Tag: Top Rated

Can I use an image off google for my print on demand design?

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

The short answer is: it depends. Before we get to the good bits here, let me state that I am not a lawyer, and nothing in this article is intended to replace the advice of legal counsel. If you have specific questions about using images downloaded from the internet in your print on demand designs, I always suggest contacting a copyright attorney. Ok, now the rest of the answer: The long answer to this question lies in the source of the image you procured from google. There are stock photography websites like Shutterstock and Adobe Stock which allow you to license their images for personal or commercial use, and the price you pay will be significantly more for commercial use (and the restrictions of how it can be used are more stringent.). So, at this point, you might be asking yourself can I or can’t I use the images I find on google for my designs?

It is complicated

Before you use an image downloaded off google in your design you need to be aware of the legal rights of the image holder, the person who actually took the photo or made the image you want to use. Has this person released the content into creative commons where anyone can use it as they see fit? Have they released it to stock sites so they can make a per-image fee from its use? If you are not 100% sure of the source of the image and how it can be used, then don’t use it. Artists have rights, and their images come with inherent copyright just lie your print on demand designs do. If you create a cool design and upload it and someone steals it right away, how do you feel that they are making money off the design you made? Is this starting to make a little more sense now?

Long term considerations  

If you download an image from a stock website and use it in one of your designs do you know your rights? If the stock site goes out of business does the license you are using the image under still apply? Or are you required to take your design down? If you get dinged for copyright on one of your print on demand sites do you have a copy of the image license on file that you can access if you need it? If you get sued would you be able to produce a verifiable license agreement (even if the website was out of business) for the image you used and made money from?  

Pexels

If the source of the image you are using is a website like pexels.com then according to their license agreement, you can (as of this writing) use images downloaded from their site for commercial applications like blogs, websites, commercials, and even print on demand designs. I would of course refer you to their site for the most current restrictions in their license agreement.

Here is a link to the Terms and Conditions for Pelxels:

https://www.pexels.com/terms-of-service

Is it worth the trouble?

This all sounds like a lot to keep track of. If I download an image from Pexels I have to keep a copy of the license agreement and I have to actually read the agreement to ensure that my application is not voiding my license for that image? I also must keep track of the sources I have used in my designs and ensure that the licensing has not changed for the materials I am using in my designs? Yes. The alternative is that you get sued and lose your car, house dog, etc. Again, I will state that I’m not a legal scholar but I have a lot of experience with licensed properties, and believe me if you are being taken to court over copyright infringement you should be concerned. Most lawyers won’t take a case unless there are clear and current materials representing the copyright claim. You do have an LLC (limited liability corporation) that you run your design business through just in case, right?

Everyone is in the same boat

So what if you are like the many out there who are doing print on demand designs with no graphic design background or skills? You don’t have the ability to make cool designs yourself so you scour the internet for clipart and images you can use for your designs. Well, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but there are a lot in the print on demand industry who do exactly the same thing you do. When you use images from Pexels, yes, they are useable in commercial designs, but realize that everyone else is also using the images from Pexels in their designs as well. Print on demand is a very saturated market to be in and when you are working in a saturated market, you need to figure out what you can do to set yourself apart from the crowd.

Set yourself apart

If a customer comes to Redbubble and searches for “I love coffee” shirts, and five results come up, two with just words, two with the same coffee cup image from google images and the words and one with a cool character holding coffee which one do you think is going to sell? Generally, depending on the design the more unique offering will be the one that sells. So how do you get to be the guy selling the unique design instead of the cookie-cutter design everyone else is doing? Take some classes, get real software like photoshop and illustrator and learn to use them. If you are using the free options, pre-made templates or just text designs your work is not going to stand out from the crowd. Learning to make (good) unique designs can be a long road to take, but you will sell more in the long run, and what is even cooler is that once you make your fortune from your designs you can release them to stock sites for others to license and make you even more money from. Cool huh?

Conclusion

Is stealing images from the internet for your designs worth it? No. at best, your images will get copyright flagged and taken down, at worst you will get sued and the money you made from that design will have to go to the rightful owner (the creator of the design) and your lawyer. Take your own pictures, make your own designs, create your own illustrations and overall you will get a financial win and a moral one because you didn’t steal other artist’s work to make money.

Get out there and get designing!

Getting your first sales on Redbubble or Teespring

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

Have you setup your Redbubble or Teespring store and now you are waiting for the cash to start rolling in, but so far it hasn’t? What are some strategies you can use to get your first few sales in your Print on Demand storefront? Let’s talk about it…

The basics

There are a ton of print on demand providers but the two biggest players in the market are Redbubble and Teespring. They are tied for our choice as the best print on demand service in 2020. Once you setup your shop on Redbubble, they will begin adding your designs to their system right away. As an example, when a customer searches for “cute cats”, your choice of keywords, store sales, store standing, and a few other variables go into determining which page your design lands on in that customer’s search. Teespring has a bit of a different approach to showing your work to potential customers. When you first start your Teespring store, you have a trust score you must overcome before your designs start showing up on their service. The trust score is in place to ensure that you are not selling copyrighted works.  It is up to you to get the first few sales then they will begin adding your designs to the listings. Each time you sell a design, your trust score will go up, and each time a design is taken down for copyright infringement or other infraction, your trust score will go down. The more you sell, the higher your trust score and the higher you will rank in their system. This reason alone is why so many new designers get frustrated with Teespring and have a lower opinion of them over other print on demand services.

Getting your first few sales

To get the ball rolling, you can always buy some of your own designs, in most cases (like Teespring) it is not financially beneficial to buy enough shirts to get your trust score up, so it is better to start promoting your work to get those coveted first sales.

Facebook

This is a good place to start. Most of us have a Facebook account and it is not uncommon for friends to be willing to buy your designs. Remember that spam posting multiple times a day about your cool shirt designs will wear out your welcome with your friends and make it less likely they will buy your work. Unless you feel really confident about your designs at this point, I would not recommend buying into paid Facebook ads. Most often the sales you will get from paid ads on Facebook will not be worth your time, again this depends on the quality of your designs.

