Light for video: top 5 LED lamps | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Pho­to: thefilmlook.com

An addi­tion­al light source is an impor­tant part of shoot­ing any video. It’s not always pos­si­ble to cap­ture per­fect light­ing, espe­cial­ly when record­ing video out­doors. And some­times you want to diver­si­fy the pic­ture and use unusu­al light­ing styles.

In such cas­es, con­stant on-cam­era light comes to the res­cue. A good video light works almost like a pho­to stu­dio light, allow­ing you to light up the entire scene and even add light­ing effects.

Today we will talk about five on-cam­era LED lamps that you can take with you to film­ing a video or use in the stu­dio.

ring lamp

Pho­to: lightingrumors.com The ring is locat­ed direct­ly on the lens, but does not dis­tort the image that falls on the matrix.

Video blog­gers know and love ring lamps. They are almost always equipped with a dif­fuser, so you can imme­di­ate­ly cross off a few tasks from the list: pro­vide soft shad­ows in the video with­out sharp tran­si­tions, give a neat light to the face of the per­son in the frame and get beau­ti­ful reflec­tions in the eyes.

But you also need to set such a light wise­ly — right in front of the mod­el or pre­sen­ter, and this is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for video tuto­ri­als on apply­ing make­up. The ring should be at face lev­el to give prop­er light­ing. You can’t put it too far either — the light will scat­ter. With on-cam­era light, this prob­lem is solved auto­mat­i­cal­ly.

If you choose a light with adjustable tem­per­a­ture, then make sure that the tone is cho­sen cor­rect­ly. Take a few test shots before mov­ing on to the main one.

Among the exam­ples of such lamps is the Godox Ring 48, which is mount­ed direct­ly on the lens and con­nect­ed to the cam­era via a hot shoe.

RGB illuminator

Pho­to: godox.com.tr The side mount allows you to put the lamp on a tri­pod and bend it to any angle.

Depend­ing on the genre of your videos, you should choose your lamps wise­ly. For exam­ple, if you are plan­ning to exper­i­ment with gen­res and styles, and maybe even with col­ors, then an RGB lamp is ide­al for you.

Typ­i­cal­ly, such illu­mi­na­tors are pow­ered from the mains and oper­ate autonomous­ly, and if there is a mount, they can be used direct­ly on the cam­era and syn­chro­nized with the shut­ter.

RGB in the name means that the lamp can change col­ors. Whether you need blue, yel­low, pur­ple or red light, she can pro­vide it. Usu­al­ly such devices have a col­or wheel or a switch. Some are con­trolled by smart­phone.

The Godox RGB Mini M1 lamp allows you to not only change col­or, but also choose from 40 pre­sets for dif­fer­ent scenes and types of shoot­ing. The device has an inter­est­ing func­tion — col­or music: the lamp changes shades, react­ing to the vol­ume and rhythm of the music.

The lamp can be mount­ed on the hot shoe of the cam­era. It is light­weight, with 13W diodes and a col­or tem­per­a­ture of 2500–8500K.

LED lamp with reflectors

Pho­to: bhphotovideo.com Such lamps are com­mon not only as on-cam­era lamps, but also in stu­dios.

Reflec­tors nev­er harm the process. On the con­trary, they can cre­ate neat shad­ows, empha­size skin tone (depend­ing on their shade). Since the reflec­tors are locat­ed on the cur­tains and open like petals, they can be con­ve­nient­ly direct­ed, chang­ing the light com­po­si­tion.

This light is placed direct­ly on the cam­era or on the brack­et, and its com­pact size allows you to take it with you on loca­tion shoot­ing. It is suit­able for both pho­tog­ra­phy and video shoot­ing, because the light is con­stant, which means it should not respond to the shut­ter.

One such illu­mi­na­tor is the Yongn­uo NT-320. It has 320 diodes with a pow­er of 20 W and a col­or tem­per­a­ture of 5000 K. There are col­or fil­ters includ­ed.

The lamp is pow­ered by a recharge­able bat­tery, which is not includ­ed. But it is designed for out­door shoot­ing, and there­fore there is an SOS mode in case of unfore­seen sit­u­a­tions. By acti­vat­ing it, you can send a dis­tress sig­nal.

Compact illuminators

Pho­to: regmarkets.ru Dif­fuser built into this small lamp allows you to get soft light­ing.

Some­times on the set it is not pos­si­ble or nec­es­sary to use a large lamp or even an on-cam­era illu­mi­na­tor. In this case, you can pick up a com­pact lamp, which is no larg­er than a stan­dard flash.

Even on a small case there is a place for con­trol but­tons and a mode switch. Yes, such devices also have modes, so you can choose the appro­pri­ate light for any occa­sion. The bright­ness can also be adjust­ed.

The Ray­lab illu­mi­na­tor con­sists of 60 LEDs, which explains the com­pact size of the device and its weight of 100 g. It also has a col­or tem­per­a­ture of 2500 to 9000 K, which is more than most stan­dard lamps. Every­thing you need, includ­ing a charg­ing cable, is includ­ed, because to use Ray­lab you only need to charge it and put it on the cam­era through the shoe.

Com­pared to the clas­sic exter­nal flash, Ray­lab also looks styl­ish and mod­ern. So for any vlog­ger, this is a great choice.

Spotlights

Pho­to: lightingrumors.com Sof­fits cre­ate addi­tion­al effects when shoot­ing, their light is sat­u­rat­ed and enrich­es the whole scene.

Some lights of this type are not mount­ed direct­ly on the cam­era, but can be mount­ed on a tri­pod or sim­ply placed on a table. Such lamps can be used for any shoot­ing at home — from a sub­ject video to a vlog.

Godox CL10 is anoth­er light from Godox that looks like a full-fledged stu­dio lamp. The light reflects off the met­al sur­face and spreads soft­ly, fill­ing the pic­ture in the frame.

Godox has a choice of 36,000 col­or options and 15 modes. Among them there are col­or music, effects of light­ning, laser, flash, TV, can­dles, flames and oth­ers.

The lamp can be con­trolled from a mobile phone using a spe­cial appli­ca­tion or via the remote con­trol that is includ­ed.

The Godox lamp has only 30 10W LEDs, but it pro­duces a bright enough light that looks per­fect when shoot­ing streams and oth­er types of video.

Don’t for­get that at home or in the stu­dio you can com­bine dif­fer­ent light sources and set it up just like you can with a light­ing kit. Despite their small size, each of these lamps gives a pow­er­ful and rich light, and a com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent col­ors can give addi­tion­al unusu­al effects.