So, I started scouring Amazon for something more compact and adaptable, but mighty enough to conquer candle-lit tables. Lights the size of a deck of cards have been available for years, but they’re often too small to make a dish look good since they lack the number of LEDs to fully illuminate a table. I was attracted to this Viltrox 12W RGB Camera Light, which costs around $60 right now, because it has the molded plastic body of a vintage film camera. It’s made for professional shoots where aspiring filmmakers can employ its multitude of colors. It’s a feature that can be indispensable in restaurants with colored lighting, but for most shoots, I set mine to something neutral to allow the food to shine. Pro photographers set a color temperature in Kelvin to convey this, so I put the Viltrox to 4500K, which looks very close to natural daylight. The handy device comes with a rubber diffuser to provide even light and offer some bump production. The best part is that it’s about the width of two-and-a-half phones stacked on top of each other — small enough to fit in a purse, bag, or even a pocket.
Now, when I bust this thing out and set it to 100 percent, it’s bright enough to light up an entire four-top’s worth of tasty-looking food and cocktails. Reduce the power to something like 40 or 50 percent, and it’s modest enough to just light up one dish in front of you. Some folks eating around you might wonder what’s going on, but you won’t ruin the vibe the way you might with a DSLR and loud clicks of a shutter. Plus, you’ll snap at least a few photos like a content-making professional, free from any blur your phone might introduce while trying to adapt to the dark interior or weird colors from the restaurant’s light bulbs. Seeing the results of this light, I immediately started posting the photos for Eater stories and sharing the link around Eater’s Slack channels. If you want to shoot photos like an Eater editor, all it takes is a modest but mighty camera light. — Matthew Kang, correspondent
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