Twitter

Starting a Twitter account can be daunting. You only have 240 characters to get your point across to your audience so be focused and clear with your words.  Twitter users (I have found) do not react well to hard sell tactics. The all caps LIMITED TIME OFFER or ON SALE THROUGH THE END OF THE MONTH tactics generally get your advertisements scrolled past.  I also don’t recommend using lines and lines of funny glyphs and emojis since from a distance this sort of advertisement just looks like spam. Be clear and concise, say something like “Fun new Cute Cat Christmas Tree Holiday Design now available, get yours today: (link)” Sometimes adding in a Starting at only $13.99 can help. Different approaches to wording your ads is something you should experiment with. Keep a diary nothing what you said in your ad and keep track of which wording works best for your audience. Don’t treat Twitter as a one-way street. You have to interact with people and build a following and community around your work. The more you interact with people, the more followers you will get and the more product you will sell. People who aren’t successful on Twitter treat it like a megaphone rather than a conversation.

Instagram

Instagram is similar to Twitter in many respects. You need to be concise with your wording and it helps to interact with others and like their content to build a community of like-minded people. The toughest part of Instagram is finding a good ratio of big and small traffic hashtags to use for your posts. Pro tip: when you post a new design, add the picture with a link and a short description then add a comment with a listing of the appropriate hashtags. This way, the big list of hashtags don’t get in the way when your customer is trying to read about your design, your shop or something you have to say.

Things that might have gone wrong

So, you have your storefront all setup and nobody is shopping and buying, what went wrong? Warning: some of this can be tough to hear.

Choice of designs

If you are not a graphic designer and you are relying on services like Canva to make your designs, remember that everyone else who is starting out in print on demand is also using the same designs from Canva and trying to sell them just like you are. Customers get easily fatigued when they see the same looking designs with one or two word changes. My suggestion here is to take some online classes and learn some basic graphic design techniques which will give you the skills to make your work unique. The best way to ensure sales in any crowded market is to set yourself apart from the competition.

Working in a niche that is too crowded

If you jumped right into Yoga, Alcohol, Cats or Dogs shirt designs, then you are creating work in a niche that is already very crowded and in most cases oversaturated. The designers who are making unique work that looks different than the stuff you are making on Canva are going to sell a lot more than your stuff and you need to be aware of that. Find a smaller niche and work your way up to the bigger ones.

Not using the right keywords

Redbubble and other services allow you to add keywords to your designs. If you are too “spammy” or use similar words over and over, your use of these keywords will inherently lose weight in their ranking and importance in your listing compared to using a few targeted and appropriate keywords. There are a million and one tutorials on how many times to use a keyword in a listing and a million debates over using the full amount allowed versus a few heavily targeted keywords. My suggestion to you is not to take anyone’s advice on this, rather, make some listings with a lot of keywords and some with just a few and see how they convert. I would also recommend trying a listing with clearly targeted keywords and some with more general words. I would however steer away from the allure of using non-related keywords in your listings. Don’t make a cat design and use #blacklivesmatter as a keyword because it is trending in the media. Most services will either remove the inappropriate keyword or delete your design.

Final thoughts

There you have it, I hope this information was useful to you. Because of the use of copyrighted words I generally don’t monetize my articles, so if you did find this article useful and would like to see more please like and share on your social media and print on demand forums.

Now get out there and get designing!

Print on Demand keyword basics

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

One of the best ways to get sales on any print on demand design starts with finding effective keywords. There are two schools of thought on how to use keywords in your listings: 1. Find relevant keywords that will drive buyers to your design and 2. Use popular trending keywords (even when they don’t fit the description of your design). Which is the best approach and are there risks associated with either method?

Where to start

With the margins for print on demand sales so thin, I always prefer free solutions to paid ones, and besides who doesn’t like free right? I recommend two services which are (as of this writing) free to use. They will require an email or free account signup. This can be easily sorted by just making a new Gmail account for your print on demand business if you haven’t already.

Merchtitans

My go-to is the merchtitans.com keyword finder for Redbubble, it can be found here. Merchtitans does a good job of scraping the data from Redbubble listings when you type in your keyword or phrase. Merchtitans will collate a list of words and show you how many times they appear on Redbubble. Click the format and copy tags and it will present you with a list that is ready to be pasted into your listing.

 

 

 KWFinder

This one will require an email as well. You get only a few searches a day and in most cases, you only get the first five or so results. I consider this a decent resource, but to get the most out of this one you need a paid account. I have found that the results from KWFinder are fairly close to the ones that come from Google Adwords (which I will be doing an article on in an upcoming post.)

Relevant keywords

If you have a picture of a bear drinking coffee on the design you are listing, the relevant keywords would be bear, coffee and drinking. From there, consider using descriptors of the items in your design. Coffee cup, coffee mug, grizzly bear, cute bear, teddy bear, blue mug etc. Don’t forget words like cute, adorable and the like.  Clear use of keywords can get you far and most importantly keep your design from being removed from Redbubble and other sites which use keywords. Some of the best-selling products on these sites use a few clear keywords to describe the design instead of a million useless words.

Trending keywords

The other school of thought is to add keywords that are trending in the news and other media. The thinking is that when a buyer searched for these keywords on Google or other search engine, your design will come up and you will get your design in front of more eyes. In practice, adding irrelevant keywords or words containing celebrity names or other properties generally get you listed lower in the rankings when the customer searches for similar keywords to the ones in your listing.  The automatic algorithms are also much more likely to flag or take your design down if you use these type of trending keywords.

Order matters

Algorithms change, and as of this writing, the sites like Redbubble that use keywords give more weight to the keywords that appear first in the listing. Fewer keywords also put more weight or emphasis on the words used. This also goes for Merch by Amazon so use your most important keywords in your first description boxes. 

How many keywords?

Just because sites like Redbubble allow you to use more than 20 keywords doesn’t necessarily mean you should use more than 20 keywords. I generally to keep my word count under 15. Put the relevant ones up front in the listing and then use them in your description. This will add even more weight to these words. Do words like best-selling top-selling and others help? Not as much as you would think. There are a lot of people listing designs every day and how many of those people do you think are using words like best-selling and top-selling? Those words become less weighty when a lot of people use them. You have to come up with words for your design that are unique to your design.

Conclusion

What do you think? did this article help you? then help me out by sharing this article with your print on demand forums and on social media.

Now get out there and get designing!

What is Print on Demand?

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

Print on Demand (or PoD) is considered a passive source of income and is an internet-based business anyone can start. When most people talk about Print on Demand, they are generally referring to a company online which prints T-shirts for you, however today’s print on demand services offer everything from face masks to phone cases and beach towels. Essentially you create a high-resolution design and upload it to a service, depending on the service you choose to partner with, they will promote, print, and ship the order to your customers. You get a percentage for each sale and most services allow you to choose the amount you make on each item sold. This lets you focus your time on creating new sellable designs rather than dealing with business infrastructure. How does it work? Let’s talk about it.

