Good beginner light for selfies, videos or photos!

This kind of thing is a must-have for any beginner social media person. Whether it’s a new and low-budget youtuber, or someone looking to take better selfies, this is definitely a step above my previous cheap ring light. I’ll be honest, I don’t really use it with my phone in the clamp to take video, but I tried it out that way a bit and it works fine for taking videos. I actually prefer to use it to take my product photos, and for that the ‘arms’ are a little long, but the flexibility works great.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you can just point this and have a great selfie, video, or picture. Lighting is a pain in the butt, one of the harder things to learn about photography or filming and I still struggle with it daily. Experiment with angles, take a snap or test video. Eventually you will learn which angles fit with you and your setup.

This light does everything I can expect from it and quality-wise, doesn’t feel overly cheap or like it will break quickly. The only thing I really don’t love about it is that I find that the light gets very hot, very quick. If you’re filming makeup, for example, you might find it makes you too hot, but the same can be said for any bright lights, in my experience.

I do think this light is bright enough without being so bad that it washes you out. It has three settings, warm, cool and a mix. I find the mix is all I used, I never really want an overly cool or warm light, but if your other lights or area is particularly leaning one way, you can use the other lights to bring it back to more neutral. It also has many levels of brightness, but given the level of flexibility, I find I always use the brightest and just move it further away or closer depending on my needs.

It’s not a professional setup, but for beginners learning to use this for their photography or videos will give them more of an edge. It does all that it promises, is decent quality and works well. I do find the clamp a little loose and worry about it over time, for that reason I took off a star. I feel the current price of $30 is a tad high, but I’d go for it at $20!