Gamer essential or photographer’s dream? This brilliant RGB floor lamp isn’t just contemporary interior design, it’s also an amazing tool to improve your portraits
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As far back as I can recall I’ve been obsessed with lighting. Just as far back, even to the days of red light, I’ve been obsessed with coloured lighting even more, luckily this RGB photography light is the perfect way to add easy impact to your portraits and product photos!
This RGB floor light by RGB aficionados GOVEE is exactly as described, a large light strip (which you have to wedge into a sectioned tube) with a base that plugs into your socket. But, naff sale speak aside, it’s also the gateway to getting a gel photography effect without having to learn the intricacies of flash.
With a constant light source, you have the benefit of seeing your lighting as you cast it, and when it comes to balancing multiple colours, that’s a godsend – believe me – and if you’ve always wanted to get into the world of gelled flash photography, this is the most simple and best way to dip your toes without making a big investment.
The concept is simple, but the effects can be out of this world
GOVEE RGB FLOOR LAMP FEATURES
As you’ve come to expect from an RGB product now, it offers 16 million colours, selectable in-app, as well as ‘white’ between 3400-4300k colour temperature. The brightness is fully adjustable from 0-100% and claims to output up to 1000 lumens, which is admittedly bright when you’re using it as intended.
The light strip itself can operate as a single light or be divided into seven multiple sections (14 using ‘Finger Touch’ where you can click the exit portions you want to display one of two colours). These can be set independently in the intuitive app or you can take advantage of the 58 preset ‘scenes’ (including user-generated DIY scenes) that will give you a wide range of pre-built lighting options, both static and moving (think flashing police lights or calming twinkle).
For those that want to justify the purchase of a funky RGB photography light with dual purpose interior design statement, it fully integrates with Alexa and Google Assistant and include a 24 hour timer… to really save that finger punishment! It can also bring a room alive by synching to music (using your phone as a mic). There’s even an AI scene recognition function which allows you to upload an image and have it pull out the colours from the scene – nice gimmick.
Mixing the Gove RGB Floor Lamp with rear sync flash and slow shutter speeds gives amazing results
Intended as gamer bait interior design, this RGB floor lamp is the best way to get the gelled flash effect the easy way!
EASE OF USE
It’s a light, point it and shoot! What do you want me to say? Seriously though, apart from some slight wrangling to get the light strip aligned with the (flatpack) tube housing, this couldn’t be more simple to use. Gove RGB products have come a long way and are one of the more dominant RGB light manufacturers right now. This experience is very evident when you start using it as an RGB photography light.
The whole light stands at 136cm tall and is relatively lightweight, allowing me to freehand it over my model while railing off shots with the camera in the other hand. The powered, while not massive (approx 10-12ft?) is long enough if you’ve got a small space, and I didn’t find it at all intrusive.
Using the app to change colours could easily be a pain point, but actually it’s very well laid out and extremely simple to do – a must for RGB photography. For block colours there’s a colour wheel – two, actually, with the second displaying a range of colour-categorised moods – and the scenes are set into descriptive categories, such as Life >Movie, Tunnel, Fireworks, or Festival>Halloween, Christmas etc. Gove has done well to ensure nothing is more complex than it needs to be here.
Despite the light strip’s relatively small width, the light is pretty soft so you won’t have to worry about sacrificing power with extra levels of diffusion. This is essential since you have a very thin sliver of light to work with compared to a softbox or similar.
Finally, once you’ve added in your Wi-Fi details (it works exclusively on 2,4GHz, so make sure your router is outputting this alongside 5GHz) connecting is very quick and painless. It’s a small win, but when these things refuse to connect it’s a massive pain that’s gratefully avoided.
Intended as gamer bait interior design, this RGB floor lamp is the best way to get the gelled flash effect the easy way!
FLASH OR CONTINUOUS FOR GELLED LIGHTING?
The battle of flash vs continuous lighting is one that’s raged on for decades. Each has pros and cons and there are situations where the answer is very clear cut.
Flashes
Flashes have a far higher output (in general) than continuous lighting, making them perfect for illuminating in brighter areas or larger spaces. Added grunt also means you can sacrifice some power by using modifiers (soft boxes etc). Many modern flashes also allow you to change the power output and settings directly from the on-camera trigger.
You also have the benefit of portability, with any of the modern flash heads (and all flash guns) being battery operated. However, even with a modelling light, you won’t know how the light will impact your shot until you take it. Cue a lot of tweaking, shooting and tweaking again!
Continuous
Typically continuous lighting means you’re sacrificing a lot of power over flash heads. This limits the viability of modifiers (softboxes/reflective umbrellas etc) as well as on-location work and often means you’ll have to work at slower shutter speeds or wider apertures. For non RGB lights, you will also drop some power output when you’re shooting through a gel.
However, continuous lighting has the benefit of giving you an instant impression of what you’re shooting. When you’re using an RGB photography light, dedicated or otherwise, this includes the colour effect. You also don’t have to fiddle around switching out gel colours between shots, or jerry rigging the gels to fit your flash head, which can be a real pain point.
As you can see, both formats have strengths and weaknesses and I thoroughly recommend having both versions in your arsenal. There are definitely some situations where even a ‘cheap’ floor lamp has a clear advantage over a £500 flash though.
92.0 Score
Pros
- 16m-wide colour gamut
- Near seamless light tube
- Powerful for what it is
- Easy to use app
Cons
- Slightly fiddly to assemble
Final Verdict
Sure it's been designed as a hipster lounge lamp to sit in the back of your gaming YouTubes, but expand on that functionality slightly and you have a versatile RGB light stick for your photography. While it's not going to make much impact in bright environments, it's great if you're lucky enough to be in-studio or pull the curtains across. The easy-to-use app is intuitive and quick to navigate and the ability to change section colours independently is brilliant. I loved using this so much that I bought a second, far cheaper, knock off... don't do that, buy this!
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