How much does it cost?

Getting started in any business requires startup costs. Depending on the path you take, your startup cost for getting into Print on Demand can be very reasonable. All but a couple of the Print on Demand services are free to join, but you might be required to jump through a few hoops to get your items listed.  Until now, if you wanted to be able to make your own T-shirts to sell, you had to learn screen printing and buy the bulky equipment and all the blank shirts and inks. You had to buy into a credit card service and deal with the hassle of not only promoting your designs, but printing and sending them out to your customers yourself. With Print on Demand services, you just upload a high quality, high resolution file and they handle the rest. But what about the most important part of the equation? The designs?

If you don’t have a background in graphic design, color theory and typography, can you still make designs for Print on Demand? Of course, there are websites like  Canva.com  that allow you to create designs from templates, all you need to do is come up with the text you want to put on the shirt. Here is where most Print on Demand tutorials end – they don’t tell you the truth. You can use these design templates, but there will be many times when you want to make specific changes to a design to fit your needs for a shirt design, and having a background or at least some basic knowledge in graphic design can go a long way.

The most significant cost associated with starting a Print on Demand will be time. No matter how simple all of the other tutorials say it will be, there will be significant time involved in getting your business up and running, then you will spend a ton of time researching new niches for shirt designs, promoting your work and uploading your completed designs to your shop. There are automation services which streamline the process for you but be prepared to pay a monthly charge.

What you need

First and foremost (other than an internet connection) you are going to need a computer or tablet that can create designs for your Print on Demand shop. You will also need software to create your new designs on, there are free options available like GIMP, but I prefer Photoshop over all other programs because there is so much information available online to learn the program. All the best plugins, and content is created with Photoshop in mind, and I can’t see a viable reason to not use Photoshop for creating designs. My thinking is that you can get a free program like GIMP and try to translate tutorials and lessons to that platform, but learning new software can be difficult enough without having to add in a translation errors when you already don’t feel comfortable with the program.

Photoshop used to cost hundreds of dollars and needed to be upgraded each year. These days, you can get photoshop in the photographer bundle for $9.99 a month, less than the price of a cup of coffee. This will give you access to all the cool new features in photoshop and it is constantly updated. In the photographer bundle you also get Lightroom which is a great program to catalog and edit all your photos. We aren’t affiliated with Adobe, and get nothing for recommending photoshop to you, it is just the best program to use for design creation hands down.

You will also want a backup strategy for your designs. You are investing time into your designs, and a computer crash could completely derail your business if you don’t put a plan in place form the outset. 1 Terabyte dries ca be had at any big box store for less than a hundred dollars – often way under a hundred dollars. Back up your work often, believe me the first time you have a computer crash you are going to thank me.

Lastly, you are going to need your tax information. When you sell something online you must pay taxes on it, there is no way around it. Most Print on Demand services will ask for your social security number and will give you itemized comma separated lists of the items you sold over the year so you can claim them on your taxes.

If you are serious about starting your Print on Demand business, I highly recommend that you consider setting up a LLC. I’m not a lawyer and don’t consider this legal advice, but a LLC will protect your personal assets in the event that someone sues you over a design. Whether you are making shirt designs, jewelry or looking at a career in photography a LLC can be a lifesaver (and property saver). Again, I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice but Legalzoom.com is a great place to get a LLC setup for around $300.

Set yourself apart

Since COVID-19 hit the Print on Demand industry has exploded with new designers. Some have come and gone, others are still hanging on. With the field so crowded, you as a designer need to set yourself apart from the herd. When you use services like Canva.com to create your designs, you must realize that your work is going to look like other’s work. You can’t get around this and no matter how many different templates are available, customers are going to see the same shirt template all over the place. How do you set yourself apart from all the other designers? I am a bit proponent for learning new skills. Rather than just replaying on pre-made templates, why not take the time to learn how to make the designs yourself? This will open all sorts of new avenues for you. Consider this, if you know how to make the templates you could not only create your own designs to sell, but you can also create designs to sell to other designers who don’t have the design skills.

Is it worth it?

The revenue you are going to see (especially at first) from a Print on Demand shop isn’t going to pay the rent, and in most cases, it might not even buy you lunch. Print on Demand is a very crowded market and there is no get rich quick scheme. Just like any business, it is going to take time to research your designs, find new trends to create designs for and upload your designs. The margins you make are razor thin and you will rely on volume to start seeing a reasonable income on a monthly basis. If you have time, and you love to create things that other people can enjoy, then Print on Demand is right for you. I love to make the designs, but even to this day years later I still find myself buying a lot of my designs and wearing them every day. The joy of someone telling you that they love your shirt and you being able to hand them a card and saying I made this is priceless. For me, the time involved in Print on Demand as a business is well worth it.

Copyrighted material

Any “what is Print on Demand” article should include a bit about copyrighted materials. If you have questions about the legality of using the Nike logo, or Baby Yoda in your designs, we have detailed explanations here. For now, the best piece of advice I can give about copyrighted materials is this: If you didn’t create it don’t use it. Drawing Baby Yoda is not creating it. You must produce the design or idea and then implement it to be able to legally use it on your designs. If you venture into the copyrighted materials game be aware that the best thing that can happen to you is your account gets banned or they just take your design down. If you make that shirt with Baby Yoda and it sells well, Disney is going to come after you. Larger companies like this have teams of lawyers that do nothing all day but look for instances of people using their intellectual property and suing them.

Using copyrighted materials in your designs can be a way to get some quick sales, but the hassle and litigation surrounding the use of copyrighted materials is not worth the risk in my eyes.

Print on Demand services

There are a ton of Print on Demand services, but three stand out – Redbubble, Teespring and Merch by Amazon. These three services all use the same base file resolutions 4500X5400 and all three are non-exclusive, meaning when you create a design you can upload it to all three of these services to sell. Let’s break down a quick summary of each of these services:

Redbubble

When you are first starting out, Redbubble is going to be your best source of income. The process of uploading your design and choosing the products it will appear on is quick and easy. You can choose your profit margin and once your design is uploaded it will propagate through Google and the Redbubble service. They will immediately start including you into relevant searches and customers will be able to start finding your designs right away. Redbubble is stringent on enforcement of copyrighted materials, so if you upload something you don’t have the rights to use, they will catch you and remove the design. Multiple infractions will lead to a banned account. If you are going to just choose one Print on Demand service to work with, Redbubble will be the quickest and easiest to get up and running. They are a great way to dip your toe into the Print on Demand game and see if it is right for you.

