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Oct 30, 2024

How to Buy the Best Ring Light | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Melanie Pinola Melanie Pinola is a writer focused on home-office gear. To find the best paper shredder, she has shredded enough junk mail to fill several bathtubs. We’ll be testing more ring lights

By Melanie Pinola

Melanie Pinola is a writer focused on home-office gear. To find the best paper shredder, she has shredded enough junk mail to fill several bathtubs.

We’ll be testing more ring lights soon with the goal of recommending specific picks. In the meantime, the current guide remains a reliable resource for finding great lighting options.

If you’re a streamer, a vlogger, or someone who’s on video calls a lot for work, good lighting is essential.

Without it, you can look grainy, out of focus, or even shadowy—like an anonymous witness in a true-crime show. A ring light is a simple tool whose diffuse glow can bring you out of the dark and make you look more professional.

A 12- to 16-inch model is bright enough for use while sitting at a desk or standing.

The closer to 100 the Color Rendering Index (CRI) is, the better. Colors will be more precise.

Models with multiple brightness levels allow you to adjust the lighting to your environment, day or night.

More steps between the coolest and warmest color temperature levels mean more flexibility in suiting your skin and environment.

After researching and testing more than a dozen ring lights, we’ve learned that it’s a fast-moving category with lots of brands that may be here today but gone tomorrow. Many of the best ring lights we’ve tested are either now discontinued or have recurring stock issues. This includes the Neewer 14-inch LED Ring Light (RL-14), Neewer 16-inch LED Ring Light (RL-16), Yesker 14-inch Ring Light, and Godox LR120 12-inch LED Ring Light.

We still recommend these models if you can find them in stock. But if you can’t track them down, here are some tips that will help you choose a suitable replacement among a sea of similar-looking lights.

Wirecutter’s Melanie Pinola has spent years testing and reviewing various gear—including home-office essentials such as webcams, USB microphones, and office chairs—for Wirecutter and other sites including Lifehacker, PCWorld, Popular Mechanics, and Laptop Magazine.

Lighting plays an important role in the image quality of your videos and photos, second only to the quality of your camera. But you don’t have to invest in a complicated lighting rig to get better close-ups.

A ring light is an easy-to-use tool for anyone who:

A ring light is exactly what its name suggests: a doughnut-shaped light, typically made of rows of LEDs. The halo shape diffuses light over a wide area, reducing shadows and washing away blemishes for a more-flattering appearance. The space in the middle of the light is a great place to mount a camera or phone because you get an even distribution of light around the lens.

Improving the lighting when you are in front of the camera isn’t just about vanity: Having great lighting that helps you look your best breeds confidence.

“It’s really empowering,” said content creator and educator Gia Goodrich, “because you know that even if you’re showing up without makeup, you feel insecure, or you’re in your PJs, you can at least light yourself in a way that makes you feel good.”

You can certainly find other lighting setups that produce better portrait or video lighting—such as this two-light kit Goodrich recommends, which includes lighting umbrellas, several light stands, and a number of photo bulbs. But they’re more expensive and more complicated to set up and break down.

A ring light is a simple, cost-effective option that anyone can set up and use. It makes the most sense when you need just a bit more emphasis on yourself in a space without a lot of natural light and you don’t have the time or energy to invest in a pricier professional lighting setup.

Wirecutter’s Rozette Rago and Michael Hession, our head of photography and video, helped me determine the most important features to look for in a ring light.

The bigger the ring light, the better the light output and quality. We looked at 10-, 12-, 14-, 16-, and 18-inch models suited for sitting at a desk or standing.

During testing, I quickly realized that the 10- and 18-inch models were the wrong size for my needs.

10-inch lights aren’t great for most uses. These smallest lights had stands that raised the light only an inch off the desk, creating spooky, unflattering under-chin lighting. You could prop one of these lights up on a stack of large books or a box, but we think it’s worth paying a little more for a larger, brighter light that has a taller stand.

But going too big causes issues, too. On the flip side, the 18-inch models were overkill: They were so bright that they created washed-out images at all but the lowest brightness levels.

For desktop use, a 12-inch model is best. If you plan on using a ring light propped up on your desk—not on a tall stand on the floor—look for a moderately sized model, like the Godox LR120 12-inch LED Ring Light. These have stands designed for desktop use and cost less than larger models.

