I just tested Westcott’s 18-inch ring light for professional photographers — and it’s almost perfect

The best ring lights can elevate your content and they’re often used in portrait photography too. I have reviewed and used a number of ring lights and kits, ranging from budget ones to expensive ones, and the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit falls in the latter category. Easy to set up and control, the Westcott 18-inch is a powerful ring light that comes with a smartphone mount as well as a tripod base for a camera.

The Westcott 18-inch can be powered by batteries or mains, and being able to adjust the color temperature between 3200K and 5600K gives photographers great flexibility. However, its competitors — namely Neewer — come with remote controls. The Westcott 18-inch doesn’t come with a remote shutter button either so it can be difficult to reach the camera if its tripod is at its highest.

To find out if this ring light meets your needs, read my full Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review.

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? An 18-inch ring light with adjustable color temperature and a high color rendering index of 97+
• Who is it for? For professional photographers, content creators and everyone in between
• How much does it cost? It isn’t cheap — the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit is available for $189 / £159
• What do we like? The easy setup, bright and even lighting, versatility, and the fact that it can be powered by batteries or mains
• What don’t we like? Its competitors come with remote controls and it’s expensive

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Specs

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Price & availability

The Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit isn’t the cheapest ring light as it’s aimed at professional photographers and content creators. It retails for $189 at Amazon U.S., and if you’re in the U.K., you can buy it direct from Westcott for £159.

Its price tag makes the Westcott 18-inch pricier than other 18-inch or 19-inch ring lights we’ve tested, such as the Neewer RP19H ($149) and the Neewer RL-18 ($159). We gave the former a full 5-star rating and it might be a better option if you primarily use a smartphone for content creation, as it comes with three phone holders.

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Design

As its name suggests, the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit is an 18-inch ring light with a tripod. It’s practically designed and sports a sleek design. With the included tripod, the kit weighs 11.1lbs, which is a little heavy, but you get a top-notch carry case so you can carry the ring light crossbody or slung over your shoulder.

The ring light alone measures 21.8 x 21 x 4 inches so it is quite big but again, it can be neatly packed away in the carry case. Both the ring light and the tripod are built extremely well and they’re both sturdy. When folded, the tripod measures 20.6 inches, and it can be extended to 74 inches. So you can take self-portraits and then adjust the ring light accordingly to photograph other people or products.

Even at its highest with a Fujifilm X-T50 or Google Pixel 7 Pro mounted, I found the ring light fairly sturdy. Annoyingly, though, I found it hard to reach the shutter button on both my camera and phone when the tripod was at its maximum height. If you were using the ring light to photograph someone else (particularly over 6 feet), you might struggle to reach your camera’s shutter and need to use a remote.

The Westcott 18-inch doesn’t come with a Bluetooth shutter button remote — unlike the Neewer RP19H. You can of course use any third party Bluetooth remote or remote shutter release, your camera’s companion app, or a computer if shooting tethered.

Accompanying the Westcott 18-inch is a 360º rotatable phone mount that can be attached to the cold shoe at the bottom of the ring light. The ring light’s head is also 180º adjustable to get the best angle for your shot.

An important limitation to note is that the ring light has one cold shoe mount only, which is used for the included smartphone holder. Smartphone vloggers may feel shortchanged here as there’s no way to attach a microphone’s receiver (RX) to the kit. The Neewer RP19H, on the other hand, has three cold shoe mounts. If you’re using one of the best cameras with the Westcott 18-inch, you should be able to attach an RX unit to the camera’s hot shoe mount.

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Controls

Not only is setting up the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit a walk in the park, so is controlling it. The ring light boasts a stripped back control scheme, housing just one physical button to switch it on and off, and a clickable dial. Rotating the dial lets you adjust the brightness from 0 to 100%, in increments of 1%.

Pressing the clickable dial enables you to swap between brightness and color temperature. The Westcott 18-inch has a color temperature of 3200K to 5600K, adjustable in increments of 100K. Around the back, next to the mains port, you’ll find a screen that shows you brightness levels and color temperature as well as the remaining battery (if you’re using it without mains power).