Merch by Amazon

Did you know Amazon has a Print on Demand service? The shirts are decent quality, and they promote your work on Amazon. This is good and bad, good that it is Amazon and your products will be promoted where everyone is already shopping, but bad in that Amazon is so bug your work can get lost in the myriad of other designs available on the service. You also have to apply for a seller account and prove that your work is good. Once you are in you work your way up through a tier system starting at 10 design slots available. After your designs sell 10 shirts you move to Tier 2 whish has 25 design slots. Getting to the point where you can add a reasonable amount of designs onto your account can take quite a few months depending on your designs.

Teespring

Teespring has a metric called a trust score that you are required to navigate before they begin adding your designs into relevant customer searches. This means if you add 25 designs featuring dogs, your work will not be shown to customers searching for dogs until you have sold a few items and met the first tier of trust score requirements. The royalties are good on Teespring, and at the end of the day it is well worth the hoops you have to jump through to get a few sales to start your account. Use Twitter and Instagram to promote your work and get a few sales and you will be all good.

Big note: Teespring’s trust score is there to keep people from uploading and selling copyrighted materials, Don’t even think about uploading your fan art of Baby Yoda, your design will get taken down,  and your trust score will go into negative territory meaning you have to make even more sales on your own before your work starts showing up in relevant searches on the site.

Will you make a lot of money?

It depends. If you are using pre-made templates, and your work looks like everyone else’s, you might not. If you make create fun designs that people want, then you should do well.  Customers want fun topical and interesting designs.  

Give it a shot

Give Print on Demand a try. Don’t give up until you have at least 100 designs up. Once you reach 100 designs, you can take a step back and breath for a minute. Give it some time, depending on the time of year sales can be slow. Towards the holidays sales are always better, consider this as a long-term passive income source. That doesn’t mean to put up a bunch of designs and walk away, rather take the time for that big initial push to get 100 designs then evaluate where you are. Look at the designs that are selling and the ones that aren’t. Trends change, people’s taste change and your skills improve. Once you hit 100 designs I guarantee that you will look back and wrinkle your nose at some of the early designs you created.

Print on Demand is a fun and rewarding source of passive income. It is cheap to get started as it only costs you time at the outset. Go into it with an open mind and see if what interests you and drives your creation sells.

Print on Demand Niches of the Week 10/25/2020

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

If you are creating T-shirt designs and you are looking for some inspiration, each week we review the Print on Demand top Niches. Keeping track of what is hot and what is not is a tough process, hopefully this information will help you out.

This week we are transitioning away from Halloween, because regardless of which PoD service you work with your customers will not have time to order shirts or other items and have them arrive before Halloween which is next weekend. By now, you should have your Thanksgiving designs up for sale, and be actively working toward Christmas and New Years designs. Speaking of Christmas and New years, let’s talk about this week niche suggestions.

2020 Sucks

With COVID-19, lots have had a tough year and they are looking to show off their dislike of the year from hell. 2020 sucks shirts are still selling well, you should consider creating some designs which feature 2020 sucks somewhere. Perhaps marrying 2020 sucks with Thanksgiving, New Years or Christmas somehow would yield good results. If this works for you, let us know with a tweet or message!

I may be old but I got to see all the cool bands.

Look it up on Amazon or Redbubble, it’s the words with a guitar. This is a shirt that can seel anytime of the year, so consider this as one of those long-term designs for your shop. Do be careful of the guitars, don’t just go on Google Images and grab a vector or image of a Fender or other guitar, copyright police will come for you and make them take your  design down.

Kayaking gets me wet and SUP

Its strange, but the Kayaking gets me wet design is doing well this week and last. I have also seen Stand Up Paddling gets me wet designs out there quite a bit. This is also called SUP. It seems early for summer sports, but hey, if it is selling why not? Have you tried this niche? How is it working for you?

Merry Quarantine Christmas

Christmas designs are starting to fill up the stores and they are selling well. From what I have seen so far, it los like lots of the larger shops are re-tooling their designs from last year and adding Merry Quarantine Christmas to them.  Many are also incorporating toilet paper rolls into the 2020 zeros. I have also seen lots of elves with 2020 toilet-paper-ized.  

Voting is hot 2020

We are at the end of the election season, you should have your Biden won and Trump won themed shirts in your stores (if you are playing both sides of the fence).  Redbubble is showing trends for Coting is Hot 2020 at the moment, it’s a bit late to jump on this trend but who knows if you have an original design it might be worth it. I still think that designs featuring both candidates for winning the election will be a good seller right after the election. Just put both up and whichever candidate wins the election pull the loser’s shirts down.

Did any of this help you? Did we inspire you? Let us know if you like this series we will keep it going each week. Now get out there and get designing!

Best Top Rated waterproof canvas travel duffel bag!

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

 

Get yours here: Travel Duffel Bag Waterproof Canvas Overnight Bag Leather Weekend Oversized Carryon Handbag Brown

Duffel bags are so great for weekend or overnight travel. Here at Epic Shit we get a ton of travel bags to review and almost never post reviews because they tend to be cheap and fall apart easily. With that im mind, enter the Travel Duffel Bag Waterproof Canvas Overnight bag from NEWHEY. I love a duffel bag that is roomy and has enough space for all my stuff for a weekend getaway, but still has pockets I can place harder to find things like my cellphone charger. How does this 46-dollar Duffel stand up to road trips, plane trips and weekend getaways? Read on…

Size matters

The most important features of a Duffel bag are the size and the construction. I have had Duffels bags that were just too big and once they were filled the handles felt like they were going to rip off. I would put this Duffel Bag squarely in the middle size range with dimensions of 22.83(L) by 11.8(W) and 11.8(H),   the included shoulder strap expands from 27.9”–52′.  When I think about Duffle Bag size, I consider smaller than this bag suitable for the gym, and larger than this more for a week-long trip. This bag holds enough clothing and supplies for a 2-3 day weekend trip or business overnighter. I consider this the perfect size for a grab and go over even a weekend roller suitcase. Before we got this, my wife used a weekend size Samsonite roller. Nice she saw the quality of this bag, she bought one for herself. They are great to stuff with clothes and toiletries and throw in the car for a getaway. The interior pockets keep stuff organized so you don’t have to dig around in the bottom looking for loose items like with other bags.

