Review on Fotodiox Pro Octagon Softbox 60" - The Ultimate Lighting Solution For Broncolor (Impact) And Visatec Strobe Lights With Octbox, Speed Ring, And Soft Box by Eric Nelson

If there's one thing you should know about flash photography, it's that you need good light modifiers. And, generally speaking, bigger is better. The bigger the light source, the softer the light, which leads to nice, beautiful images with soft, flattering shadows. (Of course, for artistic purposes, you may prefer a harsher light. But that's a different story.)This is about as big as it gets! Anyway, I couldn't fit anything bigger in my basement studio, which only has a 7' ceiling. It is awesome! Also, the fact that it's an octagon means that the catchlight in your subjects' eyes will appear more round -- which is also nice.But let's put aside my opinion of the artistic value of this item. What about objective information? It's made of quality materials. Perhaps not the finest materials, but certainly not cheap. It's solid. And it's reasonably easy to put together. Mind you, something this big is not going to be "easy" to assemble and disassemble; but it's not that bad. The rods slide into place without much difficulty -- a reasonable amount of give. The softbox itself is actually made of two parts: an outer ring (to which the rods attach) and an inner ring which attaches via velcro. At first, I thought that was strange. But when I tried to mount it on my strobe, I realized the advantage: I was able to put my hand into the softbox to make sure the speedring was attached properly. It would have been impossible with such a large softbox if it were just one piece of material!And did we talk about price? Go look at how much one of the Elinchrom or other "professional" octaboxes cost. We're talking at least a 5X price difference!Anyway, I am VERY happy with this product. The only negative is one that is unavoidable: it's huge! That can be a pain, both for use and storage. But, man -- it's worth it!