Tip: The Selfie Flashlight Trick & other phone light solutions

You'll need a friend for this, but it will pay huge dividends

This week I attended a conference in Scottsdale in one of those hotel rooms that are absolutely hideous for photography.

I think you know them well. Overhead lighting, producing shadows on the face, racoon eyes and yet, even in that environment, most of the attendees hold their phones up in the air to take selfies.

And they look awful.

So I was thrilled to take a moment during my talk at the conference (a meeting of Best Western Hotels managers, thanks for the invite!) and clue them in on the flashlight trick.

The built-in flash on any phone is atrocious and looks like you’ve lit someone with a blow torch. The flash is too close to the lens. Never, ever use it. Sadly, no one has yet to introduce an easy to use, compact, portable, mass market flash unit that we can buy for phones, a product that’s sorely needed.

So what’s our best option? The free Flashlight app.

Everybody in the room has a phone, right? So I asked the attendees to split into pairs, and have one person take the selfie while the other turned on the flashlight app and used it to illuminate their partner.

I asked them as well to do before and after photos, and from the sound of the crowd, they were quite happy with their results.

Ruth and I use the flashlight technique when we’re on the road photographing food. It works really well for those shots too.

But what about when the flashlight isn’t strong enough (which is a given in normal light) and you need more illumination? I have some suggestions for small, compact external lights you could use with your phone and still be true to mobile photography. As in, no light stands to drag with you.

The best, easiest, most logical light for readers to carry around with them would be this Harlowe Sol 5 which sells for $80 . It snaps to the back of the phone via MagSafe—for Android users, you can snap it to the back of a MagSafe phone case. The light is about ten times stronger than what you get from the flashlight app, and the cool thing is, you don’t need any accessories to snap it to your phone.

The light isn’t strong enough to make any kind of real impact outside, but in a hotel room, you’ll see the results.

The Sol 5 has a little selfie mirror to help you compose your shot if you want to use the sharper, main 1x lens instead of the front facing camera, but frankly, it’s not much help. You can’t truly line yourself up that way, as it doesn’t see what the camera sees. The light is twistable, and can be used on both sides and as a little light you can lug with you, this can’t be beat.

The other alternatives require a lot more additional accessories.

—Aperture Amaran is one of several small LED lights that sell for under $100. It’s probably about five times more powerful than your phone flashlight, but not so intense that it will hurt the eyes of your subject. If you do buy this one, know that you will need two accessories to attach it to the top of your phone. First, you’ll need a grip or selfie stick and attach it to a phone tripod mount, which sell for around $30. They have what’s called a cold shoe at the top for snapping in accessories.

Longtime readers know I swear by my Selfie Stick (Insta360, $25), but you could also use a smaller grip, which sells for about the same amount of money, like this one below from Movo. With the Movo, you wouldn’t need the tripod mount, which I attach to the top of the Selfie Stick. See the cold shoe atop?

Sorry, but there’s yet one more accessory you need. A little cold shoe mount adapter to get the light atop your cold shoe. This one below from SmallRig sells for $13.

Three lights are better than one

My fried Luis, who works with Rich DeMuro from KTLA in Los Angeles, has it figured out. He has three smaller powered lights that all snap to each other, thus eliminating all those other accessories.

The Ulanzi VL49 sell for just $20, and he snaps three of them together, and mounts them atop his Joby grip and a cold shoe connector. How about a light balloon that fits in the pocket?

Yes, this is an inflatable light that you can carry around in your pocket, from Neewer

Here you’ll find the strongest, softest light of all mentioned here, and the cool thing is, it really does fit in the pocket, and can be carried around with you. You’ll just have to blow it up first, but it only takes a few seconds.

The snag is how to mount it with your phone. I’ve struggled on this via solo shoots, and not done well. Ulanzi wants you to use supplied magnets and position it on a light stand, and for the traveling photographer, I have a feeling you left your stand at home.

I bought one from both Ulanzi and Neewer and never was able to do much with the magnets—that is, until I finally figured it out. Use that little cold shoe adapter like the one pictured above from Small Rig and the magnet, which has a hole that connects to the cold shoe unit. Bend it so that the light goes over the phone, and now you (finally) have a good, strong, soft light that can you use with a phone—and that fits in your pocket for mobile shoots.

Everything looks better with light, right—especially for those sunset shots when we turn into silhouettes. The Neewer model (link above) sells for $59.99. (Be advised that we get a small affiliate commission if you choose to order.) The Ulanzi unit, which is more expensive, is pretty much identical, but either way, don’t forget about the cold shoe adapter.

Hot, hot hot!

You know you’re in Arizona when you see 75 foot tall cactus plants! This is where I’ve been this week—nothing like the desert heat!

It was so hot that while I was taking photos of the cactus—in the shade, I immediately got a screen warning from Apple saying that the phone had to cool down.

What to do? Three quick ones. Remove the phone from the case to let it breath, turn it off and restart, and close every open app. Worked for me!

Mountain Shadows Resort in Scottsdale

Thanks again to Best Western for inviting me to speak at its hotel manager’s meeting (at the beautiful Mountain Shadows resort in Scottsdale) and to all of you for taking the time to watch, read and listen today and say such nice things about the Scripps Photowalks renewal for season 3, which begins Sunday at 10 a.m. ET.

“Congratulations on your Photowalks renewal!! it’s a great show and you’re an engaging personality. I’m really happy for you.👏👏👏👍👍👍—Debbie

“Must see!” —Louis

“Congratulations…looking forward to seeing each episode and wondering where you might be shooting them.” —Todd

“A third season!!!! Sounds like a story for the local newspaper.”—Kevin

Jeff