RaLeno LED video light, PLV-S192, black

I grabbed this light because I had a last-minute shoot on the weekend, and Amazon got it to me next day. And I'm in love. This thing is tremendous. I occasionally do video, and got called in to do an interview at a busy convention. I can't begin to describe how this little/big LED light made that job (and hauling gear) so much better. Frankly, I think this light is fantastic for the price. It's a good size, about the size of a sheet of paper, it's very light, it has a built-in battery that runs it for a couple of hours, and the color rendering is great. They claim 95 or 97 CRI; in my video work I usually aim for at least 95. I gotta say that this light had me grinning ear to ear. I'm old school, in my days tungsten fresnels were what we used, and an HMI if you had a budget. By the time I left video, fluorescents were just catching on, and I had some Lowel CaseLites with Kino Flo tubes in them for daylight. Those **** things weigh about 40 pounds or so, and they're huge and they need heavy duty stands and sandbags and power cords and the last time I used them on a fully extended stand, I had to rig them to the ceiling with ratchet straps to ensure that they couldn't fall and seriously injure someone. So much time spent rigging, so much weight to carry, so much hassle finding available outlets and running cords and worrying about people tripping over them... Fast forward to today. I had to do an interview at a crowded convention, and I wanted a three-light setup without any of the horsecrap that all my lighting kit would cause. So I grabbed one of these and a smaller one from another brand and I cannot begin to express my joy with these. 1. This thing is big, but also feather light. I put this on the camera(!) I mounted it on the camera's handle with a Noga arm, and extended it all the way out to the right, so it would serve as an off-axis key light, and it was effortless. No light stand. No sandbags. No power cords. No tripping risk. Absolutely 10,000 times better than any other light technology. 2. The light is good. It's a glowing panel. No hotspots, no reflections, no nothing, just a nice flat evenly glowing panel. Great for a softlight key if you're close to the subject; for a shoulders-up interview with the camera about 2 feet away, it was perfect. This light is about the size of a sheet of paper. 3. They're dimmable. No color shift that I could tell, just a throttle control that lets you pick the exact light output you want. What more could you want? Dimming an old tungsten would require having to actually bring a separate dimmer and plug it in; with these there's a dial on the back and it's easy as pie. 4. They are variable color. Made of 3200 and 5600 LEDs, you can dial between the two and stop anywhere you want. Use it as a 5600 but dim it down a little and it'll warm up the light and make for warmer/glowing skin tones. Use it under tungsten lighting, or in daylight, or mixed, whatever, it's just a twist of the dial away. 5. It's got a battery! That is so obscenely convenient I can't even. I can't even. No power supply, no power cords, no tripping circuit breakers, no cords on the floor for people to trip on, nothing. Just stick it on the camera or on a small stand and turn it on, and it'll run for a couple of hours. If you need it to stay on longer, or need to recharge the battery, it has a DC power supply for that so you don't have to rely on the battery. 6. The light is good. I white balanced off it and my professional video camera said it was about 5680K and the white card I was using was perfectly white, no green or purple tint like you'll find on lousy lights. I used this bigger light on-camera on a Noga arm, holding it out to the side so it served as a nicely angled key light, and the overhead lights served as fill, and I used a similar but littler light for a hairlight/backlight. Three point lighting with no power cords, no power supplies, no gaffer, no rigging, just an on-camera LED panel, ambient fill, and one little hairlight on a featherweight stand. It was heaven for a shooter, and frankly the footage I got is really very, very good. Best looking footage I've gotten at a convention, and I was doing it all as a one-man-band. Will it break? Probably. It cost me $47. 5 years ago I'd probably have paid $500 for this thing, if anything like it even existed. Don't drop it. Don't mistreat it, treat it like it's fragile (because hey, tungsten bulbs and fluorescent tubes are really fragile too, so get used to being gentle with your lighting equipment) and maybe it'll last. Maybe it won't. But if it does die on me, I'll absolutely get another. Might stock up on them during Prime Days if they go on sale.

It performs exactly as advertised. Great product.

Really good light! It’s bright, easy to use, and worked great for filming. I also took it with me while traveling, and it was convenient to bring along. Definitely recommend!

I purchased this as a fill light for an art stream project. I mounted it to a desk-top clamping spring arm with a 1/4" mounting bolt that allows me to put this small (but powerful), light-weight light where I need it and with it's color temperature and brightness controls, it fills this role perfectly. It's certainly bright enough to be used as a key light too! The light has no visible hot spots, providing a well diffused light. I noticed very few hot spots in my preview picture unlike the lights I'm currently using as my key lights. This was a pleasant surprise. Also surprising was how much better my video looked just with this light's addition to my scene. The camera I'm currently using is a good quality web cam, but still a web cam (having its own issues just by its nature) but the video looked really crisp and clear, which was a huge difference when I was only using my key lights. This light comes in an an incredible price point with performance and output that is undeniably good. I haven't had the time with this light to really put it through it's paces, but already I really like it and have plans to purchase more or these lights, and more from Raleno!

These are great lights. I would buy them again if I needed to. Just be careful with the screw underneath, don’t mount these lights vertically or putting any pressure on that screw it will break because of the plastic.