Budget Win or Recycle Bin?
Andy Edser is a man with a mission. It’s a mission he didn’t sign up for, or even want, but I’m his boss so he has to do what I say. And I’m making him test a ton of different cheap tech I might find on Amazon, AliExpress, TikTok Shop, or down the back of my sofa. Out of nowhere it will appear on his doorstep with no warning and he has no choice but to use whatever it is like his life depends on it. Because it does.
I’ll start off with a caveat: I’m not a photography guy. That being said, I do take a surprising number of photos in my role as a hardware writer, and you’ll see many of them spread across the pages of this very site in some form or fashion. I’ve got myself into a bit of a rut with it, actually, routinely targeting the few areas of my house where the lighting and background are good enough to grab a few PC Gamer-worthy shots of whatever I happen to be reviewing this week.
So, I was somewhat excited when opening the latest parcel from my dear Editor-in-Chief, Dave. Yep, it’s time for another Budget Win or Recycle Bin—and this time I’m well out of my depth, as he’s sent me a pack of three Neewer Basics LED light panels.
For a mere $48 at AliExpress, you get three height-adjustable tripod stands and three angle-adjustable rectangular 10 W LED panels to screw in to the top of them, along with six magnetically-attached diffuser panels, three white, and three orange. Each panel has its own USB Type-A cable with a control box halfway down the line, featuring three buttons. The middle turns the panels on and off, and the two either side adjust the brightness up and down. Even a lighting newbie like me can make sense of that.
Given this is a bargain basement set of lighting gear, it’s surprising how well-made everything feels on the whole. The stands have multiple clips along the adjustment pole for setting various heights, while the tripod mechanism has a sturdy locking ring at the bottom that gives me a reasonable degree of confidence they won’t collapse when I’ve set them correctly.
The exception to this is the aforementioned cable, which is coated in a fairly unyielding type of not-as-flexible-as-I’d-like insulation. You can’t detach it from the lights themselves, which means for transport purposes, I’ve been wrapping the cable around the pole and stand. As a result, it’s quickly transformed itself into curly spaghetti, and something tells me it’s not long before it becomes a completely-kinked mess. Each cable is also fairly short, which limits your options when it comes to where you plug them in.
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I’ve taken to using a USB battery pack to power each light individually, but if you’re planning on using this set with a (not included) USB power plug, it’s worth bearing in mind that you won’t be able to move them far from the wall in a reasonably sized room without an extension cable.
Beyond some cable kink-woes, however, I have to say the Neweer set performs very well. There are 10 levels of light intensity adjustment available through each control box, ranging from a barely-noticeable glow to a full “I need my sunglasses” beaming glare. The magnetically attached diffusers are also easy to use, and transform each light’s throw from a harsh (but useful) targeted white glare into a warm orange glow that looks a lot more natural.
As you can see from the photos below, the effect makes a massive difference to product photography. My tried and tested (and at this point, somewhat clapped) Logitech MX Master 3S looks downright ordinary in natural lighting, but lit by the high beams of the Neewer set, you can really see all the details—particularly with the 5600 Kelvin white light attachment. So much so, in fact, you can see some of the bits I missed when I tried to clean it. Apologies, but this is warts and all testing, and bright white light does have a tendency to highlight unwanted details.
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The 3200 Kelvin warm, orange filters, however, give off something of a more natural look, and are probably more what I’m after for product photography. Still, if you’re looking to shoot a variety of subjects, the easy lighting adjustment here should be right up your street—and I have to say it’s very pleasing to be able to control shadows in my photographs, rather than angling myself around like some sort of hopped-up tropical bird while trying to grab the perfect shot.
Plus, it’s worth mentioning what a boon this setup is likely to be for streamers. Lighting yourself for a close-up is fraught with potential difficulties, but the addition of three affordable lighting panels should at least provide you with plenty of options. There’s no included mount here for say, attaching one to the top of your monitor, but if your desk or shooting space is large enough, I think the Neewer kit would allow you to experiment with potential angles with ease.
The collapsible stands also mean you could quite easily take them on the move, too. Removing the LED panels from the top of their tripods and adjusting everything down to its smallest size makes for three backpack-friendly units, which means I’ll happily take them into the office for a shoot.
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At which point, there might be a small fight. All of us on the hardware team take photos of the products we review on a weekly basis, and while we have a professional light box in our hardware corner, it can be fiddly to set up. A quick extra lighting boost from something easy to deploy would make a major difference, so I can see this triumvirate of cheap lights quickly being split among our sticky, grasping hands.
And for $48? I think this set is firmly in the budget win category, and a long way from the recycling bin. While it’s not quite pocket change, the fact that you get three, highly-adjustable, well-made, great-performing adjustable panels for such a small sum is rather impressive, and while I’d imagine proper photography nerds would tut at such devices, I’d say the Neweer kit is a perfect cheap upgrade for anyone looking to take their snaps one step further. Another budget win? My, it’s remarkable what sort of gear you can buy for under $50 these days, isn’t it?
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