This educational article was adapted from my popular program called "Tips for Using LEDs for Photography" that I have presented around the country.
For most of my career as a professional photographer, serious studio lighting meant flash.
That's changing.
Modern LED lighting has reached a point where it deserves serious consideration as a primary photographic light source—not just for video, not just as a modeling light, and not simply as an occasional specialty tool.
In fact, most of the work I currently photograph in my studio is lit with LEDs.
I use continuous LED lighting for professional headshots, actor and actress portfolios, fashion photography, commercial product photography, creative portraiture and more.
Why?
Today's better LEDs are powerful, color-accurate, relatively affordable and incredibly easy to work with. Perhaps most importantly, they let you see the photograph you're creating before you press the shutter button.
That's a major advantage.
At the same time, I'm not suggesting photographers should throw away their flashes. I still use flash, and there are photographic situations where flash is clearly the better tool.
The point is that the old assumption that professional photography requires strobes simply isn't true anymore.
LEDs have arrived.
Why Are LEDs Suddenly So Good for Photography?
I've been teaching photographers about continuous lighting for years, and I think three developments have driven the change:
Color accuracy. Power. Cost.
Earlier generations of continuous lighting often required photographers to compromise in one or more of those areas.
Today's professional LEDs can deliver excellent color reproduction, enough output for a surprising amount of photographic work, and prices that make building a continuous-light system practical.
That's opened the door for photographers who might never have considered LEDs before.
And companies such as Godox have accelerated that transition dramatically.
Godox is no longer simply a flash manufacturer that also makes a few video lights. It has developed an enormous continuous-light ecosystem ranging from tiny portable LEDs to powerful professional fixtures designed for major video, broadcast and cinema productions.
For photographers, that means we now have access to lighting technology that has benefited from the tremendous growth of the professional video and filmmaking markets.
The Biggest Advantage: What You See Is What You Get
If I had to identify one reason photographers should experiment with LEDs, this might be it:
WYSIWYG — What You See Is What You Get.
With flash, you're predicting what the light will look like when the flash fires.
Experienced photographers become very good at that prediction. Modeling lamps help. Test photographs help.
But you're still working with a light source that exists at full intensity for only a tiny fraction of a second.
An LED is different.
The light illuminating your subject is the light you're photographing.
Move the light and you immediately see the shadow move.
Raise it and you see the change.
Feather the softbox and you can watch the highlight transition across the face.
Add a kicker and you see exactly where it lands.
Change the brightness and you see the lighting ratio change in real time.
That's enormously useful for experienced photographers—and perhaps even more useful for photographers who are still learning to see light.
LEDs Can Make Precise Lighting Faster
This WYSIWYG characteristic becomes particularly valuable when lighting needs to be precise.
Consider a headshot.
I can watch the shadow beneath the nose while moving the key light. I can see the catchlights change position. I can evaluate how much light is reaching the shadow side of the face.
If I'm using a hair light or kicker, I can see exactly where that light is landing before I take a photograph.
The same thing happens in fashion photography. I can evaluate the interaction between the light, clothing and model while making adjustments.
And for product photography, this becomes incredibly powerful.
If I'm photographing a reflective bottle, I can physically move a light or modifier and watch the highlight travel across the bottle.
There's much less shooting, looking at the back of the camera, moving something, shooting again and checking again.
Instead, I can refine much of the lighting before taking the photograph.
That's one reason continuous lighting has become such an important part of my commercial work.
Color Accuracy Matters
Power isn't the only specification photographers should consider when evaluating an LED.
Color accuracy is critical.
Two measurements you'll commonly encounter are CRI and TLCI.
CRI stands for Color Rendering Index. It's a measurement of how accurately a light source reproduces colors compared with an ideal or natural reference source.
CRI is measured on a scale up to 100. A rating in the 85–90 range is generally considered good, while 95+ is excellent territory for photographic work.
TLCI stands for Television Lighting Consistency Index. It was developed around the requirements of television and camera imaging and is another useful indicator of how accurately a fixture reproduces color.
Why should a still photographer care?
Because inaccurate light creates work later.
Skin tones become more difficult to correct. Product colors may require additional adjustment. Mixing multiple lights can create unexpected color differences.
With a high-quality, color-accurate LED, the workflow becomes much simpler.
Set your color temperature appropriately, set your camera's white balance, and you're starting from a much cleaner place.
Bi-Color LEDs Let You Match the Environment
This is one of my favorite reasons to use LEDs on location.
A daylight-balanced flash essentially gives you one starting color temperature. You can modify it with gels, but that requires another step.
A bi-color LED allows you to adjust the color temperature of the actual light.
