Assuming the same technical skill, good lighting can be the difference between a good photographer, and a great one.

Everyone can shoot around “golden hour”, or with overcast skies… but how do you control harsh lighting? How do you provide fill when you shoot against the sun? How do shoot indoors in a dimly lit room? All challenges every photographer will eventually face. And if you’re shooting a paid session, there often isn’t a mulligan. You have to get it done right the first time.

But nobody wants to shoot lugging a cart full of lighting equipment (actually, some people don’t mind – I see it often)!

But if you’re like me, and like to pack as light as possible, then we’ll cover some of the best Portable Lighting Kits, and it doesn’t matter if you primarily shoot indoors or outdoors, with natural light or with strobes… I’ll have a recommendation for you.

2024 Update: “Favorite” is subjective, for me, I’ll most often use my Godox V1 flashes… for a natural light photographer, it could be just a reflector. For a headshot photographer, perhaps continuous lighting via LEDs gives you instant feedback. My recommendation, find your style, play with a couple lighting choices and find what works best for you!

Also See: Will AI Headshots Ruin the Photography Industry?

Let’s start with natural light…

Lighting Equipment for Natural Light

When starting out, you’ll likely have no choice but to rely on natural light. Natural light has no problems giving you gorgeous images for free, it’s also relatively easy to use. Shooting at “golden hour” can remedy the majority of issues you’ll have with natural light, but there’s one inexpensive tool that can help… and even more so when you shoot at midday…

#1 – The 5-in-1 Reflector

Available in all shapes and sizes, and from a variety of companies. They all do the same thing, and you can find most decently sized ones for under $30. If you’ll be shooting with an assistant that can help with lighting, then get the one with handles.

Most of the time you’ll want to use the silver side, and the translucent disk. During “golden hour” it’s great for shooting against the sun, use the reflector to bounce light back onto your subject. Midday you can use the translucent disk to soften light, or you can just use the reflector to create a shadow for your subject.

You can even use it indoors. Natural light coming in from the windows will give you a nice, soft wrapping light that mimics the look of a softbox. A reflector lets you control this light better. The reflector will let you diffuse the light, add fill light, or cut out a little light to add a bit of drama to your shot.

For indoors (and outdoors if you don’t have an assistant), you’ll need a sturdy light stand and a reflector holder. I’d also recommend a few sandbags to weight down the light stand if shooting outdoors, otherwise you’ll be chasing down your reflector if the wind gets a hold of it.

It’s a no brainer for any photographers toolkit. They’re small, portable, an easy tool to get the most out of the available natural light. You’ll definitely want to invest in a nice collapsible reflector.

Here’s a shot of mine where I used a reflector, a useful tool I can throw in a small camera bag when I’m shooting on the beach, I can use a reflector for fill:

Small + Portable Continuous Lights / Flash / Strobes

As amazing as natural light is, it’s not without its drawbacks. For one, natural light can be quite fickle —the quality of light you get one moment may not be the same 15 minutes later. This can sometimes make matching a batch of photos in post a nightmare. The weather also decides how much light you can get; it’s not always reliable.

For a beginner, the thought of investing in a lighting system might be overwhelming.

Portable LED Lights

Continuous lights are the easiest to use because you know exactly what you’re getting – the only drawback is the amount of power that you can produce. It certainly can’t match that of the sun, nor will be as powerful as a sub $50 flash.

If you’re shopping for LED lights just make sure they’re a high CRI rating. I love the Westcott Ice Light 2, but at $400 a pop – I hate the price. Instead grab these small Yongnuo versions of the ice light for just $120.

But both the original Ice Light and Yongnuo version are still pretty big, if you need something portable I recommend this portable light by Pixel (Official Website). It’s pocketable, includes a diffuser, it can change to different colors, has a high CRI rating – and it’s even magnetic (perfect for small content creators eg. Instagram Reels, YouTubers, etc.). It comes with a cold-shoe mount if you need to mount it to your camera, and has a few adhesive magnetic plates if you have a few fixed places your light would work well in.

You can combine portable LED lights with gelled off-camera flashes to add interesting color effects like I did so below:

Though bear in mind that depending on the power of your flashes, it’s likely to drown out the colored LED’s.

You can also set your camera to a long exposure, an experiment with creating light trails with LED lights.

For video, a quick tip for beginning filmmakers, is that you can use LED lights with an adjustable color temp (like the ones mentioned above) to color match with your other light sources. For example, a lot of household bulbs are are 3000k, ie. warm white, you can adjust your LED light to match that temperature which gives you a much more professional image.

Off-Camera Flash

In reality, you don’t really need a lot to start with off-camera lighting. You’ll just need a flash, a transmitter, a few rechargeable batteries, a light stand, a bracket, and a light modifier. That might sound like a lot, but if you lay it all out, it’ll look a little something like this:

• Flash or Speedlight – You won’t need a first party flash because those can be quite expensive. A trusted third-party brand like Godox has some amazing offerings. If you are on a tight budget, try looking for flashguns without E-TTL metering (auto mode, but for your flash), there are plenty under $50. I started, and still have the Strobist favorite from the early days – the Vivitar 285HV and it still works like a champ.
• Transmitters and Receivers – These widgets let you adjust the settings on your flash remotely and sync it to your camera. Nothing much to say here except keep an eye out for compatibility with your flash and camera. I’d personally skip the cheap ones, they’re quite the headache and very inconsistent no matter how many channels you try. If you’re firing just one flash I’ve found them to be okay, but the second you want to fire multiple flashes it’s just really inconsistent and that’s not what you want on a shoot. The best bang for the buck, and the ones I’m currently using in the Phottix Ares II. You can pair this with a sub $50 manual flash of your choice and you’re ready to go!

*Note: check the indicated compatible camera systems when shopping around. TTL systems specify the camera brand. 

Here’s a portable lighting kit for under $200…

Flash – Grab the Neewer TT560 for about $60, you can pair it with the Neewer flash triggers if you want to save money, but I’ve found them to be a little unreliable.

Light Stand – More useful than just propping up your external flash. It’ll also let you set up a portable backdrop, hold up your reflector and more. Invest in a good quality light stand and it’ll last you most of your career. Your choice here, you can get them as cheap as $20, but I do recommend c-stands. Bonus, if you ever wanted to resell them in the future, c-stands are easy to resell – cheap light stands not-so-much.

Flash Bracket or Swivel – These connect to the light stand and lets you mount a light modifier. You’ll want a swivel if you want to work with umbrellas. Go for a bracket if you want to get yourself a softbox for more control. Note: the Godox bracket pictured below also has an input hole for mounting umbrellas. Your choice here, they’re easily found for under $20.

A Shoot Through Umbrella – To keep things simple, you can opt for a shoot-through umbrella when you’re getting started. You don’t need anything fancy here, a simple shoot through umbrella for under $20 is all you need. You could opt for a soft box if you want, but an umbrella is the easiest to set-up, and easiest to shoot with. If you’re new – I’d start here and then expand.

Beauty Dish –  Once you start to learn how to light, I’d invest in another light modifier, and a beauty dish with a grid is one of my favorites.

Bowens Mount Bracket for Speedlite – If you went with my recommendation for a beauty dish, you’ll also need this bracket if you want to use your speedlite’s/flashes.

Here’s a shot I got with this exact setup:

Another one of my favorite shots, also lit with a single strobe with a large softbox:

Final Thoughts

I have a lot of different tools but a single flash bounced off a wall or ceiling will take you a long way. Any questions? Let me know on Instagram @jaysoriano.