Using the right lighting may make the difference between an amazing shot and a terrible one. Your work will stand out from that of your contemporaries and put you on the road to producing images with a professional-looking appearance if you can learn how to use it to your advantage and get the greatest outcome out of your setup. This blog will show you how to select a perfect camera light for video in 3 parts:
- What’s the use of the camera mounted led light?
- Panel light or ring light, what’s the difference, and which is better?
- What makes the best on camera video lights?
What’s the use of the camera mounted led light?
Camera lights can be simply divided into three types according to usage and requirements, including key light, fill light, and backlight. It can be used for photography or videography, illuminating objects in a low light situation so that the image can be bright and clear for you to see the details. Or it can give you colorful and creative effects to generate a sense of special atmosphere for artistic effect. A best on camera light for dslr video, or phone and camcorder, can be said to be the essential need of every videographer whether professional or amateur since the picture rendering effect is very dependent on it. We can take it for vlogging, filming, video shooting, live streaming, and so on.
Panel light or ring light, what’s the difference, and which is better?
The biggest difference between a panel and a ring type is the shape, but that matters a lot. They both perform well with natural light in a mixed set, being compatible with both indoor and outdoor photography, and include controls to adjust the color temperature. The former is more appropriate for general illumination needs. Camera and lighting for youtube videos of panel design has the widest selection of modifiers. While the latter is more suitable for close-shot needs such as macro video making, and other close-up portrait and beauty photos and films.
Just because ring light can illuminate soft, clean, and beautiful face lines, now many YouTubers and TikTok influencers choose it as their first choice. If you are a video producer and your type of video is needed to often speak in front of the camera, then I recommend a ring light teleprompter combination, which is a clever setup. The teleprompter can make your shooting a lot more natural, avoiding outtakes and pauses caused by nervousness or something else so that the shooting process will be more efficient and smooth.
What makes the best on camera light for video?
What is considered when choosing a camera light: Materials and structure
Using a hot shoe mount or other suitable gear, photographers will mount the LED video light on the camera’s top. Therefore, the structure and material of it appear to be important, which determines whether it is compact, convenient for shots on the go, and whether it will put a lot of burden on the shooting devices and arm. Because filmmaking is a process rather than a moment, for those handheld camera photographers, how long the video is shot means how long to hold the camera or phone in their hand. So the camera and the other things attached to the setup are of course the lighter the better.
Now on the market, many are made of aluminum alloy, having lightweight and durable construction. For example, Moman ML3-D LED on camera light for video , measures 115mm*71mm*10mm as pocket-size, weighing only 147g. and an iPhone 13 mini (132 x 64 x 7.65 mm, 141g) is about the same. However, it is flatly equipped with 96 pieces of LED beads and designed to have an OLED screen for real-time display on it, being mini but mighty.
What is a good camera light for video shooting: High output and versatile performance
Who can resist a versatile and practical helper? An ideal continuous light should have enough max lumen output to provide powerful performace to cope with dim situations in video shooting. Also should have different levels of lumen output settings to adapt to various ambient light as well as pictures’ specific needs. Many LED lights have adjustable brightness from 0% to 100% thanks to their little beads, so that users can rigorously and precisely control the light they want. Take Moman video light for camera ML9-RGB for example, it features 150 beads and a max output of 12W, which supports it to be powerful and dimmable for different demands. When you turn it to the brightest, it can instantly illuminate a whole small studio room. It also has a controllable color temperature in the range of 2500K-8500K and a color rendering index of 96+, which can greatly enrich the color of the picture. As mentioned above, no matter adjustable brightness, color temp, and CRI, all are key factors to be taken into consideration.
What kind of battery does a video camera led light need: Inbuild battery and charging options
Along with the strong features and high-lumen performance, correspondingly a high-quality one will also come with a high-capacity built-in battery. Generally speaking, now major kinds have an inbuilt rechargeable li-ion battery, which is of high density and resulted in a small compact size. It has good stability and supports high-drain brightness output. If you have no concept of these, then, for example, Moman’s camera light for video which has a 3200mAH cell can support more than 2 hours at the highest lumens, while maintaining 24 hours of continuous operation at the lowest brightness, which is more than enough for most photographers' work. In addition, the charging method is also very decisive. Nowadays, the market is common to have USB, Type-C, and lightning these kinds of options for camera light for youtube videos. Type-C ports will usually make charging faster, providing stable and efficient output current.
