Lighting Softbox for home portraits and product photography - advice needed

[almalino]

Dear experts!

I'm a newcommer to proper lighting for portret and product fotography. I'm thinking of setting up inexpensive but efficient lighting setup at home.

I found this softbox at eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/4x36W-PHOTOGRAPHY-Stud...34.c0.m14.l1262

It is cheap ~80$, has 700wats equvalent output and CRI of supplied bulbs is good ~90.

Questions:
Do you think is a good enough softbox for portraits and product fotography at home for begginers?
How many of those I need to have a proper lighting for portraits?
What could be the biggest disadvantages of this softbox?
Do you have any other sugeestions?

Thank you in advance for your opinions!
Alexei

[TPF Sponsor]

[SpeedTrap]

This will work for a beginner, but you will outgrow it very quickly.
You would be better off investing in a small strobe.
Even a speed light would outpower that light.

[almalino]

This will work for a beginner, but you will outgrow it very quickly.
You would be better off investing in a small strobe.
Even a speed light would outpower that light.

Thank you for good opinion! Actually, I have not investigated the market of speedlights yet. I will check them out. I feel that speedlights might be a better option for me since my appartment is small and keepeng several softboxes here would be difficult.

[thenikonguy]

This will work for a beginner, but you will outgrow it very quickly.
You would be better off investing in a small strobe.
Even a speed light would outpower that light.

Thank you for good opinion! Actually, I have not investigated the market of speedlights yet. I will check them out. I feel that speedlights might be a better option for me since my appartment is small and keepeng several softboxes here would be difficult.

I highly recommend you check out strobist.com especially the Lighting 101 section.. as it is dedicated to speedlights, and how you can use them better..