Way better than expected, sturdy build, folds up fairly small - great stand & great deal

Not strong enough to put a beauty dish on with any kind of angle.

It is a good boom arm, but could be a little more sturdy.

This stand and boom kit is far better than some of the reviews indicate, if you compensate for the kit's main flaw: a weak boom clamp.

I use this kit for paramount (a.k.a. clamshell) lighting setups in photography (see photo), for hair lights in videos and to hold a shotgun mic over a subject's head - all applications where I want the stand to stay out of the field of view of the shot. About 90% of my shoots are on location, so this kit's relatively light weight is a huge plus for me.

This stand and boom combo is sturdy, but it will never be as sturdy / strong as the big, heavy Avenger or Matthews stands. That's no problem; I'm happy to trade a bit of strength for a whole lot of weight savings, i.e. ease of transport, for my uses of this kit.

The flaw in this kit is the boom clamp that comes with; it's weak. The press nut that holds the clamp's thumbscrew pops out easily, rendering the clamp nearly useless. Even if the press nut stays in place the provided clamp doesn't seem very strong. The easy solution is to substitute a better boom clamp; I used the SUPON Dual Head Grip Swivel Head Holder Bracket for Studio flash Reflector Boom (see photo); it works great and only costs a few bucks. Another option is the Neewer Photography Dual Swiveling Grip Head Angle Pivot Clamp Connector for Boom and Reflector Arm - though I haven't tried it (it looks to be virtually the same product as the Supon clamp). I originally put a layer of black duct tape (shown in the photo) on the boom arm to keep the arm from twisting, but that may not be necessary with either of the boom clamps I just mentioned.

With a good boom clamp this kit holds my flashes and modifiers very steady, at whatever angle I want. Now I have a great, lightweight stand and boom kit that does virtually the same job as my old Avenger stand and boom, at a tiny fraction of the weight and at a fraction of the cost.

Great Product. I use this primarily indoors in my home studio (living room). IMO this is a very well built product. It's very sturdy and durable, though, like I said, I've only used it indoors. Having said that, I would not mind attempting to use this outdoors as well. The base has a sizable diameter (not sure the exact measurement) and the weight bag helps TREMENDOUSLY. Although, WEIGHTS/SANDBAGS DO NOT COME WITH THIS PRODUCT. You will have to purchase weights to place in the bags or DIY. I had a couple of ankle weights in which I could take out the weight bags (each weigh about 2 lbs.). So, I just took the sandbags from the ankle weights and placed them in the weight bag for the boom stand. I've used this with a 32" x 32" softbox, which is fairly big and weighty, and it fairs just fine on this boom stand. Would recommend to anyone and fellow studio photographers.