A little while back I was looking for a small light for creating product reviews on YouTube. After much research, I decided the Viltrox L116T LED panel
was the right choice for my needs. This is an inexpensive LED panel that’s great for creating videos.On the back of the panel, we have a small display, power switch and a knob/button. When the knob is turned it adjusts the brightness of the panel from 20-100%. This can be seen on the display panel. Pressing the knob causes the color temperature indicator on the display to flash, and lets us adjust the color temperature from 3300K to 5600K. This is good to match other lights in the room, that way you can accurately set your white balance.
The build quality on this light is fairly decent for the price. The panel is made of plastic, but it seems fairly sturdy, and the 1/4-20 mount in the bottom is made of metal. This is good for people who need a cheap panel that works, but I wouldn’t recommend it for much more than home use, since it can probably break easily, unless you have another backup light available.
As for the light, it’s surprisingly softer than I expected. With the panel close by, the large size of the panel doesn’t leave hard shadows on the subject. The panel isn’t the brightest one available, but it is good enough within a few feet. It does what I expected for the price and size, and I wouldn’t expect it to work well for a larger scene. Unlike some other cheap panels, I didn’t notice any color tint, since some cheaper panels can cause a green tint that makes them useless for video.There are two ways to power the Viltrox L116T panel. Neither of the power options are included with the panel itself, but they can both be purchased along with the panel. The first way to power the panel is with a 12V DC power adapter
. In this case, you don’t need to worry about having batteries charged whenever you need to shoot. In my case, the increased portability of using batteries was more of an advantage, so I instead chose to use the generic Sony-style batteries
to power the panel. This kit comes with one charger and 2 batteries.The one disadvantage of powering the LED panel with the batteries, is it does seem to dim slightly as the battery level starts to drop. This can lead to inconsistent lighting between and a fresh and nearly dead battery. If this is a concern to you, using the power adapter would be a better solution.
There are two ways to mount this panel. The LED panel has a 1/4-20 mount to attach to a light stand. In my case, I’ll be adapting this thread to a microphone boom stand that way I have good control over the position of the light while filming. The LED package also has a 1/4-20 cold shoe adapter, so that way it can be mounted on top of a camera, but this is made of cheap plastic and I generally avoid using it.
So what is this panel good for? The best use for this panel is lighting objects or people within a few feet of the light panel. With that said, I use it on my YouTube videos, but it wouldn’t be good for lighting larger scenes, or for subjects farther away. It’s a cheap panel that just does what I expected it to, making it perfect for YouTubers and small video creators that just need to add a little light so they can keep their ISO down and get cleaner video.