Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsFor beginners, close up lighting, or accent effects
Reviewed in Canada on July 24, 2023
I have two professional 60W LED video/photography light systems including sturdy (bulky) pneumatic stands. Sometimes for quick sessions of experimenting or small products to shoot they are overkill in terms of the amount of time and space to set them up. This small kit is turning out to be handy for "playing around" with arranging basic additional light when I'm shooting indoors using the abundance of natural light that comes into the room.
These would be a stretch to count on to be the key light for a face or a person at a desk unless you could get the lights REALLY close and still not interfere with the camera or the person's tolerance for a light close as these would need to be. For those scene these lights might be useful for subtle lighting to touch up a dim area, knock down a problematic small shadow, or to be a faint back light.
They were always at full brightness when I used them so far. You can see in the photos how close they are to the subject and that's the resulting image. The middle mode is closest to typical studio lighting temperature. The high temperature "Cool" light mode looks brighter to the eye but at the expense of the pale blue that comes with that temperature, as described in the product literature.
For close product photography I find them handy because they are so light weight. I even used one off the stand, laid flat on the top of a white fabric soft box.
Power Switch NOTE:
One thing you might encounter that is not a fault but a feature I guess - - - - When you first plug the cable's USB plug into a live USB power adapter (included), the power button on the control will glow blue BUT it goes out in 10 seconds if you don't actually press the button to turn on the light. If that happens, then you can press it all you want and nothing comes on. That was confusing; I thought I had a dud.
I had to unplug the USB cable from the adapter, plug it back in and start over by pressing the power button within that 10 second window. Then you can play with the settings and even turn off the lights and the blue light will glow to keep the light at the ready for as long as you want even if the lights are turned off indefinitely. The length of the cables is generous so you can get one of the lights to the far end of a dinner table for example with lots of slack still in the cable.
The real weak spot in this kit is the legs of the stands. They hold up the lights OK but be gentle with them. Don't push down on the stands or the legs will splay out and the stand will drop a bit like something is slipping. If you tried to force it back you might even find the whole column is no longer perfectly vertical. The leg section is quite soft and flexible.
The threaded spigots (the silver plug that the base of the light screws into) is riveted into the black metal tubing. Among other shortcomings since that is not standard on more expensive equipment, you'll have an awkward time threading the base of the light into that unless you keep the top section of the stand unclamped. Then you can twirl that top section along with its spigot in one hand to spin it into the base of the light unit held in your other hand.