Put your portrait subjects in their best light with these excellent lighting tools.
A powerful strobe with a built-in battery and receiver.
Profoto’s legendary light quality in compact form.
Everything you need to get started learning to light.
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Light is crucial when it comes to portrait photography. Shooting during golden hour sunset or having access to a large window are both great tools for harnessing the power of the sun when shooting portraits, but sometimes the weather isn’t going to be on your side. The best portrait lighting kit will go a long way in improving the creative control you have as a photographer when shooting portraits.
These lighting kit setups will help you control the light, so you can feel confident shooting portraits regardless of location or what time of day you might be shooting. These are some of our favorite lights and lighting kits for shooting portraits.
Why It Made The Cut: Flashpoint’s XPLOR 600 Monolights are a fast and reliable tool for inside the studio or on location, plus they are a fraction of the price of other battery-powered strobes.
Flashpoint’s XPLOR 600 Monolights is one of our favorite mid-level monolights on the market. Although you will have to purchase light stands and light modifiers separately, the XPLOR 600 is the best portable portrait lighting kit for a photographer looking to build out a studio lighting kit.
These lights offer 600 watts of power, 500 full power flashes time with a recycle time of 0.01-2.5 seconds on a fully charged battery, and offer a stable 5600K color temperature. Built in 2.4 G wireless transmission is stable up to 80M away and has high-speed sync of up to 1/80000 seconds, including first curtain sync and second curtain sync.
The battery-operated lights come with a battery, flashtube, lampshade, charger adapter, power cable, Bowens mount reflector, and a custom carrying case. These lights are an excellent place to start when building out a full portrait lighting kit.
Why It Made The Cut: Profoto’s B10 Plus Monolights offer a powerful 500-watt output in a compact 4.2 lbs monolight, and are compatible with other Profoto lights and accessories.
Profoto products are one of the most highly regarded lighting products in the industry and these compact 500-watt lights made a big splash when they hit the market. The Profoto B10 Plus is about the size of a 70-200mm lens, making them some of the smallest monolights currently available. With the addition of two light stands and some modifiers, you will be ready to shoot portraits in the studio or on location.
The lights offer 200 full power flashes with a recycle time of 0.05-2.5 seconds when fully charged. The B10 Plus also features an integrated continuous light with adjustable color temperature, making these a great tool for video shooters as well.
The lights are compatible with any of the light-shaping tools from the Profoto lineup and have an intuitive interface to get you started shooting fast. If money is no issue, you can’t go wrong with the Profoto B10 Plus, the best studio portrait kit.
Why It Made The Cut: A great choice for beginners, Neewer’s 700W all-in-one lighting kit allows you to explore portrait lighting techniques without breaking the bank.
Using lights while shooting portraits can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Neewer’s 700W socket light kit is simple to use, has a non-threatening price tag, and is a great starter kit to learn the way that light can change the mood of a portrait.
The 700W socket light kit comes with two 85W 5500K low-operating temperature light bulbs, although the E27 socket means you can screw in any color temperature or color of bulb you desire.
This kit comes with softboxes, lighting stands, and a carrying case as well. They require an outlet to operate—so these aren’t going to be ideal for working on location and photographers looking to stretch their creativity will likely soon grow tired of the simplicity of this kit, but if it’s a low cost basic lighting setup you are looking for this is the best budget portrait lighting kit for you.
Why It Made The Cut: These dimmable, bi-color LED lights offer professional quality continuous light, for a fraction of the price, making them an excellent choice for new photographers or videographers.
LED lights are well-loved by continuous light photographers and videographers and this set from Neewer is the best LED lights for photography. They’re also a great option for experienced shooters on a budget or amateurs looking to explore their options.
This Neewer kit includes diffusers, stands and carrying cases so you will be ready to start shooting as soon as you unbox. The lights have 240 white and 240 yellow LED bulbs that create a variable color temperature between 3200-5600K. Because this is a budget LED light, you can’t dial in exact color temperatures while using them, but downloading a free light-meter app will help you approximate.
