I recently bought the Bower phone tripod mount. I’ve been using it for about a week and I am impressed so far, especially with the price. For this reason, I decided to buy the Bower Clip-On Ring Light to accompany it. At the time of this article, the going price is 4.88 at Walmart, the same price as the tripod mount.
Why get a ring light?
Let’s first start with some reason why you may want an extra light source or situation in which these would come in handy. If you ask any seasoned photographer they would most likely tell you that adequate lighting is essential to photography. Without sufficient light, your pictures start to get grainy, and then you need to play around with a thing called ISO to get a decent photo. If you’re an average user like myself then you do not want to mess around will a whole bunch of setting on your phone.
When I pick up my phone I wanna start shooting and have the camera figure all that stuff out. That’s where these little clip-on lights come in handy. They are portable, inexpensive, and provide that extra bit of light. In this article, I will do a quick review for those of you who may be considering buying this product.
Package contents
For the price of 4.88, you get a decent clip-on light with micro USB cord, and an instruction manual. This unit comes with three preset levels of brightness. During my test, I found that the number 3 setting was the one that worked best for most of my needs. When shooting in a partially lit environment meant I found that any setting below did not make much of a difference. Comparatively, I also found the lower settings pretty much useless in the same placement. Then again, this product is advertised as a way to enhance your photo and is not intended to be the main light source.
Battery
Having the option to recharge the battery was a good selling point for me. This can be a negative for some since a full charge on the highest setting lasts about 20 to 30 mins. After that, the brightness significantly decreases and is pretty much useless. With no option to replace the battery you would have to suspend anything activity until the full recharge.
Final thoughts
The Bower ring light can be used on both the rare and front camera. For my test, I used an iPhone SE 2nd generation with an OtterBox Defender case. The ring light clipped on secularly with room to spare. I am not a big fan of the catchlights reflected on the eyes from the ring light. Nonetheless, I still plan on using this product for a few of my videos and taking photos in low-light situations.