Construction

This is where I was really shocked. I expected a 46-dollar bag to be cheap, but this feels like a much more expensive bag. This Travel Duffel Bag is made of High-density waterproof canvas and has nicely rounded comfortable to hold leather handles. The stitching all around is top notch and it had four metal feet. The zippers are heavy duty and I have yet to have any issues with them even when my bag was stuffed to capacity. I love that the canvas is waterproof, we tested this on our first outing last year. When we arrived at our hotel, it stated pouring and even after sitting in the rain for a few minutes all the clothing inside was still bone dry. I doubt the bag could handle being submerged of course but for the testing and rain exposure I have thrown at this top rated cheap little bag I am very impressed.

The bags come in a few different colors, brown and grey as well as camo patterns.  

User experience

I have been using this bag for nearly a year now. I have stuffed it full and thrown it in the back of the car, stuffed it full and carried it on top of my suitcase on a cross country flight and left it sitting in the rain while I checked into a hotel in the mountains. With all the wear and tear this bag has endured I would expect to see a lot more fraying on the edges or stitching, but I am so far extremely happy with the quality and build of this Travel Duffel Bag.  I have to say I really love this little bag.

Conclusion

I’m shocked at the quality of this bag for the price. I’m happy to recommend this to anyone looking for a nice medium, size Travel Duffle Bag that can easily hold enough clothing and supplies for a weekend getaway or short business trip. The handles are comfortable, and the shoulder strap doesn’t dig into your neck when you are carrying it fully loaded. This bag really feels like a great alternative to a more expensive piece of luggage. I own two of them and am strongly considering these as Christmas presents this year for friends and family. Great bag, great value.

I love to hear from my readers! If you have questions about this or any review on this site, or If you have a product you would like us to review, drop me a message on Twitter or on the contact form here on the website. Have a great day!

Twitter: @EpicShit9

Colors and styles

 

The best way to take selfies with your big boy camera!

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

Get yours here: Canon RC-6 camera remote

If you are a Canon camera user like I am, and you want to take self portraits there are two ways, via your phone and the Canon app or the Canon RC-6 remote. Amazon does sell an alternative remote under their Amazon Basics label, but I have found that to be a bit finicky even though it is half the price. The Amazon Basics remote also does not work with every Canon camera the RC-6 does. So, is the RC-6 worth 20 dollars just to remotely trigger your camera? Short answer – yes!

Compatibility

I hope that with this review I can shed some light on the operation and compatibility of this unit. Many online reviews for this unit do not spend any time on the compatibility of the RC-6 remote, therefore you are left wondering if it will work with your model of camera before you buy. From the Canon official site, these are the camera bodies this unit will work with:

— EOS Rebel T7i Body Refurbished
— EOS 5D Mark IV Body with Canon Log
— EOS Rebel T3i Body Refurbished
— EOS 5DS Body
— EOS 80D EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T2i EF-S 18-55mm IS II Lens Kit
— EOS 5DS R Body
— EOS Rebel T7i Body
— EOS 6D Body Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T7i EF-S 18-55mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS M100 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit Black
— EOS M100 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM & EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM Bundle Black
— EOS Rebel SL1 with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit White Refurbished
— EOS 7D Mark II Body Wi-Fi Adapter Kit
— EOS M100 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit White
— EOS M6 Body Black
— EOS 7D Mark II EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Wi-Fi Adapter Lens Kit
— EOS 6D Mark II Body Refurbished
— EOS 5D Mark IV Body
— EOS 5D Mark IV EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM Lens Kit
— EOS M5 EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS 80D Body
— EOS Rebel T5i 18-135mm IS STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel SL1 EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit White
— EOS Rebel T5i 18-55mm IS STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T5i Body Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T7i EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS 77D Body
— EOS 77D EF-S 18-55mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS M6 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit Black
— EOS Rebel T7i Video Creator Kit
— EOS 77D EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens Kit
— EOS M6 EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit Black
— EOS M6 Video Creator Kit
— EOS M6 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 & EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM Bundle Black
— EOS 60D EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens Kit
— EOS 60D Body
— EOS M6 Body Silver
— EOS 5D Mark IV EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM Lens Kit
— EOS 60D EF-S 18-200mm IS Lens Kit
— EOS M6 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit Silver
— EOS M5 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T2i Body Refurbished
— EOS M5 Body
— EOS Rebel T2i EF-S 18-55mm IS Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel SL1 Body Refurbished
— EOS Rebel SL1 with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit Black Refurbished
— EOS 5DS R Body Refurbished
— EOS 5DS Body Refurbished
— Refurbished EOS Rebel T6s Body
— EOS M6 EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Lens Kit Silver
— EOS Rebel T5i Body
— EOS M6 EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 & EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM Bundle Silver
— EOS Rebel SL1 Body
— EOS 60Da Body
— EOS 5D Mark IV Body Refurbished
— EOS 5D Mark III Body
— EOS Rebel T4i 18-135mm IS STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS 60Da Body Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T6s EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T6i Body Refurbished
— EOS 5D Mark III EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T6i EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T6i EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Kit Refurbished
— EOS 6D Mark II Body
— EOS 70D EF-S 18-135mm IS STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS 6D Mark II EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM Kit
— EOS 70D EF-S 18-55mm IS STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T5i 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS 6D Mark II EF 24-105mm F3.5-5.6 IS STM
— EOS Rebel T5i EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— Refurbished EOS 70D Body
— EOS Rebel SL1 EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS 70D EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T4i Body
— EOS Rebel T4i 18-55mm IS II Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS 7D Mark II Body Refurbished
— EOS 70D EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T3i Body
— EOS M3 Body Refurbished
— EOS M3 EF-M 18-55mm IS STM Kit Black Refurbished
— EOS 7D Mark II EF-S 18-135mm IS STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS 6D Body
— EOS 6D EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens Kit
— EOS 7D EF-S 18-135mm IS Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T3i EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Lens Kit
— EOS 5D Mark III Body Refurbished
— EOS 5D Mark III EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens Kit
— EOS M3 EF-M 18-55mm IS STM Kit White Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T4i Body Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T2i EF-S 18-55mm IS II Lens Kit
— EOS 7D EF 28-135mm IS Lens Kit
— EOS Rebel T2i Body
— EOS 7D Body
— EOS M3 EF-M 18-55mm IS STM & EF-M 55-200mm STM Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS 60D EF-S 18-135mm IS Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T1i Body Refurbished
— EOS 60D Body Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T3i Body
— EOS Rebel T7i EF-S 18-135 IS STM Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T3i EF-S 18-55mm IS II Lens Kit Refurbished
— EOS Rebel T7i EF-S 18-55 IS STM Kit Refurbished

It is a huge list, and hopefully should clear up any compatibility concerns you might have. If your camera is on the list, you are good to go.

