The Pros and Cons of Using LED Lights for Studio Portraits

LEDs aren’t the most perfect lighting tools for studio portraits. But they do offers some advantages when shooting portraits in a studio environment. Jay P. Morgan demonstrates this by using LED lights to recreate the magic of the 1920s:

Advantages of Using LEDs

  • With an LED light, you get to see exactly what you’re going to capture, which is a great advantage when setting up your lights.

using LEDs for studio portraits

  • LED lights, being continuous in nature, are ideally suitable for shooting video.

1920s style portrait

  • You have complete control over your color temperature. You can dial in the color temperature and match with the color temperature of whatever colored light that is coming through a window.
  • LEDs draw a consistent amount of power. Strobes, on the other hand, draw a lot of power in a surge when they charge after discharging in a flash. This is why LEDs are comparatively more convenient to use in most environments, including homes.
  • They work well for using wide open apertures to achieve shallow depth of field.

working with LED lights in a studio environment

Disadvantages of Using LEDs

  • LEDs are not very powerful. So, the very reason you can use wide apertures, means you cannot use small apertures like f/8, f/11 and so on.
  • With LEDs you won’t be able to freeze action. The light isn’t powerful enough.
  • You absolutely need a tripod to shoot with an LED light. You’ll need to use a longer than usual shutter speed, which means you need to stabilize the camera.

how to use LEDs for studio portraits

  • Using modifiers becomes a tad more difficult when working with LEDs. Some LEDs do come with the option to mount a modifier, but not all of them.

modifiers with LED lights

Do you shoot with LEDs? Tell us about your experience.

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