I don't want to act like I have a vast experience because I only have 3 light modifiers but I've looked at a lot of products recently and there are a couple of things that ring alarm bells here:
1) Those items have 3.5 star reviews. The cheapest kit tends to be reviewed by people who are starting out and have no experience of anything else and they tend to overrate it. So if the product is only getting 3.5/5 I'm guessing it is a really flimsy piece of kit. I've already learnt to be wary of anything getting less than 4.5/5.
Buying cheap is usually a bad practice when it comes to photographic gear. I bought a cheap strobe kit the first time. Most of it quickly wound up in the trash bin. The second time I bought good quality and it is still going strong after 7 years, and will probably last longer than I will.
2) It has a weird fitting- what is that? I've been warned against universal fittings. I'd rather trust my flash/strobe with a good stand I know and a good bracket I know. I don't know that bracket.
The bracket has a cold shoe for a hot-shoe flash on the horizontal part and the umbrella height is adjusted up and down on the two vertical rods. This allows you to center almost any hot-shoe flash in the opening, with out without it being mounted on a RF receiver. I wouldn't want to use it with a 48" softbox but it should be fine for the small 20" or 24" softboxes.
The so called universal speedrings are of two types.
One type uses bolts through the speedring to clamp the speedring to the head of a strobe. The softbox then attaches to the speedring. The problem is that to keep the weight of the softbox from pulling the speedring off the strobe head, destroying the flash tube and modeling light as it goes, you have to tighten down the bolts to the point that they crack or penetrate the strobe head. This is not a good practice and can result in the magic smoke escaping from the strobe head, which means that it won't work any more.
Here is one from Cowboy Studios.
The second type uses a ring that clamps around the head of the strobe. The only one of these worth having are the ones made for Profoto lights and if you want to use them with cheap strobes the cheap strobes have to have the same circumference as the Profoto strobes. The cheap ones are better than the bolt type but still crap.
Here is the Profoto one.
If you want to use strobes get ones that have Bowens or Elinchrom speedring mounts. Almost all softbox manufactures offer softboxes with these speedrings or their softboxes can be used with these speedrings. Bowens and Elinchrom compatible speedrings are readily available from photo stores, Amazon, or eBay.
3) I also like others think the modifier is too small, which means it would have to stay closer to the model.
The 24" octabox would give the best combinations of softness and light fall off across the subject at distances between 1 and 2 diameters (24" and 48"), so yes, you have to keep it close to the subject. You would still get some softness out to about 3 diameters (72") but the light would rapidly become flat with little fall off across the subject, and it is fall off that causes the highlights and shadows that give a flat image a 3D appearance.
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Living and loving it in Pattaya, Thailand. Canon 7D - See the gear list for the rest.