The lights can be powered by an AC adapter or two Sony batteries (must be purchased separately)—making them a versatile option when it comes to shooting location.
Color temperature and brightness of the light are controlled by two separate knobs on the back of the panel. A U mount bracket on the bottom of each lighting panel allows you to adjust the angle. These are decent-quality LED lights for such a low price.
Why It Made The Cut: Lume Cube’s pocket-sized LED lights are extremely portable, making them a great choice for the portrait shooter who wants to travel light.
LED technology has come a long way in recent years, and Lumecube’s line of powerful pocket-sized LED lights prove it. The Lume Cube Panel Pro LED light is a super portable USB powered light that can be mounted to the top of your camera or on a lightstand.
This LED light has a variable color temperature from 3000-5700K and 360 RGB options that can be precisely dialed in using the controls on the back of the light or the Lumbecube app. Brightness can be adjusted between 1 percent power to 100 percent in 5 percent increments.
A compact diffuser is included with the light and through the app you can control the brightness and color temperature of multiple Lume Cube lights. If you are looking for a pocket-sized tool that has the option to introduce creative color to your portrait shoots, look no further than the Lume Cube Panel Pro LED light. Although the lights are sold individually rather than as a kit, if you are looking to build something that’s ideal for travel this pick for the best portable LED lights is a great place to start.
When selecting our picks for best lights and lighting kits we considered price, brand recognition, size and style of lighting tool.
The monolights listed in this story are more expensive options and often require photographers to build their own kit by buying modifiers and light stands, but ultimately we believe these lights are more reliable when shooting portraits in the studio or on location. When shopping for lights paying more up-front often means getting a product that will serve your needs for much longer.
The continuous lights in this story were more often sold as package deals. Both of the Neewer selects are low-cost options that are great for either beginners or photographers who are looking for something inexpensive. Ultimately these lights offer less flexibility than the monolights, give photographers less control and won’t last as long as higher priced alternatives. The Lumecube LED light demonstrates just how far LED technology has come in recent years. This pocket-sized LED panel won’t be ideal for shooting full body portraits, but can be a great way to pop some creative color on a tighter portrait sitter.
Ultimately your budget should be the number one thing to consider when purchasing portrait lights. If you are just starting out and trying to figure out how quality of light can enhance your images a set of continuous lights will serve you well. The continuous lights in this guide are all moderately priced, most of them come with included stands and diffusers and because they are always on you can see how subtle changes in light will create changes in your portraits.
If you’ve been shooting for a while and are looking to invest in more traditional studio strobes for creating portraits, you can’t go wrong with the monolights in this guide. Although these lights don’t come bundled with modifiers or light stands, that actually gives you the option to build out a customized kit that makes sense for your photography. The Flashpoint monolights are an excellent option for a shooter on a budget, but if money isn’t a barrier and your budget is sky-high we’d recommend going for the Profoto lights.
If you are opting to buy an all-in-one kit look for lights that come with lighting stands and some kind of lighting diffuser (a softbox or a shoot through umbrella are both great options for beginners). Keep in mind that the all-in-one lighting kits that you can buy online are usually packaged with lower-quality lights.
LED lights are a versatile tool for both photography and videography. LEDs are a continuous light source, meaning you can see how small changes to the light like intensity and color temperature will change the feeling of your portrait in real time.
Ultimately the “best” lighting for portrait photography depends a lot on what you are trying to accomplish with your portrait. A dark and moody portrait will use very different lighting techniques than a standard head shot or family portrait. Large diffuse lighting sources will make for the most flattering portraits, while more direct light sources will give you portraits that are moodier with more shadows.
Investing in the best portrait lighting kit is important when it comes to portrait photography. Learning to use artificial light sources will give you more control when shooting. Although there are plenty of all-in-one lighting kits that come with stands and modifiers, if you are serious about portrait photography it’s not a bad idea to build out your own kit with quality monolights and light stands.
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