Suppose you're photographing an environmental portrait in a room illuminated by warm tungsten fixtures.
Instead of introducing a much cooler light source and trying to correct the mismatch, you can adjust a bi-color LED toward the color temperature already present in the room.
Now your photographic light can blend much more naturally with the environment.
Or perhaps you're working near a window and want the LED to integrate with daylight.
Adjust accordingly.
This ability to match the light to the environment rather than forcing the environment to match your light can be incredibly useful for environmental portraits.
It's one of the reasons small portable bi-color fixtures have become so interesting for photographers.
How Much LED Power Does a Photographer Really Need?
This is where photographers accustomed to flash sometimes get caught up in numbers.
We want more power.
200 watts. 300 watts. 400 watts. 600 watts.
More must be better, right?
Not necessarily.
In my LED presentation, I use a real-world example showing that a 200W LED combined with ISO 800 can produce an exposure around 1/200 second at f/5.6, depending, of course, on the fixture, modifier, distance and other variables.
Modern cameras have changed this equation dramatically.
There was a time when professional photographers avoided higher ISO settings whenever possible. Today's cameras perform remarkably well at ISO 400, 800 and beyond.
That means we don't necessarily need an enormous continuous light to create a professional photograph.
There's also a practical consideration that specification charts don't tell you:
People have to look into these lights.
Put a 200W or 300W LED into a softbox relatively close to a portrait subject and you're already creating a very bright source.
At some point, adding more output doesn't improve the portrait. It simply makes your subject squint.
For much of the portrait photography I do, roughly 200–300 watts through an appropriate modifier is already a substantial amount of continuous light.
That's an important distinction between shopping for flash and shopping for continuous light.
Don't automatically buy the highest wattage available.
Think about what you're photographing.
You Can Still Use Real Light Modifiers
Another misconception is that moving to LEDs means abandoning the modifiers photographers already understand.
Not at all.
Many COB-style LED fixtures accept Bowens-mount modifiers, which gives photographers access to an enormous ecosystem of softboxes, reflectors, beauty dishes, projection attachments and other light-shaping tools.
You can also use umbrellas, diffusion panels, scrims and other familiar photographic tools.
In one of the creative portrait examples from my presentation, I used a 200W COB LED with a large MoFo PDU modifier boomed laterally, supplemented by a round LED panel for fill and LED wands as kickers.
The lighting concepts don't suddenly change because the source contains LEDs instead of a flash tube.
Hard light is still hard light.
Soft light is still soft light.
Size relative to the subject still matters.
Distance still matters.
Direction still matters.
What changes is your ability to see all of those relationships continuously while you're building the photograph.
LEDs Are Excellent for Headshots
Headshots are one of the areas where I've become particularly comfortable using continuous light.
A headshot subject isn't generally moving rapidly. I don't need the extremely short duration of a flash to freeze action.
Instead, I benefit from being able to see exactly what the light is doing to the face.
I can refine my key light while looking at the subject rather than repeatedly checking test photographs.
I can watch how fill affects the shadows.
I can see what my background lights are doing.
And because the light is continuous, the subject's pupils react naturally to the brightness of the environment, which can result in smaller pupils and more visible iris color.
For actors and actresses, continuous lighting also lends itself particularly well to sessions where I'm creating a range of looks quickly.
Change the lighting ratio. Change the direction. Introduce color. Change the background.
I can see the new look immediately.
LEDs Open Up Creative Portrait Possibilities
Continuous light becomes even more interesting when we add RGB capability.
A traditional bi-color fixture lets you move between warmer and cooler white light.
An RGB fixture goes much further.
Now you can introduce saturated colors without placing gels over your lights.
Want blue on the background? Dial in blue.
Want a warm orange kicker? Create it.
Want complementary colors from opposite sides of the subject? You can build the effect and watch it happen in real time.
This doesn't mean every portrait should suddenly become a rainbow.
RGB is simply another creative tool.
The important thing is that today's RGB LEDs can often serve as excellent white-light fixtures when you need conventional illumination and then provide a huge range of color when the assignment calls for something more creative.
That's one reason I find the current generation of RGB COB lights so compelling.
LEDs Are Fantastic for Product Photography
If there is one photographic genre where I think continuous LED lighting deserves especially serious consideration, it's product photography.
My presentation actually describes LEDs as:
“Fantastic for product photography.”
I stand by that.
Product photography often requires extremely precise placement of highlights, shadows and reflections.
With continuous light, I can see those details while I'm adjusting them.
That's the WYSIWYG advantage again.
But product photography magnifies its value.
