LEDs for better lighting during video calls?

[anonymous-user]

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend, or advise me of, any kind of slimline LED lighting for illuminating me a bit better while I'm on Zoom/Teams calls?

Nothing to do with being vain I promise, just want to be a little more professional since I seem to spend so much time in video meetings these days.

I have dual 24" monitors on my desk, and my iPad Pro sits just below them to handle all my video calls.

My office window is really quite large, and I find that if I have my blinds open (to the side of my desk) then the daylight steams in and totally over exposes one side of my face/room and looks terrible. If I close the blinds down a bit, then the single light fitting above me in the room gives me that halloween style look of 'holding a torch under your chin' but from above...

I was wondering if there was some kind of strip of LED lights that could be stuck under the monitors to point towards me and just even the awful lighting up a bit?

Thanks!

[sjg]

A ring light is a good solution, just like all the teenagers doing makeup tutorials on youtube. Gives really nice even light, and even the cheap ones can change colour temperature so you can get a natural look. Have one on a little tripod and you can get it out of the way when you're not using it.

Really, anything you can do to get more light on your face helps though. I just rearranged my desk so I'm facing the window which saved any faffing with lights.

[anonymous-user]

sjg said:

A ring light is a good solution, just like all the teenagers doing makeup tutorials on youtube. Gives really nice even light, and even the cheap ones can change colour temperature so you can get a natural look. Have one on a little tripod and you can get it out of the way when you're not using it.

Really, anything you can do to get more light on your face helps though. I just rearranged my desk so I'm facing the window which saved any faffing with lights.

Exactly, getting more light on your face seems to help a lot on video calls to stop you looking like a horror film.

I did look at ring lights and I'm sure they work really well, but being the minimalist fusspot I am, I kind of wanted something that would fit into my setup and not be cluttering the place like a light on a tripod which I wouldn't be able to set up quickly when Zoom started ringing without warning.

I had my old desk facing the window but I just didn't like trying to look at the monitors when it was so bright outside, and ended up closing the blinds and then back to square one sitting in a room with blinds closed. The window off to the side is great for working, but seemingly rubbish for video calls.

[FunkyNige]

This one looks a good bet
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Camcorder-Lighting...
£32
Adjustable for colour and brightness, comes with a power supply and tripod mount so you'll have loads of options to mount it semi-permanently.
There are ones without batteries if you want something a bit lighter.

[anonymous-user]

FunkyNige said:

This one looks a good bet
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Camcorder-Lighting...
£32
Adjustable for colour and brightness, comes with a power supply and tripod mount so you'll have loads of options to mount it semi-permanently.
There are ones without batteries if you want something a bit lighter.

You got me browsing Amazon, and I just found this and purchased it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B088M993PX/ref...

Looks ideal. You can adjust the brightness and colour temperature, and I can clip it to the back of my desk behind the monitors and adjust the lights to suit. I don't need the central phone holder bit, so I'll likely unscrew that arm and dispose of.

Bargain at £16.

I shall report back as to whether it makes me look like a young Chinese girl as per the publicity photos...

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 5th October 13:29

[rodericb]

Are you using both of those 24" monitors while you're on video call? I wanted to get a better shade of light for a automated job video interview (!) so I did a powerpoint presentation of one slide with solid colour background and used that as a light.

[Mr Whippy]

All my clients ask why they’d want to see my face, they want to see what we’re working on

Microphone essential. Webcam never been used for work.


Nice now teams is working and being widely adopted as the number of screen sharing software I’ve had to have was getting annoying.
And now comes Zoom, arghhh

[anonymous-user]

rodericb said:

Are you using both of those 24" monitors while you're on video call? I wanted to get a better shade of light for a automated job video interview (!) so I did a powerpoint presentation of one slide with solid colour background and used that as a light.

The monitors are usually just for referring to documents etc while I’m on a video call, but what I have noticed the same as you, is that if I just open a blank Word document on each screen the light on my face is slightly improved for video calls, so I sometimes do that, but it isn’t a great way round the issue.

I’m hoping my Chinese ‘dual ring lights on flexi arms’ will arrive today and I can try them out.

