Cheap and best Ring Light

This post is for beginners & amateurs in photography/videography or youtubers who want a solution for lighting and audio. Basically for someone who is always on the look out for cheap and best stuff. Have you ever heard of a brand called Pikyo? No? Neither had I a couple of months ago. I present to you in this post the Pikyo YY08Q Big Ring shooting light. So this is a 10 inch ring light that comes in combo with a collar mic.

Product: Pikyo YY08Q Big Shooting Light
Price: Rs. 559. I picked it up for 469. That is 389 Price + 80 Shipping
My rating: ★★★★★

Necessity of Ring Lights for photographers and videographers: Ring lights bring out the detail and puts a circular reflection in your subjects eye. Secondly the subject is evenly lit. It casts very little shadow because the source of the light is very close to the optical axis of the lens. And when a Ring light is especially so cheap, you can afford to keep it to experiment with your creativity.

 First reason for me to like it is because of the value for money. This is the cheap and best ring light available in the online market for you. The light output is almost the same as the ones u get for over 2000 bucks. In addition to the Ring Light you get a collar mic which is necessary if you are a youtuber or sometimes it comes handy when you are an amateur & shooting a video. 

Lemme do a quick list of its features.
There are 4 different temperature modes with 10 stops of brightness in each. It doesn't heat up even if u keep it on for 30 mins. haven't tried longer duration but i guess it should be fine.

The only drawback is the touch. It feels like hard plastic that may break. However I haven't done a drop test to check if it breaks. The buttons are hard. But come on, that is no reason for me to stop myself from buying this over another at a 1000 bucks more. The box contains the following:

10 inch Ring Light
A ball head for tripod
Mic
Mobile holder with a stick for attachment.

Note: the mic comes with 3.5 mm jack. That means you can connect it to your phone, computer or laptop but not a DSLR in case you are into short films. I wouldn't say this is a drawback. A collar mic on a DSLR is a drawback according to me. In cases where you want to use this for a short film, you can have your phone in your pocket and plug this in. Later during editing you can add this which is more clear. The sound quality on the mic isn't bad. 

Branding is certainly an area of improvement. I couldn't see the brand name on the box.

2 Rupees Free Knowledge: 

i) Did you know that ring flash was first used by a Dentist in as early as 1952? Lester A. Dine. Google him it is a good read.

ii) Mixing red green and blue sources to produce white light need circuits to control the blending of colors. LEDs have slightly different emission patterns. That is why the color balance changes depending on the angle of view in spite of the RGB sources being present in the same package. There are several types of multicolor white LEDs - Dichromatic, Trichromatic, Tetrachromatic. Di-chromatic LEDs have the best luminous efficacy - 120 lm/W. And yes this Ring light utilizes dichromatic LED. A more detailed explanation of LEDs is here.

You may pick up the Ring light & Mic Combo from Amazon here.

They have a small selfie mobile ring light that comes along with a 7ft tripod and a mic. Check it out here.

Alright, So if you did like this post, leave a comment below.