If I'm photographing glass, polished metal, a bottle or another reflective surface, moving a strip light an inch can completely change the photograph.
With LED lighting, I can watch that change happen.
That can make the process considerably faster and can help me capture more of the finished image in-camera rather than trying to manufacture it later in post-production.
A Real-World Example: Creating “Beers on the Beach” With LEDs
One of the best examples of why I like continuous lighting for commercial photography was a product image I created for Capital Brewery.
The concept was called “Beers on the Beach.”
The assignment involved photographing a bottle, glass and can of Capital Brewery's Awesummer Ale and integrating them into a beach environment.
This wasn't simply a matter of putting one softbox next to the products and taking a photograph. The finished image required several different types of light, each performing a very specific job.
And this is exactly where LEDs excel.
Start With the Environment
I began with the background image and arranged the products and props to establish the basic composition.
From there, I could begin matching the lighting on the products to the lighting that should exist in the final scene.
The open-sky illumination was created with a 150W LED boomed over the set and diffused through a large ScrimFlector.
To create the appearance of direct sunlight, I used a 200W bi-color LED with a Godox VSA-26 projection attachment.
That gave me two distinctly different types of illumination: broad ambient light representing the sky and a more directional source representing the sun.
Then Light the Product, Not Just the Scene
Once the overall environment looked believable, the next challenge was making the product itself look great.
For a commercial beverage photograph, the brand name and labels can't simply be visible.
They need to pop.
For that task, I used a small Godox S30 30W projection LED handheld close to the products. Its job wasn't to illuminate the entire scene. It was a precision tool used to put light exactly where I wanted it.
I created separate exposures for the bottle, glass and can.
For the beer glass, I misted the glass to create condensation, poured the beer, lit and photographed the front, and then added additional backlighting through the beer for another exposure. I repeated variations of that process for the bottle and can.
This is a perfect example of what I mean by WYSIWYG lighting.
I could see the reflections. I could see the label illumination. I could see the light passing through the beer. I could see where the projected “sunlight” was landing.
Instead of firing a flash, evaluating the result and making another adjustment, I was sculpting the light while looking at the product.
For this kind of detailed commercial photography, that's an enormous advantage.
LEDs Can Help You Get More Right In-Camera
I'm certainly not opposed to post-production. Commercial photography often requires it.
But I'd rather use Photoshop to finish a photograph than use Photoshop to fix lighting I could have created correctly in-camera.
That's another reason I like LEDs for product photography.
Continuous light encourages very deliberate placement. You can refine highlights and reflections before taking the photograph.
In my presentation, I summarize the product-photography advantages this way:
Faster finite light placement. WYSIWYG. Capture it correctly in-camera. Less post-production.
That remains one of the strongest arguments I can make for LEDs.
Which Godox LEDs Do I Recommend for Photographers?
The LED market has changed dramatically since I first started teaching this material. Godox now offers everything from tiny portable lights to fixtures designed for professional cinema production.
For still photographers, though, I don't think the answer is simply to buy the biggest or most expensive LED available.
The question is:
What kind of photographs are you trying to make?
There are several current Godox lights that I find particularly interesting for photographers.
Godox Litemons LA300R: My Versatile Studio Choice
If I were looking for a powerful LED that could handle a broad range of photographic assignments in the studio, the Godox Litemons LA300R would be high on my list.
It's a 300W-class full-color COB fixture with a broad 1800K–10,000K color-temperature range, RGB color capability, green/magenta adjustment and a Bowens modifier mount.
What does all of that mean to a photographer?
It means one light can do a lot of jobs.
Need conventional white light for a headshot?
Absolutely.
Need warmer or cooler light to integrate with another source?
Adjust the color temperature.
Need a saturated blue, red or other color for a fashion portrait or background?
You don't need to add a gel. The LA300R can create it.
And because it accepts Bowens-mount modifiers, photographers can use many of the same softboxes and light-shaping tools they already understand.
For headshots, actor portfolios, fashion, creative portraiture and commercial studio work, this is the kind of LED that can become a real workhorse rather than a specialty effect light.
Godox ML100Bi: A Tiny Light With Serious Possibilities
At the opposite end of the size spectrum is the Godox ML100Bi.
This little light is one of the reasons I think photographers should reconsider what a location-lighting kit needs to look like.
The ML100Bi provides approximately 100W of output from a remarkably compact body. Its bi-color range extends from approximately 2800K to 6500K, allowing photographers to adjust the light to work with a wide variety of environments.
That combination makes it particularly interesting for environmental portraits.
Suppose I'm photographing someone in an office, restaurant, theater, home or another real environment.