[Origin Unknown]

One to be aware of, if you wear glasses, you'll have a tiny light ring showing on your glasses

[anonymous-user]

Origin Unknown said:

One to be aware of, if you wear glasses, you'll have a tiny light ring showing on your glasses

I don’t wear glasses... yet.

But thanks for the tip!

[anonymous-user]

Mr Whippy said:

All my clients ask why they’d want to see my face, they want to see what we’re working on

Microphone essential. Webcam never been used for work.


Nice now teams is working and being widely adopted as the number of screen sharing software I’ve had to have was getting annoying.
And now comes Zoom, arghhh

I would prefer to just make a phone call, or a non-video conference call, but my clients and the business I contract for all seem to prefer meetings that involve everyone having their camera on.

When I join in with weekly team meetings held by clients they all have their cameras on.

In fact, if someone doesn’t have their camera on, questions start being raised about that persons state of dress and so on. “Are you sat in your dressing gown or something? Why haven’t you got your camera on? We can’t see you” Etc

During a recent meeting, one of the other consultants that was working on the project refused to turn his camera on and said “I don’t do things like that. You don’t need to see me or the inside of my home”

After he had left the meeting as we were winding down, people started to make comments that it was ‘weird’ and ‘creepy’ that he was just sat there ‘watching us all’ and not putting his camera on.

So to sum up, I prefer to always have my camera on as I know others can be really funny about it if you don’t.

I therefore spend a few hours per week in a neatly ironed shirt combined with tracksuit bottoms

[mikef]

Or buy a Razer Kiyo webcam with adjustable built-in light ring. And do YouTube makeup videos as a sideline

[anonymous-user]

ash73 said:

Two of these might work, if you stick them on the bezel either side of your monitor. They're dimmable and you can select 3 different colour temperatures.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SOAIY-Lighting-Cupboard-C...

Damn. They look perfect but I’ve just ordered the mini ring lights I linked to above. I’ll buy those if I don’t get on with the ring lights.

Thanks!

[mikef]

ash73 said:

mikef said:

Or buy a Razer Kiyo webcam with adjustable built-in light ring.

If you can find one in stock anywhere...

Got mine from Amazon - still look to be in stock

[anonymous-user]

ash73 said:

I'm surprised nobody makes a webcam with a small separate lens that you can position in the centre of the screen, with just a wire going to the main unit.

I don't like the camera perched on top of the screen because you're eyes are looking downwards, so when I'm talking to Nicola from accounts it looks like I'm staring down her top!

It’s a fair point.

My iPad sits in landscape orientation on my desk and therefore I always look like my gaze is away to the right somewhere, because the camera is to the left of the screen as I look at it.

I guess at some point in the future they will actually just bury the camera in the centre of the screen behind the pixels somehow... but how they will do that I have no idea!

[Jakg]

Lord Marylebone said:

It’s a fair point.

My iPad sits in landscape orientation on my desk and therefore I always look like my gaze is away to the right somewhere, because the camera is to the left of the screen as I look at it.

I guess at some point in the future they will actually just bury the camera in the centre of the screen behind the pixels somehow... but how they will do that I have no idea!

Facetime has a feature that makes it appear that your looking at the camera when your actually looking at the screen.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/22/facetim...

[Origin Unknown]

Dell in their infinite wisdom decided that the webcam should be positioned at the bottom of the laptop screen for some of their models.

When people go to type whilst on video calls, these giant hands and fingers appear like alien spiders. Fail.

[mikef]

Video looking up the nose and fat fingers - surely a design classic (XPS 13 here, but never use it for zoom calls without an external webcam)

[anonymous-user]

Update:

Quandary solved thanks to £16 spent on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B088M993PX/ref...

The lights are MORE than bright enough, give 3 different colour options (cool, warm, daylight) and infinite brightness adjustments.

I’ve just clipped them to the back of one of my monitors and the lights hang down just below each monitor.

They save the last settings used, so once you are happy with the brightness level and colour temperature, just press the on and off button to use them and you get the same each time.

I’m pleased with them.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 7th October 21:05

[Origin Unknown]

How's your makeup looking?