.

Considering buying the imagewest BluLine Fresnel 3x 1k next & possibly more.

Ebay link just in case anybody is interested:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290242213699&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSA:US:1123
 
First of all, I firmly believe that you get what you pay for. While saving money is great, I can't have equipment failing on me when someone is paying me to do a job. When I bought this my expectations were not high. An equivalent power lowel Rifa-Lite costs $600 x 2 = $1200, which is 400% more than what I paid for the 2 light kit.

The light itself
The body is a combination of metal and plastic ends. The handle on the back end of the light is especially helpful when first setting up and adjusting. The built in dimmer is great, adjust brightness on the fly without having to mess with more equipment.

Noise
The dimmer does make a humming electric noise when in use, its not loud but you can hear it. If your picky on such things you may want to just bypass it with your own but its still handy to have. Furthermore, the light uses active cooling. Looks like there is a PC Case fan inside the body providing air flow. Its not loud, but you can hear that its on. Personally I'm not worried about sound levels from this light.

Softbox
Soft box is large 31x39 inches, which imho is a good balance in size and soft light quality. Has some unique "dual scrim" feature, more on that later. Setup involves inserting 4 rods into a holder and pockets located on the softbox itself. In addition to the softbox it comes with reflectors which make it a more versatile light.


Rants
  • First thing that went wrong was the power switch on one of the lights. It got stuck in the on position. It would move but would not "click" off. I decided to take it apart and inspect it.
  • Some of the screws were loose that hold the light together. The threads on the plastic they were attached to were stripped. Not really a reason for much alarm but I will replace them with a slightly larger size. Once I had it apart the switch started working again. No idea what went wrong. I flipped it rapidly 50 times or so again trying to convince it to fail but its still working fine. Has me a bit worried but maybe it was nothing.
  • I decided to try out the dual scrim but when joining it at the 4 corners, one of the elastic mounts designed to hold the scrim inside the softbox failed. I really don't care that much about the dual scrim, and this is an easy fix, but its alarming at the rate this thing is falling apart.
pros
  • It does exactly what its designed to do.
  • Affordable for practically anybody
  • Decent stands
  • Built in dimmer
  • Comes with reflectors
  • Lots of light output
  • Seems to stay cool
  • Spare bulbs
cons
  • Cheap construction may lead to failure
  • Produces some noise
I am not convinced its reliable just yet, would have to put it to use on a few productions and see how things go. I don't regret buying it.

Overall I give it a 6/10
 
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