The Yongnuo YN600 Air LED video light is a great, affordable option to get really nice and diffuse light to brighten up your scene. In this quick review I cover its features and talk about what I like and don’t like about it.
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Yongnuo YN600 Air 5000K on Amazon
Yongnuo YN600 Air 3200 – 5000K on Amazon
NP-F750 Battery Pack on Amazon
Specifications
The Yongnuo YN600 Air comes equipped with 192 SMD LEDs, capable out outputting light at 4000 Lumen. A Lumen is a measure of the quantity of visible light emitted. By comparison, a 100 Watt incandescent light bulb has a brightness of around 1600 Lumen. The great thing about LED lights though is that they do not get hot, even when used for a long period of time.
On the back of the Yongnuo YN600 Air you will find two dimmer switches. These control the alternating rows of LED lights on the front of the LED light panel. You can get both single and dual colour versions of the YN600, emitting either 5500K or anywhere between 3200 – 5500K. Note that the dual colour version only emits half the amount of light if you only use a single colour because each colour is supplied by half of the LED lights.
The Yongnuo YN600 Air is extremely lightweight at 1084g. It is 33.5cm wide, 22.5cm tall and 5.5cm deep. There is a standard 1/4” thread on the bottom of the light so you can easily mount it on the included handle or on any tripod that you may have available. On the back are two slots for batteries and the YN600 supports the NP-F550, NP-F750 and NP-F970 series lithium batteries.
Pros
The main thing I love about the Yongnuo YN600 Air is the quality of the light.
The light is clear and soft. With the diffusion gel built in, I get almost no harsh shadows unless I bring the light right up to my subject.
The Yongnuo YN600 Air is extremely lightweight. It is easy to set up, carry around and use wherever I go. Even cheap tripods can hold the weight of the YN600 easily.
With fully charged NP-F550 batteries, the Yongnuo YN600 lasts for around 1.5 hours. That’s plenty of time for me to get my shots when we are out shooting and there is no power available to plug in the lights.
Finally, I love that the Yongnuo YN600 Air is comparatively cheap. At around $80 on Amazon, I ended up getting two of these. They are the main lights, next to a ring-light, that I use when filming my YouTube tutorials.
Cons
The built quality of the Yongnuo YN600 is definitely its weak point. It feels very plastic and especially the dials on the back are flimsy and cheap. On top of that, the YN600 is not the brightest LED light around. While the diffusion gel makes for some soft light, it also takes away from the strength of the light.
Conclusion
This is one of my favourite lights for filming. I got 2 YN600s set up permanently in my room for filming my YouTube tutorials and I take them out on set when we need some additional light. The built quality isn’t great, but for $80, they do their job surprisingly well and are nice and easy to set up and use.
