Product review of our newest softbox light shaper from Creative Light.
I had a feeling today that I would receive a package, and whaddaya know, the UPS guy showed up at my doorstep with a package from one of my favorite stores, B&H (NY).
The Holy Moment
As you all might know, I just LUUUUUV receiving packages (who doesn’t!)…EXCEPT when it’s for the annoying upstair-neighbor! Although it’s still 2 days till Christmas, the hell with waiting, armed with a stiletto I frantically ripped open the package!
(♪insert angelic music♪) *HOLY MOMENT~!
My first impression was that everything looked very neat and nicely packaged almost like an Apple product and very apple-green (green is my favorite color). And you gotta hand it to the Creative Light people (which is this new Swedish company that creates lightshapers), upon opening the box…aww (感動しました), I love them already!
The Speedring
Because I’m using Visatec strobes, I ordered the corresponding Visatec speedring which came in its own nice little apple-green box (I’m sensitive to nice packaging). The speedring has a good solid built and has colored markings that match the colored endings of the rods. I also like the adjustable screws that allows the revolving mount to be tighter or looser.
Color Coded
Creative Light’s square and rectangular shaped softboxes, for example, use only the holes with blue markings so no more confusion about which hole to use on your speedring, no rocket science here though hehe.
*btw, the softbox fits on any Photoflex speedring too.
Because I only have large softboxes, I wanted to have a small one to light specific areas. Creative Light’s softboxes looked promising so I decided to give it a try and ordered the smallest rectangle softbox they had, which measures 40 x 60 cm. I was quite surprised that the bag it came in was so small and flat (I honestly though it was empty, duh). As you can see, the bag has a clear window which holds information about the softbox, nice.
Creative Light makes two different kinds of softboxes, RF and FF which stand for Recessed Front and Full Front respectively. RF allow accessories like grids whereas FF has a full front outer baffle allowing stacking multiple softboxes. Being used to Photoflex softboxes, I find the Creative Light softbox outer material very lightweight but a bit ‘thin’, the Photoflex ones have a more sturdy feel to it.
Assembling the softbox is pretty straightforward, the metal rods go through a small tab and fit into the corner pockets of the softbox.
Two things that bothered me a bit were, whereas some brands have hollow seams which run along the entire lenght of each ridge to support the rods, the Creative Light one only sports small tabs and I was bit worried that they might tear because of the pressure when assembling. It could be just the small models though. Secondly, the corner pockets are stitched close, whereas Photoflex ones have a release tab which allows you to push the rods in when assembling. A small softbox is still fairly easy to assemble because it uses thin rods, but I can imagine it becoming a problem with bigger ones such as an octodome.
Inner Baffle
There are brands that use hooks or velcro fasteners to install inner baffles, Creative Light opted for elastic snap fasteners.
Outer Baffle
It attaches like any other velcro outer baffle, but I prefer Photoflex’s closed edges over Creative Light’s split edges. With a closed edge you can push it into the black velcro corner with one finger and it attaches both sides easily, just a minor detail.
The back side closes with velcro strips and loops at the edges on the top side are a nice extra feature that allows hanging.
On the left you see the fully assembled softbox and what I love is that it clearly says what softbox it is on the side in big letters.
Conclusion
The Creative Light people clearly paid a lot of attention making everything as clear as possible such as color coding the speedring and putting the dimensions and type on the softbox itself. I gotta say, the sleek green on black with the large logo makes the softbox look SEXY! It’s the Adriana Lima of softboxes! And money-wise it’s also very affordable. That having said, it does have its negative sides. For starters, it doesn’t have a ventilation hole to allow air circulation, using strobes with modeling light on can cause the temperature inside the softbox to rise considerably during long sessions, I had hoped to see a ventilation outlet especially on such a small softbox. The material is not as sturdy as Photoflex and not having release tabs for the rods makes it less easier to insert the rods into the speedring when assembling. But when fully assembled it feels springy and solid built and in all I’m extremely happy with it. It isn’t as sophisticated as a brand like Photoflex but if you’re looking for a great price-quality ratio and no-fuss built, Creative Light is definitely for you. I do have to say, because Creative Light is brand new, it’s still developing at high speed, and judging from what I see already, they seems very promising and I will definitely consider them again in the future.
For more information about Creative Light and its products visit www.creativelight.com. Now lets see how it fares when put into actual use, though you can’t really go wrong there…
*PS: When I woke up the next morning and looked at my new Creative Light softbox, I couldn’t help but smile…is that weird?
*PS again: I tested the softbox with a strobe and I just luv my new product! After first testing round I found the soft light spreads beautifully with a nice contrast and slight amount of snap.
Congrats on your new toy. The softbox looks so cool and I can’t wait to see your next images with it
i love your blog
i have a question, how to do you link the rest of your blog with the “read more…” link? i’m new to the site. i also love photography, so many of your posts are quite helpful, thank you.
Hi Shonie, thanks for visiting the blog. It’s real easy to link using ‘read more’. In your editor when creating a post:
if using the visual editor:
The button on the top row, 4th counting from the right, is the INSERT MORE button (it looks like a piece of paper with a dotted line in the middle). Write your post as normal till the point where you want the ‘read more’ function. Then just click the INSERT MORE button and you’ll see a small indicator in your post. Everything that comes after this will only show up in the WHOLE post.
if using the HTML editor:
Use this piece of code
Again, anything in front of it will be the preview, and anything that comes after it will be displayed in the actual post.
Hope this helps! Cheers!
it does! thanks so much!
I find your blog nicely designed, sprinkled with interesting details around. And I learn things here. Please keep it going.
Thanks! I’ll be adding more stuff soon!
I just stumbled upon this review. Thanks, exactly what I was looking for. I use Photoflex and am very happy with them but might give CL a try as well.
Tobi
Hey Tobi, thanks for dropping by! Yeah, I also use photoflex, but CL is actually very good too. And I think they’ve expanded their product line quite a bit. (not to mention, they look hot!)