Operation

In your camera settings (not on the remote), for most models you have a timer option which can be set between 2 and ten seconds depending on the model of your camera body. I have the 7D mark II and the 5D Mark III and IV and they all have two and ten second timer settings. Set up your camera on a tripod pointing toward you and point the remote at the camera, press the button and the camera will focus and trigger the shutter. This is more for photographers wanting to be in the frame, or for photographers of kids who will be near their subject to coax a smile then press the shutter.  I personally like the single button operation.

Is the RC-6 better than the Canon app? The app gives you access to more of your camera’s operation, but sometimes all you need to do is trigger the shutter. With the app you have to connect to the camera via wi-fi or bluetooth (if your camera has wi-fi connectivity) and often you will lose connection. The RC-6 is simple one button operation. 

Bulb Mode

If you are into long exposure photography or light painting this is perfect, it works with the bulb mode. Set your camera on bulb mode then click once to open the shutter and a second time to close it – no need to touch your camera.

Conclusion

The top rated Canon RC-6 is a great little cheap and simple remote, which allows you to be in the frame of your shot or to trigger your camera for long exposures without jostling the camera around causing blur. I always have this remote in my bag since it is so small. I would order a second battery once your unit arrives so that you have one in your bag. I find that if I don’t use my remote for long periods of time the battery will die as you would expect. Happy Shooting!

 I love to hear from my readers! If you have questions about this or any review on this site, or If you have a product you would like us to review, drop me a message on Twitter or on the contact form here on the website. Have a great day!

Twitter: @EpicShit9

 

 

 

The best cheap DSLR camera rain cover [according to Amazon]

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

 Get yours here: Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover for Canon Nikon Sony DSLR Mirrorless Cameras

I ordered my Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover Protector for DSLR Cameras about a year ago and wanted to try it in several different conditions before writing this review. So far, I have used the cover in rain, snow, and blowing sand and it performed flawlessly keeping my camera dry and free of debris through the toughest downpour.  When I bought this camera cover, Amazon had it top rated and I can see why, it works very well.

A raincoat for your camera

I shoot with a Canon 5D mark IV, and often use the 70-200 f2,8 IS II with this rain cover. It is difficult to get too excited about a rain cover because it either does the job and keeps your camera dry or it does not. My camera(s) is/are weather sealed, but I use this rain cover out of an abundance of caution. My backup cameras are Canon 5d mark III and Canon 7D mark II, all my cameras fit perfectly (though snugly) in the Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover. I like the drawstrings for extra security over some of the cheaper alternative brands. When you are out in the elements, especially the wind you will appreciate the extra coverage the drawstrings provide. The armholes work well and are long enough to keep the camera from getting wet even in blowing rain. The clear back panel offers viewing of the camera screen and settings. I have read some other reviews that say this screen can discolor with age, but so far, I have not had any issues and I have shot in the elements a lot.   

The rain

I used the Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover on the deck of the cruise ship during our trip to Alaska. Between the salt spray and rain, I was certainly concerned about the camera staying dry (and especially free of salt) while I was up on deck. I shot for over an hour at a time and the camera made it through dry and working perfectly. The Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover is designed to protect and shield a small or professional DSLR camera and it certainly did the job well. I even had several people borrow it and use it on other smaller cameras when I was not using it. This little rain cover has had Sony, Nikon Fuji and everything else in it with no problems.

The snow

I was invited to shoot the winter games for the Special Olympics in Colorado, and the day of the event was not nice at all. With blowing snow, and an average temperature of 10 degrees, I decided to use the Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover to keep with camera free of melting snow. I think the cover helped to keep my hands a bit warmer than other times I have shot without a cover in blowing snow. The cover is made from high quality waterproof nylon, so it wasn’t insulating by any means, but the cover did seem to help maintain a bit of heat from my hands and make the long day shooting a bit more comfortable.

The sand dunes

The last harsh environment type I tried with the Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover was in the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. I shot most of the afternoon and into the evening with blowing sand. There is nothing worse than getting sand in your lens or camera housing (well other than salt water of course). Maybe this cover was not intended for blowing sand as much as it was for rain, it did a great job. After the sunset, I walked back to the car and took the camera out of the cover and was pleasingly surprised that it was very free of sand and grit. I appreciated the cover protecting the top of my tripod as well. Now, if they only made one for the tripod legs so they didn’t get sand in them!

Conclusion

After a year with the Altura Photo Professional Rain Cover I can say I would happily recommend this to another photographer. The dual adjustable sleeves are great and have worked well with everyone who has used this cover. I also really like the protection from the full-length double zipper. The cover works well and provides access to camera controls whether hand holding or using a tripod. It is tough to get excited about a rain cover for your camera, but if I was going to, this would be the one to get excited about.

I love to hear from my readers! If you have questions about this or any review on this site, or If you have a product you would like us to review, drop me a message on Twitter or on the contact form here on the website. Have a great day!

Twitter: @EpicShit9

 

Best cheap strobe? Godox AD200/AD200PRO review

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

Get yours here: Godox AD200 200ws strobe

Photography gear is so expensive! Nearly every day I read on photo forums where people are looking for budget gear that performs as well as top rated equipment. Let’s put this in terms of cars, if you are looking for a car that drives as well as a Porsche and will retain nearly all its aftermarket value but costs 1/5 of the price, prepare yourself for disappointment. If you are looking for a suitable vehicle that will handle well in the snow and maintain much of its aftermarket price, a Subaru might be the ticket. Sure, it won’t have the power of the Porsche or the people checking you out on the street as you drive by, but it will get you where you need to go and be more than functional. Let’s be honest, who can afford a new Porsche anyway?

When I see people saying they like the way a Profoto strobe looks, but they are on a tight budget I always recommend the Godox AD200 or AD200 PRO line of strobes. There is a ton of information on these strobes, so rather than rehashing the same old material, I will focus (yeah get ready for some photo groaners) on some areas of confusion with these units and tell you about my experience shooting a body of work that has been exhibited many times.

Clearing the confusion

Whenever you do research on the Godox AD200/AD200 PRO line of strobes, you almost always see them mentioned with the Flashpoint eVOLV200, this is because they are the same unit with different branding. The camera store Adorama re-brands the Godox line of strobes to their Flashpoint brand. Same units, same batteries, (in most cases) same packaging and all the accessories work on the Godox or the Flashpoint units interchangeably. Which one is better? They both great, Godox has great customer support and a call will usually yield very fair returns or exchanges, which is also true for anything bought from Adorama under the Flashpoint brand. Since all the accessories fit either unit, I consider them interchangeable. I personally have the Flashpoint units but have friends with he Godox version and they are pretty much the same unit.

