LED light vs flash?

I had a $10 Best Buy coupon to use, I found an open box Dynex LED light for $15, and it’s for use with a camcorder/camera. It screws onto the shoe, although there are no contacts as it's just a “dumb” light, not “smart” like a flash. It uses 2 AAA batteries, it’s bright but the range does seem to be somewhat limited. I have not had time to really use it, but I did take a few quick snaps around my apartment.

It seems like it would be fine for fill light for photographing objects, but I think for photographing people it has limited use, since the non-stop light would be annoying and cause a lot of squinting.

Has anyone had luck using one of these? It seems like it would work well for getting close-ups of items for websites or Ebay, and I like that you can see the shadows and reposition before you take the picture, vs. a flash where you can’t always predict where the shadows will be. Maybe it would work well as fill light outdoors? I’m using the Nikkor 35mm 1.8 on a D40.

Thoughts?

it will be duller than dirt. A real flash would do better than it for any and everything. What can you really expect for $15 anyway? You may as well use a desklamp.

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Originally Posted by Anbesol

it will be duller than dirt. A real flash would do better than it for any and everything. What can you really expect for $15 anyway? You may as well use a desklamp.

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Desk lamps seem a bit yellow to me and hard to carry around, especially outdoors. I don't expect a $15 LED to work like a $400+ flash or $4,000+ studio setup. I was simply asking about limited use, such as fill light when photographing still objects for online use, to see if anyone had experience with this.

Thank you for your response.

I was being facetious, sorry if it came off as rude. I have seen these items before and I honestly found them entirely worthless. What little that can do, your stock flash should do much better.

By the way - you can get bulbs with better spectrum, not all lights cast yellow. You can also compensate with custom white balance to offset the yellow cast.

Those things are only good for video. Better to invest in an inexpensive flash. Yes, you'll spend more. But you'll use it a lot more and for a lot longer.

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

Those things are only good for video. Better to invest in an inexpensive flash. Yes, you'll spend more. But you'll use it a lot more and for a lot longer.

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Thanks John, I actually have 3 different flashes, I just like to try different things. I figure that the more things you try, the more you learn!

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Originally Posted by havana_joe

Thanks John, I actually have 3 different flashes, I just like to try different things. I figure that the more things you try, the more you learn!

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Oh - well that's different. In that case, buy it and show us the results! :)