Equipment Review: LED Light Panels

Lighting is one upgrade that will make a huge difference to your video quality.

After purchasing something that holds your camera, lighting is the next piece of equipment that virtual teachers should consider adding to their kit.

Many of us have adequate room lighting built into our rooms or ambient daylight coming through windows that works well... as long as we aren't reliant on good weather and always teaching at the same time of day.

These Releno LED light panels ($60USD on Amazon) fill a number of critical requirements for online teaching, and I've moved from using umbrella floor stand fluorescent lighting to these for almost every purpose.

Pros:

Bright: two of these 11" x 7" panels are more than enough for any filming I've done in the past year.
Dimmable: often I only need a touch of fill light to get rid of directional shadows.
Diffuse: they are covered with an opaque plastic panel.
Color Temperature: can be changed from warm to cool.
Battery powered: this model comes with a built-in rechargeable battery instead of needing to purchase an external battery pack and each charge lasts more than 2 hours at a full brightness.
Plug in power: since I'm always at home I leave my light panels plugged in all the time, no worries about running out of a charge in the middle of a shoot.
Durable: always treat your equipment carefully of course, but these don't break when you drop them. I won't tell you the embarrassing number of times I've tripped over a floor stand and knocked over an expensive fluorescent - which tend to shatter in a million pieces on a studio floor.
SPACE!!!!!: the panels are small and efficient and I'm not continually ducking my head to get around them. I can mount them (with adapters - see below) to anything instead of using floor space for stands.

Cons:

I consider the cons absolutely negligible compared to the pros for these light panels.

You need to buy something to mount them on: You can attach them to anything with a standard 1/4" screw mount. If you already have floor stands for your lights those will do. My current setup includes one panel attached to a bookshelf so it can swivel to light my worktable or my couch, or my wall background that I use for casual head-to-camera shots. The second light is clamped to the same pole as my overhead camera. No floor space needed!

I am in love with this UTEBIT C Clamp that will allow me to attach my light panels to almost anything. It runs about $22 USD on amazon. It can hold multiple pieces of equipment in multiple configurations and is super sturdy.

Conclusion?

These light panels get a no-reservations GO FOR IT recommendation from the AVT. There are cheaper options which do a fantastic job, but if you are going for something that will make a huge improvement in your video quality and will last you for the long term, the Releno LED light panels are highly recommended.

[As always, the AVT receives a small kickback from our affiliate links and all commissions go straight to funding the Virtual Teaching Masterclass scholarship.]

Categories: Equipment Review