My other strobe is a Porsche

Full disclaimer, I usually shoot with Profoto gear, but sometimes it is just too bug and heavy to bring with me if I am doing a location shoot. I shoot for my work all over the United States, and I used to use pelican boxes and bring my big strobes with me everywhere, but eventually I got tired of the hassle and put together a smaller, lightweight location shooting setup which I centered around a couple of AD200s. The AD200 units are just a bit bigger than a standard flash and have four times the power and a lot more versatility.

Lighting differently

When putting together the components for the best cheap location shooting setup, many might be tempted to run towards a top rated flash like the Canon 600EX II series. I don’t personally like the camera-mounted strobes as much as I used to. I don’t think they have the versatility that a multifunction strobe like the AD200/eVOLVE200 has. The strobe comes with the Fresnel head, (like the head of a speedlight but doesn’t zoom) but for my work, I primarily use the included bare bulb head in a strip softbox or the 32-inch umbrella from Godox. The bare bulb head produces omnidirectional light and I have found it to work exceptionally well in a softbox or umbrella. If I am looking to have precise control over the direction of the light, when shooting product images or low key portraits I will use a strip softbox, otherwise portraits work well with the umbrella, giving a larger spread of light suitable for standard headshot type portraits.

The Fresnel head, in a softbox gives a stronger hotspot (like any standard camera mounted flash would) but is more efficient than the bare bulb head. When shooting on battery powered strobes, every consideration must be made to conserve power and squeak every shot out of a battery when on location. How does the AD200 do in terms of battery life? The documentation boasts 500 plus flashes at full power. Does it live up to the hype?

Battery Life

I know what you’re thinking, 500 full power flashes on a single charge with a battery this small seems inconceivable. When I first purchased the AD200 I was terrified the battery would give out the first time I took it as my key (primary) light on a location shoot. The first shoot I did with the AD200 was a low key Bodyscapes style portrait session, so I was not pushing as much power as you would with a standard portrait session. I ended up shooting around 50% power most of the day and after 1000 images I was done with the shoot and still had plenty of power left in the battery to keep going. I set myself up for success shooting lower power for the first shoot purposely and I was very happy with the results. The strobe performed very well, experiencing only one misfire during the shoot.

Feeling quite confident in the AD200 at this point, I scheduled a regular portrait shoot where I would be overpowering bright daytime indoor light. I didn’t buy a second battery for the AD200 as I was determined to run it out of power during a shoot. Would this relatively cheap strobe have enough power to last through a portrait session where I would be pushing the power capabilities of the unit? I setup with AD200 in a Godox S-type bracket which would give me the ability to attach a 32-inch Godox umbrella. Side note: I’m not a Godox fanboy or anything, I just happened to find all this Godox gear on sale at Amazon. Setting the exposure my ambient light, I fired up the AD200 in High Speed Sync (HSS) since at ISO 100 with an aperture of 5.6 (because I wanted the background to be somewhat in focus) I was at 1/800 shutter speed which put the unit in HSS mode. I shot all afternoon and ended up with just over 500 images for the day. With the ambient light, the AD200 spent most of the day in full power and after the shoot I still had enough power to shoot more.

I have shot with the unit many times since that day and I still have never bought a second battery and to this day I have never run out of power on a shoot. It appears Godox underestimates their battery capacity. I have since become very comfortable with the power consumption and have yet to run into a problem.

The only downside to the battery for this unit is that it does take a long time to charge to full. Not a big deal, and I haven’t ever had to wait for it to charge during a shoot. I suppose the first time this becomes a problem for me I will buy a second battery for the unit.  

Triggered

I paired the AD200 with the Godox Xpro-C TTL Wireless Flash Trigger for Canon (They have them for Nikon and Sony etc.). The trigger will shoot up to 1/8000s in HSS. The Godox Xpro-C will easily convert TTL settings to manual with the press of a button and has a large easy to read screen. I really like the slanted design and size of the display. If you shoot with a lot of strobes you will appreciate the 5 dedicated group buttons. The 11 customizable functions also make setting up the trigger just the way you like it a breeze. It works perfectly with all the Godox strobes I have tried it with including the on-camera style units. Since the Flashpoint branded strobes are all made by Godox, the Xpro-C worked perfectly with the other Flashpoint branded strobes I have as well.   

How does it drive?

Is the Godox AD200 and Xpro-C combination like shooting with a Profoto D2 or B10? No of course not. Is this setup perfectly serviceable and reliable? absolutely. I use this setup as my primary location setup and have had very few issues. It has never let me down on a shoot and I have yet to buy more batteries. If you are a machine gun shooter, then your mileage is going to vary. I would say I shoot at a normal pace and the AD200 has little issues recycling in time before the next shoot. My use scenario is low and normal key portraits and product photography. I don’t shoot sports, but I would say that the recycle time (the time the strobe needs to get ready for the next shot) would likely be a bit slow if you were looking to do images of dancers in motion. If you are looking for this type of recycle time the Profoto D2 is probably a better fit.  

I have shot with everything from cheap radio popper triggers cobbled with cord adapters onto 20-year-old speedotron strobes to current generation Profoto and Broncolor gear. The Godox AD200 and Xpro-C trigger setup is perfectly serviceable, and functions well. It isn’t going to recycle as fast as a Profoto B10, but then it doesn’t cost over $2000 either. If you are shooting fast, you might miss a shot here and there, but overall, it is a very nice rig to shoot with. I would recommend this setup to anyone.

Color

Here is another one of those things that other reviewers don’t mention. I am a stickler for color, and one reason to use a manufacturer like Profoto over Godox is consistency of light output. The Godox strobes (just like all other top rated cheap strobes) has a tendency to shift light color or power a bit over the course of your shoot. Some shots won’t be as bright, while others may be a bit off in terms of color (a bit). This effect isn’t a big deal and is something almost every budget strobe does. The effects of this color and brightness shift is easily countered by including a color checker in your first shot and using their software to adjust the color and brightness of all the shots in your session. This is not a bit deal for me. To date, I haven’t lost a single shot due to inconsistent light output. I use the AD200 in my professional work without problem. I only mention this point, because this is an honest review and if I were in your situation I would want to know. As a working professional, I don’t consider it any more a problem than I would using any other budget strobe.