For anything else, a 14- or 16-inch ring light will do. These larger models should suffice if you want to keep the stand off of your desk or you plan on using the ring light while standing. The 14-inch ring lights we tested, including the Neewer 14-inch and Yesker 14-inch, were plenty bright in our testing. A 16-inch ring light, such as the Neewer 16-inch, would be brighter. But that extra luminance is really only useful if you’re going to position the light several feet away from you.

How far or close you put a ring light depends mostly on your comfort level and the size of the light. But I found that for video-call purposes, somewhere between 2 and 3 feet was most flattering.

Another consideration that’s tied to a ring light’s size is how it’s powered.

Smaller, USB-powered lights are great for mobile use. Ring lights that are 12 inches or smaller can be powered via USB, whereas the larger ring lights use an AC/DC adapter because they need to draw more power. So if you want a ring light that you can use outdoors—tethered to a laptop or USB power bank, without an outlet nearby—a ring light that’s 12 inches or smaller is ideal.

Some larger models have a built-in USB port for phone charging. A few lights we tested that are 14 inches or larger had a USB port for charging your phone while it’s attached to the ring light. That’s convenient for long shoots.

CRI is one measure of light quality; the higher the CRI (the closer to 100, the better), the more colors the light can render and the more precise the image is color-wise.

A CRI of 90 or higher is best. Ring lights with a CRI of 90 or above are considered excellent, whereas those with a CRI between 80 and 90 are thought of as good, according to Westinghouse Lighting.

You might not find the CRI rating in the product description, but that doesn’t mean the ring light has a low CRI. Contact the manufacturer and ask for the number. If they don’t get back to you—or, worse, they don’t have a website—move on to the next ring light you’re considering.

Having multiple brightness levels means you can adjust the lighting to any environment—whether it’s cloudy or sunny, morning or night, or you have few or many other light sources.

Look for lights that can adjust brightness in 1% increments. With some ring lights, you can adjust the brightness from 0 to 100% in 10% increments (10% brightness, 20% brightness, and so on), but we prefer models that let you fine-tune the brightness to the nth degree. Some ring light descriptions will specify this; it might be called “stepless adjustment.”

Color temperature, measured in kelvins (K), greatly affects the aesthetics of your photo or video. The room you’re in, the clothes you’re wearing, and your skin tone can all look different depending on the light’s color and temperature.

Find the right temperature for your skin tone. Wirecutter’s Rago said that warm light generally works best for most skin tones, but if it’s too warm, a person could look orange. Bluish light can make a pale person look lifeless.

More color temperature settings is better. Most of the ring lights we considered had at least three color-temperature settings: cool, neutral, and warm. We preferred those that offered more color-temperature steps between the coolest and the warmest levels; this allows you to dial in the setting that looks best with your skin and environment.

You should be able to bend the light and raise it up or down to get the most flattering light for whatever you’re shooting. People who wear glasses, for example, might need to raise the light and adjust it at a steeper angle to avoid glare and reflections.

More flexibility is always better. Bonus points go to ring lights—such as the Yesker 14-inch—that include a flexible gooseneck mount for your phone; this is great for getting the angle of your phone just right too.

It’s also worth considering the height range of the ring light’s stand. The greater the range, the more versatile it will be to accommodate all kinds of situations.

In addition to a stand, most ring lights come with extras such as a carrying case for the light, a mount for your phone, and a Bluetooth remote to take a photo on your phone from a distance.

Many of the latest ring light models also have a Wi-Fi remote to power the light and adjust the color temperature or brightness.

These accessories make using a ring light easier, but they’re just extras. Prioritize the features above when choosing a ring light.

More expensive doesn’t mean better quality. While researching this guide, we saw a Wescott 18-inch Ring Light that cost nearly $200 despite having only two color temperatures (cool and warm). Some ring lights cost twice as much as similar-size lights without adding more features or benefits.

Expect to pay between $50 and $100 for a good ring light that has all of the features we mention above. Paying any more than that is likely throwing money away.

Melanie Pinola

Melanie Pinola covers home office, remote work, and productivity as a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. She has contributed to print and online publications such as The New York Times, Consumer Reports, Lifehacker, and PCWorld, specializing in tech, work, and lifestyle/family topics. She’s thrilled when those topics intersect—and when she gets to write about them in her PJs.

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