10 Best Lights for Streaming on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram and More

Excellent, quality lighting brings your streaming quality to a new level. Top streamers on Twitch, Youtube, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and other platforms use advanced lighting equipment to bring a richer experience to their audiences, highlight the subjects of their videos, make videos generally more enjoyable to watch, and immerse their viewers in their worlds. With the best lighting setup for your livestream, you can keep your audience coming back for more.

Why is lighting for streaming important?

Lighting is key to streaming because it:

• Creates a professional streaming experience. The internet is flooded with video creators, and the best streamers stand out for their videos’ quality and clarity. Good lighting is indicative of the quality of your content and the investment you’re making into it, and a visually pleasing livestream is more engaging than a poorly lit one.
• Sets the mood. Each lighting color has its own effect on mood. If you want your videos to be stimulating, bright white lighting is better. If you create more relaxing content such as ASMR videos, choose calming light colors instead.
• Provides special effects. If you want to add a bit of movie magic to your live stream, special effects lighting is just the ticket. These lights often project unique images or patterns that you can adjust and customize to entrance your audience. These beautiful lighting effects will enhance your presentation on any topic.

The 10 best lights for streaming

Among the best lights for streaming are those below:

1. Desk lighting

Desk lighting is exactly what its name suggests: Lighting fixtures placed on your desk. They come in many different forms, though since they must fit atop desks, they’re generally quite compact. While desk lighting is typically associated with simple lamps, when it comes to streaming, it can refer to a light specifically for that purpose that fits on your desk, like a ring light or LED light panels.

2. Ring lights

Ring lights are a popular option among streamers, especially for newcomers. Most ring lights include a fixture in the middle where you can place your smartphone, and you can adjust their brightness and warmth depending on the look you’re trying to achieve. This way, you can stream from your phone while surrounded by a halo of perfect lighting, and your video will come across clearly to your audience. These types of lights are excellent for videos where you’re speaking into the camera.

3. Smart lights

Smart lights are LED or laser lights that you control from an app on your smartphone or tablet. You can use LED light bulbs or LED strip lights to shine virtually any color on the rainbow you desire (especially if they’re RGB color-changing lights), and laser projectors can fill your streaming space with starry skies and intergalactic sights you won’t see in most other videos. This unique streaming environment can help you transport your viewers miles away without anybody moving an inch and make your viewers want to revisit your channel time and again.

4. LED strip lights

If you’re going the budget-friendly route, standard (i.e., not “smart”) LED strip lights are a tried and true streaming lighting option. They often come with adhesive backings so you can affix them to the undersides of cabinets or other furniture pieces in the background of your videos. If you place them properly, your videos will give off a subtle glow that entrances your viewers and keeps them watching. For such simple lights, they impart a formidable amount of wow and wonder.

5. Softbox lights

Softbox lighting, which is often used in filmmaking and photography, works by diffusing LED lighting through thin, translucent materials for more even lighting without harsh spots or dark shadows. Softbox lighting is best used in areas with more space, as their setup is anything but compact. However, with this large setup comes professional streaming lighting that’s levels better than sitting in front of a floor lamp and calling it a day. You should place softbox lights behind the desk you’re sitting at for best results.

6. Key lights

A key light is part of a three-part set up that typically includes fill and back lights. Key lights are placed behind the camera, with a backlight behind the streamer and a fill light placed at a 45-degree angle from the streamer’s face.

All this said, key lights are less a type of lighting than a suggested placement for many types of lighting. For example, softbox lights can function as key lights. So too can ring lights. What’s important is that you pair your key lights with fill and back lights. This way, you get even lighting that keeps all eyes on you.

7. Umbrella lights

Umbrella lights, which are the film industry standard for lighting, come in two types. Some are reflective and direct light back to your shooting setup, and others are shoot-through lights that gently direct light right toward you. In both cases, the U-shape of the umbrella improves your ability to point your lights directly where you need them. Plus, you can break down the stands, bulbs, and shields comprising them for easy storage and transportation.

8. Fill lights

If your face is the center of your videos, a fill light is among the best streaming lights for your content. They excel at preventing shadows from forming around your face. That said, you should couple them with umbrella lights or softbox lights. On their own, they lack the brightness needed to make your videos appropriately transformative and transportive. Coupled with umbrellas or softboxes, though, fill lights make for pitch-perfect lighting that will have your viewers saying “wow” even before you speak your first word.

9. Colorful lights

Most of the above lighting ideas involve typical everyday white or off-yellow lighting. These ideas are often highly popular among video streamers. So when you go the colorful route instead, you immediately distinguish yourself from the many other streamers out there.

Think about it like this: Wouldn’t you at least be surprised and excited to see a streamer surrounded by red starry skies or immersed in at-home auroras? The BlissBulb and Ark Ambient Aurora Light respectively provide these stunning effects that can elevate any streaming experience. You truly have to see these lights to believe them – and if you stream surrounded by these lights, your audience will have full belief in you.

10. Galaxy projectors

With the Sky Lite Evolve, your livestream becomes an unforgettable experience of starry skies, nebulas, and other out-of-this-world visuals. The Evolve will immerse your audience in a full multidimensional experience, with a spherical design that allows you to shine its effects on your walls or ceiling.

In your videos, you can use your Sky Lite to transform your space – and your viewers’ minds – with astonishing multicolor nebula clouds and dancing stars. Plus, you can control the galaxy light effects from your phone, so you can tap your screen out-of-frame to change the view behind you as you’re streaming. This change-at-the-push-of-a-button approach will make you one-of-a-kind among streamers, especially with astral sights like these. Few others are taking their audience on such a special journey without any actual travel.

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BlissLights are among the best lights for streaming

It’s now easier than ever to create a unique viewing experience for your audience, whether with classic LED lights or the unique laser projections of BlissLights. Under starry skies and nebula clouds, streams appear all the more immersive, enticing, and unforgettable. Browse the BlissLights indoor lighting collection for lighting that recasts your streams in a whole new light, for both you and your audience.