Broklyn based videographer Douglas Guerra recorded this short video for B&H demonstrating what you can do using a small on camera LED when using it off your camera.
Those small on-camera LEDs are actually not that useful on camera if you ask us – they are typically way too direct and hard to be used as a main light for interviews but they do have quite a few other uses both as fill and hair light, cast light on a wall or background and use it instead of a practical light source (think about shooting a scene with a talent looking at computer and using the light instead of the actual light coming from the computer). You can also use these light to add some punch to the eyes of your talent eyes.
On this video Guerra demo the Litepanels Brick Bi-Color Portable LED Light (which sells for about $360) it is waterproof so you can use it outside in any weather and can handle all sorts of diffusers and gels. The only drawback is that it doesn’t come with a battery like some of the other similar lights (we are currently testing quite a few small and medium size LEDs and you will soon see our review of them here on LensVid).
We have looked at many aspects that has to do with lighting of both stills and video photography here. We shall keep track on future interesting YouTube Creator Academy on this page on LensVid.