Meking 9" Mini Softbox

I ordered this a few weeks ago from EBay for just under £9 and a few people asked me to post some details when it turns up, so here goes..

It comes in a small, flat, triangular bag that takes up no space at all and the unit itself seems pretty solid and well put together. The internal velcro straps (see below) are at a rather strange angle, but overall I'm surprised how nicely made it is. When you take it out of the bag it's not quite spring loaded, but a quick poke and it pops open to a roughly square shape, and when it's squashed a couple of times it stays in a pretty stable shape that's as close to a square as I care about.

The flash goes through an elasticated hole at the back, which is nice and snug on the 550EX I tested it with. I think it will be easily snug enough on a smaller headed flash like a 580, but if there is any movement there's two velcro straps you can tighten around the back of the flash head to keep it in position. The insides are a silver reflective material:

To test it out I grabbed a sort of willing volunteer (my Dad) and held the flash up with my left hand, above and to the left of the camera, got it about as close as I could without getting it in frame and triggered it using the onboard on my 60D (set to "external flash only" in the wireless setup).

Firstly, the bare flash shot, held in roughly the same position:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/sjrobbins/71457​36397/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/sjrobbins/69996​49272/

always wondered about that modifier but the light loss from the diffusion panels turned me away from wanting to try it out. I would probably use it with just the front diffusion fabric on. Any sample shots with static subjects with the flash mounted on camera in both horizontal and vertical positions_

c2thew wrote in post #14388669
always wondered about that modifier but the light loss from the diffusion panels turned me away from wanting to try it out. I would probably use it with just the front diffusion fabric on. Any sample shots with static subjects with the flash mounted on camera in both horizontal and vertical positions_

Not sure what you mean by the light loss - any light mod you put on is going to lose light, and if a speedlight has enough "umph" for a large softbox/umbrella from a few metres away it has more than enough for a tiny softbox a couple of feet away.

In the image above the softbox was about 2 feet away and on the lowest power setting it had (1/128).

Thanks for the writeup, SJ!

Got mine yesterday and it works fine with the 580 family of flashes.
Found using the velcro straps to hold it on the flash head helps any small amount of "drooping". But the "drooping" really is negligable.

It's actually quite effective and easier to lug around in it's pouch...even compared to the Alzo small softbox which is designed to work with a flash mounted on a flash bracket setup.

I liked it so much I ordered more flash modifier sets from the Meking ebay site. Seems the stuff is well built. Definitly beats the US companies $wise.
And shipping was much faster via China Post. There is a 7 or 8 piece modifier kit I ordered that I really want to test out. The design seems very "duh...how come no one else thought of this".

What kit is that rang? They have so much stuff on their eBay store it's hard to browse