Accessories

The Godox AD200 has been widely adopted in the photography community so there are a ton of options for accessories. Batteries, brackets gels, barn doors and a million other accessories are readily available for this little strobe. If you shoot weddings, this is a perfect strobe, because it is light and put out plenty of power to shoot in most situations. I especially like that there are a few different heads available now, such as the LED head which turns the AD200 into a continuous light for video and a round head making the light output look similar to the Profoto A1. This really is a great little versatile strobe.

Conclusion    

I reviewed the AD200 and Xpro trigger because this is the gear I use in my work. There are a million and one YouTube videos and written reviews for these units, but not all of them are totally honest about real-world experiences. The AD200 is a great alternative whether you are just getting started or if you are a seasoned pro looking for a reliable second or location kit. I love that I can throw this strobe into my camera bag with all my lenses and have a perfectly serviceable location shooting setup that is light and has enough power for portraits and plenty of battery life.

I love to hear from my readers! If you have questions about this or any review on this site, or If you have a product you would like us to review, drop me a message on Twitter or on the contact form here on the website. Have a great day!

Twitter: @EpicShit9

Links:

 

Flashpoint C stand review, are they better than Avenger?

Posted on by epicshit_5q7pnb

Get yours here: Flashpoint 10″ C stand

Whether you are just starting out in photography or you have been shooting for ages, a C stand is something every photographer should have in their studio arsenal. The C stand, or century stand has been around since the golden age of filmmaking. The hallmark of the C stand is their sturdy three footed base and their weight. The C stand is considered an industry standard for lighting support and there is no shortage of accessories available for them. This is likely one of the most versatile stands available, but are they worth the weight and trouble?

An Alternative

When you mention a C stand to anyone who is intimately familiar with studio lighting the brand Avenger will undoubtedly come up. The Avenger name is synonymous with C stands and was unchallenged until recently.  Avenger C stands retail for around 200 dollars, but competition has arrived in the form of the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand. Products with the Flashpoint name are made and sold by Adorama, a well-known camera store with a large online presence. Adorama also releases their own version of many Godox studio flashes under the Flashpoint name. You can search here on Epic Shit for reviews we have done featuring Flashpoint strobes and equipment. I consider the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand a good alternative to the higher priced Avenger stands and the Flashpoint version comes in at about half the price, 99 dollars.

Comparison

In my years in the photography industry, I have worked in many studios and came to trust the quality and sturdy nature of the Avenger C stands, so when Adorama introduced the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand I was a bit skeptical that a stand half the price of the beloved Avenger stands could compete. My strobes are not cheap and putting trust into a stand to keep my gear from crashing and burning on the floor is something I don’t take lightly. I ordered a Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand and hoped for the best. The stand arrived quickly from Adorama and my first impression upon opening the box was that this stand is as heavy as the Avenger counterpart and seemed like it would support a small child without breaking a sweat. The Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand weighs as much as an Avenger stand and came standard with many of the grip pieces that need to be purchased separately when investing in an Avenger stand.  The Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand I ordered form Amazon (link above) came with the standard turtle base, and some very useful other goodies. The kit included a 40-inch grip arm, two GOBO heads (the heads that allow you to move the arm around or attach accessories to “go between” your light source and your subject) and even a baby pin. The baby pin is a piece of metal which inserts into the GOBO head and allows you to attach any strobe with a standard base. With this kit, if your strobe will fit on a regular light stand, it will fit on this C stand.

Compatibility

The most common question I get when I tell a fellow photographer about the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand is “will it work with my [insert strobe brand here]”? Part of the accessory kit that comes with the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand includes the Baby pin, which slides into the grip heads and will allow you to attach any standard strobe. I commonly use mine with a Godox S-type bracket and AD200 strobe as well as my Profoto D2, B1 and B10. I know that this stand will work with any standard Elinchrom or Paul C Buff strobe series as well. As long as the strobe will fit on a regular light stand, it will work perfectly well with the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand – except it will be a lot more sturdy.

Using the C Stand

If you have used other straight light stands, you may have noticed that once you get your strobe, and maybe a softbox or octabox on there they can feel a bit “tippy” or unstable. We are all using sandbags on the base of our light stands right? I mean, safety first right? We would not want our lights to fall on our clients. The C stand does not remove the necessity of sandbags for stability, but when you have a whole strobe and modifier rig on one it feels so much more stable than a standard straight light stand. The first thing you will notice about the C stands is that they are HEAVY, especially compared to a regular light stand. If you will use them in your home studio mostly, I recommend investing in the caster set which allows you to easily roll your whole rig all over effortlessly. I use my Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand at home in my studio and on the road. Due to the weight, I never bring it with me on planes but if I am shooting local, I always throw it in the back of the car.  You will be surprised how sturdy the C stand is compared to other light supports. Every photographer I recommend them to never looks back and always ends up getting at least two. Even if you are using the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand as a straight light stand and taking off the grip arm, it will still be significantly more stable than a standard light support.

Tight!

The biggest difference between a standard light stand and a C stand is that the C stand likes to be tightened, I mean really tightened. I can’t tell you how many times I have been able to get my strobe in just the right position by just cranking down on the grip handle. If you don’t have a lot of hand strength this might be a tough item for you to operate, just like if you don’t feel comfortable lifting a heavier-than-it-looks stand with a strobe and modifier attached. Therefore, I suggest practicing with the stand before you take it on a shoot or shoot a client in your home studio.

Negatives

We have fully established that C stands in general are heavy, so that isn’t really a negative, it is more of a point that should be reinforced. The only negatives I have for the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand is that it is only available (as of this writing) in chrome. Many like the look of the black versions of C stands and the Flashpoint model is not available in other colors. The newer Avenger stands also come with an updated design for the turtle base, where one or more of the legs can be lifted to set the stand up on an uneven surface. This (for me) would only be a big benefit for shooting outdoors in rocky terrain or on stairs. These issues are certainly not a deal breaker by any means, but hey – I had to find something to ding them on, right? This stand works as well as any Avenger stand I have used so other than color this is as close as you can get to a perfect but cheaper than an Avenger option.

Do you need one?

The short answer is yes. The cost of the Flashpoint 10′ C (Century) Light Stand is very reasonable given how much you will probably use it. I have turned so many photographers on to C stands, and always love to hear from people who have been converted to the way of the C stand, please drop me a message and let me know about your experience! I would love to hear from you.

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Twitter: @EpicShit9