I may not want my photographic lighting to announce itself.
Instead, I can look at the existing light, adjust the ML100Bi's color temperature to work with it, and add just enough directional light to make my subject look great.
That's a very different philosophy from overpowering the environment.
You're blending with it.
And because the ML100Bi is so small, it's a light you can realistically carry when a large studio fixture would be impractical.
Godox ML100R: Take the Same Idea Into Full Color
The Godox ML100R takes that compact-light concept and adds full-color capability.
It offers an extremely broad 1800K–10,000K color-temperature range along with full-color adjustment and app control, all in a remarkably portable package.
For environmental portraiture, that creates some fascinating possibilities.
You can still use it as a conventional white light and adjust its color temperature to blend with the scene.
But now you can also use color creatively.
A little warm accent light.
Blue light in the background.
Color on an architectural feature.
A saturated kicker for an actor or musician portrait.
The light is small enough that it can go into locations where a traditional studio fixture would be cumbersome.
For photographers who want one highly portable light that can serve both practical and creative purposes, the ML100R deserves serious consideration.
Godox Litemons LE300Bi: A Lot of Light for the Money
Not every photographer needs RGB.
Sometimes you simply need a powerful, accurate, adjustable white-light source at a reasonable price.
That's where I think the Godox Litemons LE300Bi becomes particularly attractive.
The LE300Bi is a 300W-class bi-color COB fixture with an adjustable 2800K–6500K color-temperature range, 0–100% dimming and excellent color accuracy.
For many photographers and videographers, that's really all they need.
If you're primarily creating:
- Headshots
- Portraits
- Actor portfolios
- Product photographs
- Interviews
- Talking-head video
- Social-media content
- General studio photography
...you may not need to pay for full RGB capability.
You may simply need a good, powerful, color-accurate bi-color light.
The LE300Bi fills that role nicely.
Godox Has Become Much More Than a Flash Company
This is worth emphasizing because many still photographers primarily know Godox for products such as the AD200, AD400 and AD600 series.
The continuous-light side of Godox has become enormous.
Today, Godox offers compact portable COB lights, RGB fixtures, bi-color fixtures, LED panels, flexible mats, tubes, projection systems and high-output professional fixtures intended for demanding film and television production.
That matters even if you're never going to work on a movie set.
Technology developed for video and cinema has helped make high-output, color-accurate continuous lighting increasingly practical for still photographers.
And it gives us a much larger toolbox.
At MoLight, we stock many of the Godox LED products that make the most sense for photographers. And because the entire Godox lineup is so extensive, if there's a Godox LED you need that we don't normally stock, contact us. We can often special-order it for you.
But LEDs Are Not Better at Everything
This is important.
I use LEDs extensively, but I don't believe in pretending that one type of lighting is best for every photograph.
There are still jobs where I reach for flash.
My LED presentation ends with both the pros and the cons of LEDs, and those limitations are worth understanding.
You May Need a Higher ISO
Flash can deliver an enormous amount of light in an extremely short burst.
An LED delivers considerably less instantaneous light.
That often means working at ISO 400, 800 or higher rather than ISO 100.
With modern cameras, I'm generally very comfortable doing that. But it's still part of the equation.
LEDs Don't Freeze Motion Like Flash
A short flash duration can freeze motion extremely effectively.
Continuous light can't do that for you.
If I'm photographing a dancer flying through the air, liquid splashing, or another fast-moving subject where I need to stop motion, flash may clearly be the better tool.
With LED lighting, motion is controlled primarily by your camera's shutter speed.
Large Groups Can Require More Light
If I'm photographing one person at relatively close range with a softbox, a 200W or 300W LED can provide plenty of usable light.
Move the light farther away to illuminate a large group evenly and the equation changes.
Need f/11 for greater depth of field at the same time?
Now you need considerably more light—or more ISO.
That's another situation where a powerful strobe may make more sense.
LEDs Still Produce Heat
LEDs are dramatically more efficient than old tungsten hot lights, but they aren't heat-free.
High-output fixtures generate heat and need cooling systems. The light striking your subject can also become uncomfortable at high intensities and close distances.
That's another reason I don't automatically believe photographers need the highest-powered LED available.
Battery Power Gets More Complicated as Wattage Increases
Small LEDs can be remarkably easy to power on location.
As output climbs to 200W, 300W and beyond, battery requirements become considerably more substantial.
As I point out in my presentation, 100W battery operation can be relatively straightforward. At 200W or 300W, you're dealing with much larger batteries or multiple batteries. Go substantially higher and battery-powered continuous lighting becomes less practical for many still photographers.
