Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For what this is I have no problem with the price versus quality. Here are a few things left out of the product information that you may want to know: It comes with two different color temperature lenses. The one shown is obviously clear, the other is a pale amber color. The manual says the color temperature range is 5500K ~ 6500K but they don't have anything else to say about the lenses. For people complaining you didn't get an instruction manual... you are better off without it. The manual-ette provides either conflicting information or no information at all for what you need to know. It keeps referring to the optional AC adapter as a "charger", says not to leave rechargeable batteries in it when using the "charger", and it does not tell you a thing about what kind of AC adapter to use. I have tested it and connecting an AC adapter DOES NOT provide any charge current at all to any batteries in place. With an AC adapter connected, no matter what position the power switch is placed in no voltage or current is placed across the battery terminals - at all. So no - this thing does not charge batteries inserted in it. That being the case an AC adapter will power the light. You need a 3 volt, tip positive power supply. I tried a 500 mA supply and that works just fine but I suspect even as low as a 300 mA supply would be sufficient, given that this is LED technology - and it isn't being used to charge batteries. Barrel plug size appears to be about 5.1 mm but since I'm using a universal supply with interchangeable plugs it was easy enough to just pick the plug that fits. For people doing a lot of macro photography in a fixed setting that may be a good option, but your camera will be tethered by the length of the AC adapter cord. Be careful, because: This thing is plastic, and plastic where you don't want it: The hot shoe mount is all plastic. If there was any part on this thing that causes me concern it's that plastic foot and screw on the mount for the battery housing - it looks really lightweight. Minor annoyance, but on mine the threads for the screw were really rough and I spent some time screwing it and unscrewing it just to get things to move more smoothly. Oddly enough, it does have metal female threading on the bottom of the hot shoe foot for tripod mounting. I see the complaints about the battery cover not staying on in some reviews, and I'm wondering if people just broke off the tab that holds the cover in place. To be honest?... It's that plastic thing again and I'm inclined to just leave the cover off. On the one I got it takes quite a lot of force to get the cover to slide off and I can see the tab breaking with frequent battery changes. For indoor use the battery springs are strong enough to keep the batteries in place without the cover. And since it cannot charge batteries in place you will be removing that cover frequently to swap batteries. But these are the differences between a light ring in this price range and one costing ten times as much. For what it's worth, the manual says you can expect about 1.5 hours run time using NiMh batteries. Be careful with those mounting rings too. I have only used the 58 mm mount and it took waaaay too long to get that ring threaded. The threads were pretty rough and I checked more than once to make sure I wasn't cross-threading the filter I was screwing it onto. You may want to do that - try screwing the mount onto a cheap filter first rather than risk trashing the threads on your lens. For the people asking again and again "Will this fit on my camera?" C'mon people - this is camera 101: Check your camera to see what size threads are on the lens and see if it matches any of the rings included with the light. If it doesn't, you just buy a step-up adapter ring from your lens threading to any of the included adapter rings. It has a bad instruction manual, it has some low quality plastic, the threads on the mounting rings may not be all that great... So why does it still get four stars? It works! It's a good source of light for macro work, it includes two different color temperature lenses, you do have two different power options if needed, it has a generous supply of mounting rings, you have switch selectable left/right/all lighting options. For the money this will get the job done - just handle it carefully. Ultimately, how much this will help you depends on your camera and it's macro and exposure settings. If you aren't sure if this is a good idea for your particular camera, chances are spending ten times as much won't work any better either. For my needs right now and with my cameras it's working great. My macro work is much improved with this lighting source.