Thursday, May 14, 2009

Rewiew: Square Perfect's SP150S Monolights

My Review Of Square Perfect's Newest SP150S 150 Watt Monolight Studio Strobe Head

On Monday I purchased 2 of these 150 watt monolights from the ebay seller: squareperfect They were only $71.96 with free shipping.

The seller quickly shipped these out the next morning by UPS with a tracking number, and I received them in just 3 days (Thursday)

Both monolights arrived in the same plain brown box
Note: No protective packing included


Now each monolight came packaged in it's own plain white box
Note: Also no protective packing included


Here is one of the unpacked monolights
Note: No instructions included in boxes

Each box contained
(1) SP150S Strobe Head
(1) Black/Silver Rerlector
(1) 100 watt Modeling Light
(1) Power Cord
(1) Sync Cord

Monolight unwrapped and put together


Now for some info on these monolights
The body is made of a black rubberized plastic material
The black/silver reflector feels kind of thin
All the control buttons and knobs are clearly marked
The down switch part of the model light can also be controled by the power turning knob, The upper switch part just gives you full modeling light power

When it first powers on. It beeps to let you know that it's ready
I did about 100 test fires with these lights at various power levels
Recycle time was about 1 second for lowest power setting,
and about 3 seconds at the full power setting
(Not bad for a cheap monolight)
I did not experience any misfires at all with the monolights,
Even when using my ebay wireless triggers (CTR-301P)
The reflector head is removeable by twisting the big black ring around it a little

THESE MONOLIGHTS TAKE THE ELINCHROM TYPE SPEED RING


My over all opinion of these monolights, are that they are made more for the home hobby type strobist, or an amateur photographer just looking to get started with some inexpensive studio style monolights

Here they are side by side showing both front any back


Monolights being test fired thru a 40" brolly softbox umbrella, and a 55" black/white umbrella


Here is one of the monolights with a visico 32" octagon softbox with egg crate grid


My over all conclusion

LIKES: I like the fact this monolight only cost me about $72.00 for 150 watts of flash power
It is light weight, and small and has no problems holding umbrellas and large softboxes while on lightstands. It has a fast recycle time, and also a audio beep to let you know when it's ready for the next shot. Being able to change the power settings on both the strobe, and modeling light is a real plus. It feels nicely made, and should be good for general all around home studio work

DISLIKES: They came with no instructions in the box, I had to wing it some. The photo cell can not be turned off, a real bummer in my book. The reflector feels really cheaply made, It's really thin, and you should be carefully not to get any dings in it. The 6.35mm sync socket, A 3.5mm sync socket would of been 100% better. Better packaging for safer shipping, Come on now, How much more would Styrofoam cost anyway. No warranty card?, But Squared Perfect says it comes with a 1 year warranty

Now would I purchase another one: Yes I would, But I would not pay more then the $89.95 price tag on Discount Tommy's website.
Would I recommend this monolight to someone else: Yes I would recommend it, But then there's better monolights out there, But you would have to pay a lot more for them

Yes I am happy with my purchase of these 2 monolights, They will surely fit my needs for an affordable set of studio stlye monolights for my home photography studio



NOTE: This is just my personal review of Squared Perfect's SP150S 150 watt monolights

7 comments:

  1. You need to post some example shots taken with the umbrellas and egg-crate softbox. Otherwise, I love the no-nonsense straight-to-the-point review. It's perfect for my short attention spa..hmm, does my garbage need to be taken out today?

    ReplyDelete
  2. budrowilson,
    Been working at finding a decent model to use for some test photos. Now that 32 inch octagon softbox with grid will be another review done at a later date

    I posted one image in my flickr photo stream taken with the umbrella and brolly softbox umbrella. Let's see, Oh yea I was holding a mountin dew in that one

    ReplyDelete
  3. hehe...yeah, I saw that. Made you look like David Hobby's dad or something! he he he

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a great review...One question, is it able to power this using batteries??? If YES, what batteries...also, are they compatible with pocketwizards and cybersyncs??? Great blog/reviews...thanks man

    ReplyDelete
  5. dialachineduphotography
    Batteries: Nope! They use just plain a/c 110 volts.
    Yes you can use them with pocket wizards and cybersyns but then you will need a 3.5mm plug to 6.35mm plug sync cable to use these with them
    Or just get a 6.35mm (1/4" USA)plug adapter from Radio Shack for like. $2.99

    Hope this helps you out a little

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks a lot man...I've bookmarked ur blog and also thanks again for the umbrellas...I'll be putting them to use real soon +]

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a pair of the SP150S am trying to find out where I can Get speed rings and assisories for these lights. by the way I bought a power inverter hooked it up to a battery and now I can take them on location and take a lot of shots

    ReplyDelete