💡 Lighting Recommendations


While indirect, natural light is always best (and free!), it’s not always available. We often need additional or supplemental lighting.

It can feel like there are an infinite amount of lighting options and what works well for one person won’t work for another – due to space, setup, lighting, budget, etc.

If you’d like to talk through your lighting setup and get specific recommendations, you can join our next AMA (Ask Me Anything) or dive in and join our next 12-week workshop!

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This Clip On Monitor Ring Light ($20-$27) takes up minimal space as it clips directly on to your monitor. It has 3 color temperatures (warm to cool) and 5 levels of brightness so you can match your skin tone, time of day, and any other available lighting.

 

This Clip on Desk/Ring Light ($15-$22) is a great alternative if you want to avoid clipping a light directly onto your monitor. It also provides more flexibility in terms of positioning and could be used as a desk light when you’re not in a virtual meeting or recording videos.

 

A smaller, 10″ ring light ($30-$50) that’s easily portable and can add a good amount of fill light on your face, though it’s not the best. 

If you wear glasses, ring lights often aren’t the best. (Here’s a video I did showing how various lights perform both with and without glasses.) You’ll want a soft, diffuse light.

 

This Pixel RGB Video Light is small, powerful, last a long time between charges, and works well whether you wear glasses or not. It’s so great that I own two of them, and they’re the lights I use when interviewing people at conferences!

 

After testing a lot of lighting options, this NEEWER 18″ Ring Light has become my favorite.

It works great for both computer and smartphone videos (it includes a smartphone holder), it doesn’t take up much space, it provides nice, soft light (even working well with glasses), it gets impressively bright (for when that’s needed), and you can adjust the color temperature.

It’s normally $89 but goes on sale for up to 20% off.

 

If you have sufficient space and want nice, soft lighting, there’s this NEEWER LED Softbox lighting kit. 

If you’re in a darker location or don’t have any windows, you may need a stronger lighting setup. In that case, this NEEWER LED Video Light Kit is great. You can use one as your main (key) light and one as your fill light. Or you can point one towards the ceiling to help brighten up the whole room while the other is focused on making sure you’re nicely lit.

 

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About Katie Braden, CFP®

Katie is an 18-year veteran in the financial planning industry who founded Advisor Video Marketing to merge her love for financial planning and the transformative power of video.