In terms of price, I paid GB£69 for it at .uk but it’s priced 51.95€ and US$59.95 on Lume Cube’s website so there was definitely a bit of premium added there. Look closely at the area around the hole in the diffuser in the first photograph and the yellowish fading can be seen. Secondly, the black rubber washer on the top of the mount is discolouring the white rubber. It would have been much better if the hole in the diffuser had been a bit bigger. First the hole in the rubber is 1/4″ size so when using the supplied hot shoe mount, the retaining wheel slightly crushes the diffuser. Overall, the Panel Mini works really well both for pieces to camera and for doing product reviews on the bench.įrankly, the only issue I have is the softening diffuser and there are two problems. In that shot, the light diffuser has been put on. I have my Panel Mini mounted onto a SmallRig frame as shown in the picture on the right. The spec says 1.8 hours for recharging and I wouldn’t quibble about that. In one test, I got 1 hour 7 mins but as soon as the brightness comes down, the battery life goes way up. The white colour temperature goes between 3200K and 5600K in 100K increments and allows matching colour temperature to the ambient light.Īt maximum brightness, the display shows around 1.2 hours of use: that’s 1 hour 12 minutes. The brightness goes up in 5% increments and is rated at 550 lux at 0.5 m on 100% brightness. Once turned on, the same button toggles between brightness and colour temperature, and the rocker dial is used to control brightness and temp. The Panel Mini powers up with a long press on the small button on the top right. Finally, round the back is a small monochrome OLED display showing battery life, brightness and white temperature. On the third side, there is on/off/select button, a rocker dial and a USB C charging port. Looking over the Panel Mini, the array of 60 LEDs is visible on the front, and on two sides there are 1/4″ threads for mounting the light in a preferred orientation. In the box with the Panel Mini is a rubbery white softening diffuser, a simple hot shoe mount and a USB C charging cable. The Mini’s case is made of metal in a gunmetal grey with softly rounded corners and it feels like a quality item. The Panel Mini is a pocket-sized LED lamp roughly the size of a credit card (90 mm x 55 mm) but quite a bit fatter at 10 mm and it weighs in at 85 g so it’s heavy for the size. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now, so let’s take a look at the Panel Mini in more detail. After some market research and a friend’s recommendation, I decide to buy a Lume Cube Panel Mini. Over the years, I’ve been improving my equipment – tripod, boom arm, lavalier mic, cage – and now it was time to improve my lighting. In addition to my writing for Geek News Central, I record the occasional product review video to accompany some of the articles.

Lume reviews