Chris
I ordered this light ring to provide lighting for two purposes: 1) taking pictures of things I plan on selling that are too large for my light box. 2) for my wife to use for Facebook Live. Here is the good: LIGHT - I like the ability to control the light temperature. Its not the best quality light spectrum that you can buy, but when I want blue light and the wife want the warmer light we both get our way. The ability to smoothly move through the spectrum is nice for fine tuning what I am looking for. It has two rings of SMLED, one ring you get the blue, the other is the warm light. Turing the dial spins one ring up and then starts dimming the other ring, if that makes sense. The other knob is for dimming both rings. It is plenty bright for my purposes, and dims down nicely so you can use it up close without washing out. CONTROLS - The dials work fine and dont feel too cheap. The power is a simple toggle switch. The digital readout is nice, though I cant say how accurate it is. Still, if I set it to a specific number and I like it, I can record that number and use it again without fiddling. Anyway, it works for me. I will add that the USB port for powering the phone is very helpful. STAND - The stand is a little weaker than I would like, but its good enough for my work. It is certainly enough to support the light fully extended and in any position, but you may have to find the right leg position on the floor to make it feel solid and safe. If you dont extend it that high you probably wont have any issues. The stand knobs are okay, good enough to do the job. I havent had anything slip, but they arent that accurate. Or maybe the flex in other components makes them feel less accurate. Either way, it works well enough for me and I just re position the whole stand to get what I want. It comes with a standard camera mount and a phone "vise" so you can use your mobile. These particular components feel of lesser quality than the rest of the stand. They do work. For the phone it is probably fine, but if you have a heavy camera you might be careful with it, or use your own mount. I do have some concerns on how long the stand will last, so I am not planning on doing lots of adjustments or breaking it down for travel. I pretty much leave it up in the corner, pull it out when I need it, and try to get what I am looking for by moving the stand first, then adjust second. POWER BRICK - The big issue in my experience is the power brick. The cable is just too short. The barrel connects to the base of the light, but if you want to extend the right height up to say, standing height the brick hangs from the base. This doesnt cause the barrel to pull out but it does put unnecessary stress on the cable. A couple of zip or cable ties solves the issue, but it would have been nice to have something that would reach the floor. In addition to chewing up over half the cable length reaching the ring, now you have that much less cable to reach an outlet. Id rather not have to use an extension cord but sometimes it is unavoidable. Just a few more feet on the barrel side of the brick would have done the trick. To the PLer on this...upgrade the brick and you have a winner. At any rate, I am happy with the light ring. If you have the need for a big, bright light that you can use at distance with larger objects, or you need the versatility of the ring light with a camera mount this might work for you.