Portable Photo Studio Doesn't Quite Make The Grade
My first experience buying studio equipment was in China, walking through the aisles of usually expensive goods that were now in my price range because basically it was all stuff made originally in China anyway. Since then, as an amateur photographer, I’ve often been interested in experimenting with cool kits.
The “Professional Studio with Case” from Brando is an all-in-one portable and foldable case that contains everything one needs to take those pictures on a plain white background, highlighting whatever you need. Excellent for taking pictures of products for one’s blog or items for one’s store on eBay. Our was the large suitcase version, weighing 15 pounds, but there is a smaller “mini” one as well.
This professional studio packs itself up in a pretty sizable, though slender and very storable case. It contains a built-in pair of fluorescent lights and the pieces necessary to turn the case itself into a mini studio, suitable for sitting on a table.
Assembly is mostly straightforward, though not as simple as you might think from the pictures- there are multiple pieces that slide together like a puzzle. At first, we had trouble figuring out how to get the top flap to stay up. Then we realized we just had the whole thing upside down. Perhaps the directions being only in Chinese had something to do with our confusion, but after assembling and disassembling a few times it’s then old hat. The plug being Chinese-style also added to our difficulties, as there was no converter included. We made a trip to the hardware store and found an adapter, but it’s a pretty big problem.
The case comes with extra bulbs, but the light quality is not great or particularly adjustable. The light cannot be easily removed from the case — it’s pretty much just supposed to stay as is, which means that if you desire to swap out the light source, then this probably isn’t the right kit for you. Adding additional light sources or changing the color, tint, or tone of the light is also difficult or impossible without some hacking.
The kit includes both a black background and a white. The black gets dirty very quickly, so beware! They both seemed somewhat bent when coming out of the case — a downside of having a portable kit. Luckily it didn’t seem to show up in pictures.
In general, photography equipment is quite expensive. This kit comes with everything needed for one’s eBay enterprises and has the advantage of being pretty easy to slide behind the couch and get out of the way. However, at the somewhat steep price of $279, we’re not quite sure it’s worth the expense. Available online though it appears to be out of stock at press time.
