My New Ring Light – Review and Tips

Whether you’re working from home and doing a lot of video calls, you’re a teacher who has started recording lessons, or both (like me!) you might have recently begun thinking about how to improve your appearance on video. And by “improve”, I mean look less sickly (me again!)

I decided to take the route of many of my favourite influencers and invest in a ring light, and after researching and checking out reviews I settled on the UBeeSize 10.2″ Selfie Ring Light with Tripod Stand and Cell Phone Holder from Amazon. (While prepping this post it was available, unavailable, available and then unavailable – so keep checking if you’re interested!)

After using it a few times I’m ready to share my thoughts!

Features I like:

• The tripod extends from about 17 to 51′, so you can sit it on the floor or on desk/tabletop
• There are three dimmable light settings: white, warm yellow (if you want a bit of a tan) and warm white (my photos so far have all been with the white setting)
• It comes with a universal-sized cellphone holder that attaches to the tripod for when you’re shooting right from your phone, and a second holder you can use for your phone without the light if you just need a tripod
• There’s a handy little Bluetooth remote that works with iOS and Android (we’ve already used it with both)
• It sets up and comes down in just a couple of minutes
• At $59.99 the price seemed very reasonable for my purposes

A couple of notes:

This ring light is very much selfie-size – meant to be close to the subject to light up the face (also good for photographing objects close up, which could be great for a business selling small products). There are lots of bigger ring lights out there if you need something for another purpose – like lighting up more than one person or a large area.

Angle is also really important when shooting – you want the camera to be eye level. I’ve used cases of pop and photocopy paper boxes (teachers, you know what I mean) to prop up my laptop when doing TV segments or video conferences.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions and please let me know if you have other ring light tips to share!