And that’s about it! I found the ring light extremely easy to use. However, the cheaper Neewer RP19H does have an edge over the Westcott 18-inch as the former comes with a 2.4GHz remote control if you want to change settings, well, remotely and within a 66 feet range. You can control the Neewer RL-18 with a remote too.

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Power

One of the biggest advantages of using the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit is that it can be powered in two ways. You can use either the included AC power adapter or, if you’re away from a power socket or shooting outdoors, you can use the two included 3,600mAh NP-F750 lithium-ion batteries, or other NP batteries.

Westcott says a set of two batteries can power the ring light for up to 70 minutes, but it doesn’t specify at what color temperature and brightness level, so I put it to the test. I left the ring light running at 100% brightness and 5600K, and the Westcott 18-inch powered down after 60 minutes, so not too bad.

Also included with the ring light is a battery charger. The Westcott 18-inch upstages the Neewer RP19H and the Neewer RL-18 as neither of them come with commercial photography batteries, making the Westcott 18-inch the top choice for outdoor photographers.

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Performance

Just like the Neewer RP19H, the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit can get extremely bright, and if you’re using it at full brightness, I recommend looking away when turning it up as it can hurt your eyes. Surprisingly, Westcott doesn’t specify the number of LED lamps in the ring light or the maximum illumination.

Its color rendering index (CRI) is rated at 97+, similar to the Neewer RP19H and slightly higher than the Neewer RL-18 (95). CRI basically tells you how accurately a light source illuminates the subjects, and the higher the CRI, the more the subject appears true to original color. The Westcott 18-inch, then, has an excellent score.

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To test the color accuracy, I first took a photo without the ring light on and another with the light on, as you can see in the gallery above. I much prefer the way my face looks in the second photo as that’s what I see when I look in the mirror. Light is evenly spread across my face and the ring light has helped reduce the grain/noise caused by shooting in a dimly lit environment too.

Now, onto the color temperature. Unlike the Neewer RL-18 which has two color temperature settings only, the Westcott 18-inch’s color temperature can be adjusted between 3200K (warm) and 5600K (cool) and at increments of 100K.

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Being able to adjust the temperature at increments of 100K gave me more freedom and flexibility to alter the lighting depending on the shot or mood I was going for. Similar to the Neewer RP19H, this helps the Westcott 18-inch stand out in a crowded market.

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Another thing I love about the Westcott 18-inch is its high brightness adjustability settings, which can be especially helpful if the lighting in the room or outdoors isn’t ideal. You could be shooting outdoors on an overcast day but you could still light up the subject appropriately and not waste a shoot day.

For instance, the photos in the gallery above were shot in a dark room, with the ring light as the only light source — and they’ve turned out bright, sharp and detailed, and the background hasn’t been sacrificed either. I had set the brightness to 70%, so this isn’t even the ring light’s highest power and yet, the photos are great.

Also, you could maintain the brightness and exposure on your shots by shooting at a higher shutter speed or narrow aperture, or if you wanted to shoot at a slower shutter speed, you could adjust the brightness and color temperature according to ensure your image wasn’t too bright.

Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit review: Verdict

If you’re a professional photographer or a content creator looking to elevate your content and attract followers, I’d highly recommend the Westcott 18-inch Bi-Color LED Kit. It’s bright and powerful, and its 3200K-5600K adjustable color temperature offers lots of flexibility. It’s extremely easy to set up and it comes with a carry case, and you can use it on the go too thanks to the included batteries.

However, the Westcott 18-inch does have some limitations. It doesn’t come with a remote control or remote shutter button while its chief rival, the Neewer RP19H, comes with both of these things so you can adjust its settings within a 66 feet range and remotely trigger the shutter too. Oh, and the RP19H is slightly cheaper than the Westcott 18-inch.

Overall, though, I’ve been pleased with the Westcott 18-inch’s performance. Despite its flaws, this is an excellent ring light for professional photographers, with solid performance across the board.