Review: Light up your WHF or streaming setup with the Elgato Ring Light [Video]

Continuing in its quest to offer high-quality solutions for streamers and content creators, Elgato has bolstered its lighting offerings with its take on the popular ring light. With variable color temperature and a soft, bright flicker-free light, the Elgato Ring Light is ready for streams, video calls, and any other situation where you need constant high-quality light. Head below to watch the video and see it in action.

Out of the Box

Getting the Elgato Ring Light out of the box, the brand has included everything needed to get up and running. Start with the stand and adjustable pole, which features a padded clamp to attach to a desk. The sturdy metal support pole can extend from 17 to 29 inches.

Then, we have the ring light itself. It screws on to the pole with a ¼/20 thread on top of a tilting mount with a nice secure connection that’s also easy to remove if it’s in the way. Within the ring light, you can mount the ball mount for more control over your camera. Just keep in mind that the maximum weight on here is 450g, so you can’t go too crazy with massive DSLRs with huge lenses.

Controls

Once the ring light is mounted, plug in the power adapter and you can flip the switch to on. Settings can be manually adjusted from the light itself, or by using an app. On the physical light, there are two buttons on either side of the camera mount.

These physical buttons can control the brightness of the Ring Light in 10% increments but can also enter a color temperature mode where the temp can be dialed in for your shooting conditions.

Elgato Ring Light: Video

ElgatoRing Light: Elgato Control Center

Once connected to a Wi-Fi network, the Elgato Ring Light gets even easier to use. The Elgato Control Center app on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS and offers quick control over brightness and the variable color temperature.

Turning the Ring Light on and off is also easy within the app. So, it can remain plugged in and then turned on from either a computer, mobile device, or manually when you’re ready to shoot.

Elgato Ring Light: Lighting

Turned all the way up, the Elgato Ring Light is plenty bright. Up to 2,500 lumens should be plenty for most situations. When I used it in my testing, I usually had it in one of the first three settings, but most of my usage was set up behind my monitor at night. If you are using it in a brightly lit space, there is plenty of room here to crank it up and make sure your face is properly exposed.

And of course, the Elgato Ring Light gives that iconic catch light in your eyes to bring a little more life to them.

In addition to soft, bright light, the Elgato Ring Light is also flicker-free. Some LED lights that aren’t really made for video can cause a flickering that doesn’t look great, but the Elgato Ring Light is designed so this isn’t an issue.

LEDs are located near the center of the ring and then reflected off of an aluminum backing, through a translucent grad panel and then opal glass. This breaks up and blends the light beams to avoid flicker. Even when setting my shutter speed to 1/2000, there was no flicker to be seen.

I also had a lot of fun playing around with the Elgato Ring Light in other B-roll and product photography setups. When a lot of your product shots end up looking the same, a ring light can add an interesting dimension to bring some creativity to stale shots.

Wrapping Up

Elgato continues to deliver high-quality products for streamers and content creators. The line-up of capture cards, microphones, and lights make going live easier and look better. They already have other light options, but the Ring Light has quickly become a popular form factor for video creation, and the Elgato Ring Light is a great option.

At $199, it’s quite a bit more than the popular $75 Neewer Ring Light, but with app control, precise color control without using filters, and a high-quality build, it’s great for those looking for a feature-rich ring light.

If you’re looking for more lighting ideas, check out the budget setup I use in my studio.

Buy Elgato Ring Light

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