Cowboy Studio

[BlairWright]

Cowboy Studio is a good lesson in YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR....

 

[MalteseDad]

Cowboy Studios are a scam. I was so stupid to fall for the cheap price. Avoid like the plague. I never knew that American companies are allowed to operate such a rogue business model.
I have been ordering online for so long without ever encountering rogue traders that I did not feel I needed to do an FBI search before ordering from this online store.
I placed an order for an item that only they were carrying. I noticed that upon checkout, the picture of the item was for a different model to the one I ordered. Went back, and that was it, they had a mistake in the picture.
I sent them an email and they confirmed that they would ship me the model I ordered, not the one shown in the picture. Guess what, in spite of noticing of their mistake, and double checking and they confirming, they sent the wrong model! Unbelievable.
So through email exchanges give me an RMA and I sent it back. I needed this item quickly as I was about to travel and needed it for my travels, so I ordered another one, with expedited delivery, now that I was so close to travelling.
For some reason, they held onto my order so that it did not arrive for some 3 weeks, when I had come back from my holidays! Not only that, they want to charge me 20% re-stocking fee for their mistake!
Given the series of events, there is no way this was a mistake on their part. I now firmly believe that they do this to make money from unsuspecting customers. They made another 20% profit simply by purposely sending me the wrong item. Plus I had to pay for expensive to and return shipping through no fault of my own.
Spare yourself the trouble. Don’t fall for their cheap prices like I did..

 

[Village Idiot]

I try and warn people...

 

[fjrabon]

eh, I've only ever used their triggers and some stands and umbrellas. Of course they're not lastolite or pocket wizard, but for what I was expecting I was satisfied.

Of course crazy insane bargains don't really exist in photography. You're going to be making some compromises at that price point. But I'd rather be able to have multiple backups of my radio triggers, than only being able to afford three pocketwizard branded triggers and being totally screwed if one fails on a shoot. With the CS studio triggers, I can afford 8 or so, and no that no matter how terribly things go, I've got multiple backup units.

I use PW branded triggers every day at work, and of course they're better, but they do fail from time to time. For my personal gear, I can't afford backup PW branded triggers, but I also can't afford them to fail and not have backups. Thus CS. they've served me well, I can't complain, given what I paid for them.

edit: also, many of the posts in this thread were from 2-3 years ago, when CS was really bad quality control wise. Now they're just sort of bad with quality control.

 

[12sndsgood]

Has anyone ever used this site? If so is it any good?

www.cowboystudio.com

Try this site... Cowboy Studio Reviews

I'm a little disappointed that no one has YET to offer an alternative. The original question was is this company any good... and everyone has just either posted their opinion about cheap equipment, or shared their experience... which is great, don't get me wrong... but with everything said, you're just leaving it up to anyone reading this thread to decide whether or not to go with Cowboy Studio.
At this point, as a semi-pro photographer, I'm still not convinced that I'd be making a mistake going with them. I'm looking for simple, inexpensive backdrop & lighting equipment to use occasionally for newborns, children, and boudoir sessions. So far they offer the most complete kits i've found, at a great price... i'm not paying $1500 for equipment when i'm only a part-time photographer.

Any alternative companies you'd recommend? With good experiences - not just opinions, please?

You'd be making a mistake. I bought two light stands from them. first one broke the second time i used them. there both flimsy and are basically junk. I have no one to blame but myself. wanted to save some cash. i know better but i still did it. So i went out and bought some decent stuff instead. If your running a business you don't want simple and inexpensive. you want quality gear you can rely on. would your rather buy a $50 stand and replace it every 6 months when it breaks, or would your rather spend $100 and never have to replace it again? try Square perfect. there on amazon. I have there backdrop setup. was fairly inexpensive and 10x better then The cactus junk. try Paul C. Buff, not super expensive but still good stuff.

 

[jamesbjenkins]

In my experience, Cowboy Studio products are pure garbage. They have poor quality control, no durability and they're guaranteed to fail at the worst possible moment.

Avoid them if at all possible.

 

[scorpion_tyr]

I have ordered from this company several times and have always had good results. No, their equipment is not top quality, but it is very cheap. For the price of one "professional" light anywhere else I was able to get a whole beginners studio set up. Their camera accessories are pretty good. I just outfitted all of my lenses with lens hoods from there and they are good quality. Not the thin plastic ones that break the first day like they sell on amazon for $2. Their customer service has always been great too. I assure you they are a legit company.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Some of us elect not to roll the dice on reliability. When I'm an hour away shooting a couple with their new BMW at the beach and with their makeup artist, hair artist, my assistant, my monolights gear unloaded and set up, etc the last thing I can afford is "d*mn triggers are acting up".

Second best won't suffice for what I do so i had to take the plunge on decent triggers

 

[Mike_E]

The first rule of buying photo equipment is to know what you want to buy before you buy it. Research, research, research.

Don't click on a price, click on an item.

I've bought a couple of things from CS with no trouble but I was able to choose which ones by recognizing them from the photo. (if they substitute that's on them and you'll have to deal with them)

As it turns out there is a company in China that produces monolights for re-branding called Mettle. Mettle makes some of the Flashpoints from Adorama, some of the Interfits from B&H, some of the Square Perfects and sometimes they even sell under their own name. To find out which is which you have to do your own leg (Google) work.

I also bought a boom stand from CS, the one with the metal counterweight. It wasn't the cheapest one but one that I had seen else where that had gotten good reviews and was still less expensive at CS.

Planning ahead will save you a lot of cash and a lot of grief

 

[WhiteBison]

I try and warn people...

Lots of negative comments about CowboyStudio online. So I was a little scared ordering anything. However, just received my Tripod Dolly...no problems at all. Delivered in a timely manner and a price that is unbeatable.