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Introduction |
***PLEASE READ: this guide is not meant to cover all possibilities for photo lighting, or even about setting up quality panel lights made by companies like Meiki, SmallRig, or Genaray. UNLESS you get a good deal on surplus lights, odds are you will pay ~$50-60 for these; ~$120 for 2, plus light stands (~$39+). You can sometimes get them for less if the power adapter is not included and have one and you have one, but if this is required you will pay as much as a good name brand. This is meant to be a better alternative to low-voltage 5V LED panels which are often ineffective and useless due to the limited voltage and lumen limits (5V panel at ~700-1,000 lumens; 4 needed to compensate a lot of the time). In orderWith these cheap panels you are buying 4 junk panels for these to be effective you need 4, which can cost as much asthe price of 2 large panelsgood ones.*** | | ***In short: unless you get a very, very good deal on surplus lights used from a clearing house or photo/video studio on a site like eBay or Craigslist, you will need to spend ~$120be spending a lot more for a pair of good LED panels plus the cost of stands (~$39)lighting. Unless you can justify this, the cost can be high for occasional use. ***As a result of the high-cost issue being a deal breakerissues for 2 good ones (in addition to cheap Amazon/eBay LEDor 4 junk panels being too dim to be effective), this guide uses a different tradeoff: Instead of using ineffective LED panels, a pair of high-quality (preferably >90+ CRI) LED bulbs can also be used. This is still far from perfect but works significantly better.*** | | ***REMEMBER: The main rule to remember is these will NEVER outperform quality studio lights or even off-brand budget studio lights that run at 12V or more. In addition to this,These lights spread light much better and thesetend to hover at 95+ CRI but are priced accordingly due to the binning required for 95+ CRI; even cheap panels from companies like Meike (w/o power supply) are 95CRI orbetter.*** The and spread light more effectively. However, these have theadvantage of the >90+ CRI LED tradeoff being CHEAP whichis while the light spread will still be subpar, often not true for studio lights.the I am not worried about this due to mytarget audience will not notice, or asthe cost CRI tradeofffar outweighs the bad and terrible options due to how much cheaper this setup other downsides of cheap lighting from 5V panels whichis. always worse Even super cheap panel LEDs from a company like Meike will outperform a pair of household LED bulbs.*** |
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