This is the Beamo Reel Colour light from Joby. It costs £42 here in the UK, it’s compact, lightweight, pretty versatile and I’ve found it really quite useful over the last few weeks. Let me run you through the pros and cons and how it can be used.
Spec & Features
So this is a small LED light, portable and rechargeable as it has a built in lithium battery that’s charged via USB C. It provides upto 250lux of brightness upto half a meter away, from 110 lumens and it has a CRI or colour rendering index of 80+ which is ok. The light has a clear frosting to it, diffusing the light and making it less harsh. It dims, you can change the colour temperature or select one of 12 RGB colours. You can mount it to a cold shoe or one-quarter-inch screw, so you can attach it to a camera, tripod or similar. It’s also designed in a way to provide 3 different angles when sat on a flat surface.
Using the light is very simple. Twist the front of it and the light turns on. Keep twisting to then brighten or dim the light to suit your needs. There are then also two buttons on it which will either select one of the 12 RBG colours, while the other will change colour temperature to warm white, white and cool white. Both options dim.
The output is quite good given the size of the light, more than enough to illuminate a product I’m shooting or for a bit of background light when shooting a video. You could also use this for vlogging.
Dimming is okay, it’s more than enough but it’s not perfectly smooth, it’s staged but that’s fine. If you rotate the switch slowly, you can see the output steps up in increments and I counted about 16 stages. If you twist quickly, it looks smooth and changes are, it doesn’t really matter but I thought id mention it.
Battery life varies depending on the output but you can be around 2.5hrs at full output, longer if you’re dimming the light.
I love the shape of the light and when it’s sitting on a flat surface with the Joby logo facing up, you can rotate it towards or away from you slightly to achieve a 15-degree angle, rather than flat. Rotate one more time and you achieve a 30-degree angle. It’s so simple but so effective and great for trying to illuminate something on a table that’s higher than the light itself.
I think this is a great bit of kit and I recommend it to any amateur photographers and videographers, I think you’ll find it handy. It’s cheap to buy when you compare it to what else is on the market but it is not cheap in quality. It’s so portable, versatile and pretty powerful considering its size. Battery should be more than enough and as it charges via USB C, you could charge this via a power bank while out and about.
I’ve been using this alot and I feel I’m going to keep using it alot too. If you feel you don’t need the RGB, Joby does offer the same light but without colour change for slightly cheaper.
For more info and to purchase, head over to the official Joby website.
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