The most common and often most effective placement for a ring light is directly in front of your subject, centered, allowing them to look through the middle of the light.
Optimal Placement for Flattering Lighting
Placing your ring light centrally in front of the person you are lighting offers several key advantages:
- Even Illumination: The light source wraps around the camera lens, providing very uniform light across the face.
- Reduced Shadows: This frontal, centered placement minimizes harsh shadows, which is particularly beneficial for portraits and video calls.
- Catchlights: It creates attractive, circular catchlights in the eyes, adding sparkle and life to the subject's gaze.
- Simplicity: It's the easiest setup to achieve consistent, good-looking results quickly.
Enhance Your Ring Light's Glow
Beyond just placement, the quality of the light from your ring light can also be improved. To get a softer, glowy effect from the ring light, you can modify the light source itself. As demonstrated in the provided reference, you can:
- Take paper towels.
- Tape or clamp them around the light.
This simple diffusion technique helps to soften the light output, making it less harsh and more flattering on skin tones, regardless of the light's position relative to your subject.
Placement Variations and Considerations
While centered front placement is standard, you might experiment slightly based on your desired look:
- Slightly Above Eye Level: Positioning the light just slightly above the subject's eye line can add a touch more dimension while still maintaining the benefits of frontal lighting.
- Distance: The distance of the ring light from your subject affects the light's intensity and spread. Closer light is softer but brighter over a smaller area; further light is harder but covers more space. Start close and move back as needed.
Choosing the right placement, combined with techniques to soften the light like using diffusion materials, will help you get the best results from your ring light for photos, videos, or streaming.