This is another area where flash has an advantage: a battery-powered strobe stores energy and releases it only when the photograph is taken. An LED has to continuously consume energy the entire time it's illuminated.
So Should You Replace Your Flashes With LEDs?
No.
That's not the point of this article.
A better question is:
Should LEDs be part of a professional photographer's lighting toolkit?
For me, the answer is absolutely yes.
I still use flash when flash is the best tool.
But continuous LED lighting now handles a remarkable percentage of my studio photography.
I use it for headshots, actor and actress portfolios, commercial product photography, fashion and creative portraiture.
The biggest change isn't simply that LEDs have become brighter.
It's that they've become good enough in all the areas that matter at the same time:
- Color accuracy
- Power
- Control
- Modifier compatibility
- Portability
- Value
That's why LEDs have gone from something I occasionally experimented with to lighting that I use every week.
Frequently Asked Questions About LED Lighting for Photography
Are LED lights good enough for professional photography?
Yes. Modern professional LEDs can provide excellent color accuracy and enough output for many types of still photography, including headshots, portraits, fashion and product photography.
The key is choosing an appropriate fixture for the subject, modifier, working distance and camera settings.
How many watts do I need for LED portrait photography?
There isn't one universal number, but photographers may need less power than they expect.
For the type of portrait photography I do, 200–300W through an appropriate softbox can already produce a very bright source for a subject at normal portrait distances.
A 100W fixture can also be extremely useful, particularly for environmental portraits, closer working distances or situations where higher ISO settings are acceptable.
Is LED better than flash for headshots?
Neither is universally better.
LED lighting offers the major advantage of allowing you to see your lighting continuously as you work. Flash offers much greater instantaneous output and the ability to freeze motion with short flash durations.
For my own headshot work, I frequently choose LEDs because I value their WYSIWYG workflow.
Are LEDs good for product photography?
I think product photography is one of the strongest applications for continuous lighting.
Being able to watch highlights, shadows and reflections change while moving the light makes precise light placement considerably easier.
The Capital Brewery example in this article illustrates that approach: different continuous sources could be refined independently for the environment, product labels and transmitted light through the beer.
What does CRI mean on an LED light?
CRI stands for Color Rendering Index and describes how accurately a light source reproduces colors relative to a reference source.
For professional photographic work, I generally look for fixtures with strong color-rendering specifications rather than choosing based on wattage alone.
What is a bi-color LED?
A bi-color LED lets you adjust its white-light color temperature rather than being locked to a single value.
That makes it particularly useful for environmental portraits because you can adjust your photographic light to blend more naturally with daylight, tungsten or other existing illumination.
Do I need an RGB LED for photography?
Not necessarily.
If you primarily need high-quality white light, a bi-color fixture such as the LE300Bi may be all you need.
RGB becomes valuable when you want to introduce color creatively without gels. A fixture such as the LA300R or ML100R can still produce conventional white light while giving you a much larger creative color palette.
Can I use photography softboxes with Godox LEDs?
Many Godox COB fixtures use the Bowens mount, making them compatible with a huge selection of photographic modifiers.
Compact models such as the ML100 series use Godox's smaller modifier system, with additional modifier options available through compatible adapters.
The Bottom Line: Don't Think of LEDs as “Video Lights”
That's probably the biggest mindset change I'd encourage photographers to make.
Yes, LEDs are incredibly important to video production.
But modern LEDs aren't just video lights.
They're lights.
And light is our raw material as photographers.
The ability to see exactly what the light is doing, precisely match or deliberately change color, work with familiar modifiers, and move between conventional and creative lighting makes modern LEDs extraordinarily useful photographic tools.
Flash isn't going away.
It shouldn't.
But neither are LEDs.
And for many professional photographers, the best lighting kit isn't going to be flash or LED.
It's going to be:
Flash AND LED.
Learn what each does well, then choose the right tool for the photograph you're trying to create.
Need Help Choosing an LED?
The Godox LED lineup has become so large that choosing a light based solely on specifications can be confusing.
That's where MoLight can help.
We're photographers ourselves, and we actually use continuous lighting for professional photographic work. Tell us what you photograph, whether you work primarily in the studio or on location, what modifiers you use, and whether you need bi-color or full RGB capability.
We'll help you narrow down the options.
MoLight stocks many of the Godox LEDs that make the most sense for professional photographers, including models such as the LA300R, ML100Bi, ML100R and LE300Bi.
And if the Godox light that's right for your work isn't something we currently have on the shelf, contact us. We can special-order many products from the broader Godox LED lineup.
The goal isn't to sell you the biggest light.
It's to help you find the right light for the photographs you want to make.