This review is for the Jeemak 6” Ring Light with Stand, Color and Brightness Control, and Phone Remote Control.  I believe that it is mostly intended for use with cellphones but it works fine for a close-range light for DSLR’s also.

So, firstly, in the interest of transparency, this is an item that Jeemak reimbursed me for. 

As always – I am going to give you a totally neutral review on this item the same as anything I review.

On to the review…I have wanted one of these for quite a while, especially for taking photos for product reviews like this one. Sure, if you want a super-bright one that is going to fill up an entire room then you probably are going to have to pay a lot more.  But if you want something for close-in or medium-distance objects and people then this might be the perfect economical solution for you.

A ring light produces a soft, direct but diffused light on the object or person that you are taking a photo of and minimizes shadows overall. 

Usually, you stick your DSLR’s lens through the hole and this allows a uniform evenly lit target.  Using it with a cellphone is a bit different but it still allows you to take a photo through the middle of the ring, or if not through the middle at least above, below, or to the side of it, and have a nice soft uniform light right on your object/subject.

The Jeemak Ring Light has a six-inch (15.24 cm) diameter ring with an approximately three and a quarter (8.2 cm) inch opening in the middle, big enough for my Canon Rebel’s normal lenses to fit through.

Opening up the package I was pretty happy with the accessories and how it all looked right away, everything’s packed well and padded, with each part in an individual bag.  

[See image gallery at randombitsbytes.com] There is the ring light with the attached USB cord and lighting controls partly up the cord, the cord being fairly long and heavy-duty as USB cords go.

Next is the extendable shaft, which is screwed into the relatively heavy base, and the gimbal mount that attaches between the top of the extendable shaft and the bottom of the ring light itself.  The gimbal has a big plastic finger tightener and does its job fine, allowing a good range of angle from approximately 45 degrees tipped forward to the same range tipped back and anything in between, and there is a slot at one point so it can be tipped completely upward (or downward) or anything in between while in this slot. 

There is also a nice heavy-duty drawstring carrying bag with the company name on it, plenty big enough for all of the parts.

The bottom of the ring itself has standard-sized threads, the same as those that you will find on any tripod (and of course the gimbal is also – you could theoretically use the gimbal on something else too).  The only downside here is the base of the ring light is light plastic so you would want to be somewhat careful if you are doing a lot of detaching and attaching it to other mounts and such.

Everything was easily and quickly assembled and probably was straight-forward enough to assemble even without looking at the manual, it is a nice little manual in multiple languages explaining everything in detail about the ring light and the Bluetooth remote and how to use them.

I tried the Bluetooth remote first – there is a small power button on the side of it and it is a breeze to pair with the phone or device.  The two devices I tried it on paired quickly.  After loading the Camera app a quick push of the button was all that was needed to take a pic.  It worked both in the native Android camera app as well as the Open Camera app.

Range is about like any Bluetooth device, thirty feet or so.  What else can I say – it worked perfectly and did its job. 

Next I powered the Jeemak Ring Light up.  I was able to power this with my desktop, laptop, multiple wall outlet transformer plugs and on a number of different battery packs that are used to charge phones and other things.  Most of the battery packs powered it fine for a good amount of time, though a few of the smaller packs didn’t seem to have the juice.

There are controls mounted partway up the USB cable (which is plenty long enough for both the included stand as well reaching to the top of a partially extended standard tripod I used with it) with power on and off, and a brightness up and down control as well as the color control that cycles through three different shades from natural to more of a fluorescently color and one in between.  It’s bright at the highest setting – but not blindingly, and the dimmest setting is still bright enough to disperse shadows.  The LED’s in the ring light and the diffused front makes whatever number of LED’s inside look, indeed, like a uniform single ring of light except on the middle setting where you can kind of see some of them through the front bezel.

[See image gallery at randombitsbytes.com] If you’ve never used a ring light before you’ll find it a much nicer less actinic light than a full-powered flash without a diffusion of some sort – and even with a flash diffuser the light isn’t as spot-on uniform as the ring light seems to be.

Subjects are nicely lit, without shadows and the nice thing is you can see this before you take the photo versus using a flash where you might have to check out a couple of photos in detail after you take them to make sure.

For my purposes, I don’t always stick the camera or phone lens directly through the ring for those quick shots, but just illuminate the object with the ring light and position the camera or phone beside or above the light by hand, and it seems to be a nice uniform dispersion to the side almost as well as through the middle.  

[See image gallery at randombitsbytes.com] But for the intended purpose you can either hold your camera or phone behind the light with the lens facing through the middle of the ring light, which works just fine for quick shots; or you can use any number of mounting options to hold your phone or camera and/or the ring light itself. 

As I mentioned above the shaft of the ring light is extendable if needed, allowing you to use a small tripod to hold your phone or camera behind the rign light.  There are many cellphone mounts for tripods that work very well.  Alternately you can just set your phone or camera on some surface behind the ring light and its stand.

The Jeemak Ring Light model PC50 and some other Jeemak Ring Lights do have a cellphone mount included with them.

You could also take the Jeemak Ring Light off the mount that came with it and mount it directly to a regular tripod (as I said above – the threads are standard) and then position another tripod with your camera or cellphone (in its cellphone mount for the tripod) behind it with the lens pointed through.

But my favorite way to use a ring light is to use a tripod with an extension bar on it with the ring light attached to the front of the extension bar and the camera or cellphone (in its cellphone mount for the tripod) mounted securely and precisely behind it, or again – use two tripods with the extension bar on the one with the ring light.  This way you can move the ring light forward or back for the best positioning of light in either method.

[See image gallery at randombitsbytes.com] In the shot below is a quick demo shot of the uniform lighting on a close object as illuminated via the ring light – no reflection on the shiny black plastic nor over-brightness (link to the Master USA knife and sheath), just a nice soft but strong illumination.

So I have to say – for a relatively cheap ring light I am quite impressed with the quality of the light, usability, versatility, and options of this Jeemak Ring Light.  The small extendable stand works well and is nicely weighted at the bottom, the functions of the controller are perfect and easy to operate, the light can be detached and mounted on any tripod, and the Bluetooth remote works as described.  The Jeemak Ring Light may be economical in price, and perhaps this shows in the construction in some parts but not very much, and the light works flawlessly and well and is hard to beat for those close-up or medium close-up photo jobs.

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