If you need a lamp in your shot, the regular bulbs have their downsides. They get hot, you can’t dim them, and LED bulbs have bad CRI. Caleb Pike has a handy trick for you that will help you turn any lamp into a versatile, dimmable LED light in a couple of minutes. It’s easy and cheap, and you can use it in plenty of ways in your videos and images.
You will need
A socket adapterSome sticky-back VelcroAn LED light (there are some pretty cheap options available)A lamp
How to make
Before we proceed, let me warn you that your lamp shouldn’t be plugged in and turned on. You will be using a separate LED light, so you won’t need the power from the lamp itself. Caleb’s trick of converting a table lamp into a dimmable LED light is pretty simple. Add some Velcro to the socket adapter and screw it in instead of the light bulb. Add the other piece of Velcro to the LED light, so you can attach it to the socket adapter inside the lamp. And that’s pretty much it.
With a setup like this, you can have some nice accent lighting or practical lighting you can dim and control as you like. You can add some CTO gels to create warm light, or just leave it white. Also, this can come in handy if you’re shooting in someone else’s place and you need to transform the lamps into the lights you can control. You can always have your little lights with you, they don’t take up much space, and you won’t destroy the lamps with this setup. [Video LED Lamp Hack! Turn Any Lamp Into a LED Video Ascent Light | DSLR Video Shooter]
