Review: LuMee for the iPhone 7 Plus
When creating video content, whether it is for production or for the web, there are only a handful of techniques that apply to both situations.
These techniques will make a monumental difference to the overall quality of your video. Period.
Techniques that apply to both scenarios include:
- The camera lens and aspect ratio
- Using a solid tripod to steady shots
- A decent microphone for better audio
- And lastly the correct lighting
I’ve pretty much covered all of the above previously apart from lighting.
I won’t go into too much detail today on lighting, but you should know that it’s very important.
Not only will the correct lighting determine the overall quality of your video, but it will save you time editing and it will help to set the mood of the shot.
When it comes to creating video on your smartphone, you will want to keep things as simple as possible.
Why use a smartphone for video if you need to carry out a production studio of accessories to go with it?
This why the LuMee light case for the iPhone took my fancy.
It’s a clip on case, tick.
It adds “professional quality lighting” according to the packaging, tick.
It’s super portable and no need to faff around on the go, tick.
It ticked all of the boxes that I was looking for.
First and lasting impressions
My initial impressions weren’t great and this just continued.
For £70, I was disappointed with the cheap plastic feel and I later found China-based imports that do near enough the same thing for £5.
The case is also bigger than you think, and with this extra depth I did struggle to fit it into a smartphone holder on my tripod – it did fit eventually.
Now I should note that this product is marketed as a light to take selfies with, so I wasn’t using it for its intended purpose I guess. However, when you read lines like “Front & back professional quality lighting”, you’d be mistaken to think it could be used in other situations.
L: With LuMee activated | R: Deactivated
After testing out a number of scenarios from selfies, still photographs and video, I only noticed a marginal improvement in almost completely dark situations. All of the other times that I tested it out, there was no difference at all. For £70, I expected better.
I should also say that the iPhone 7 Plus, which I used for this test is very good in dark environments anyways.
It was also extremely difficult to remove the case once I had finished with it.
After consulting a number of YouTube videos on how to remove the case, I ended up using a loyalty card to get it under the phone to lift the phone out.
- This phone case is my new favourite gadget - March 28, 2017
- Review: LuMee for the iPhone 7 Plus - March 6, 2017
- You can now upload multiple photos to Instagram posts - February 24, 2017
