Elgato Ring Light Review vs Key Light and Key Light Air

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This Elgato lighting buyer’s guide is a review and detailed comparison of Elgato’s 3 lights: the Ring Light, Key Light, and Key Light Air.

Differences overview
Performance
Green Screen Demonstration
Features and Convenience
Eye Strain
Verdict

Differences Overview

The Elgato Key Light is a large 350 x 250 mm (13.77 x 9.84 in) panel with a brightness of 2800 lumens held up by a desk clamp.

The Key Light Air is a smaller 205 x 205 mm (8.07 in x 8.07 in) panel at 1400 lumens held up by a flat base like a lamp.

The Ring Light is circular with an outer diameter of 43.2 cm (17 in) and a brightness of 2500 lumens. Out the box, it connects via a desk clamp like the Key Light.

All 3 lights can have their brightness and color temperature (2900-7000 Kelvins) controlled by an app connected to wifi, but only the Ring Light has physical controls for this. The Ring Light also comes with a camera ball mount with a 1/4th inch screw.

Pricing

I bought the Elgato Ring Light and Key Light for their launch price of $200 and the Key Light Air for its launch price of $130. Click the links to see their current pricing on Amazon.

The Ring Light and Key Light both come with “Master Mount” poles that you screw the actual light onto. The Ring Light comes with the Master Mount S and the Key Light comes with the Master Mount L.

The maximum height of each pole is 74cm (29 in) and 125 cm (49 in) respectively. This means you can also separately purchase and attach Elgato’s heavy base and replace the desk clamp for use on a desk or floor. At the bottom of the Master Mounts are three screws that can be removed with a hex key.

Key Light	Key Light Air	Ring Light
2800 lumens	1400 lumens	2500 lumens
$200 launch	$130 launch	$200 launch
desk clamp	flat base	desk clamp
Master Mount L	custom mount	Master Mount S
350 x 250 mm panel	205 x 205 mm panel	43.2 cam diameter
app controlled	app controlled	app + physical controls
		camera ball mount

Performance

Now for the most important part of this review, performance! These performance tests were done on the Logitech Brio webcam (my review) with manual settings to get the best shot possible. The four setups shown are the Ring Light, Key Light, Key Light Air and TWO Key Light Airs. I added the last one because that’s the setup I've been using since the Key Light Airs launched which has been working extremely well.

I won’t flood this article with every single shot at every brightness and color temperature setting, but I demonstrate many of them in my comparison video.

Daylight Performance

100% brightness is overkill, but it’s a good way to show off how bright each light gets.

Bright daylight isn’t much of a challenge for any of these lights. Whether used head on or at a 30 degree or wider angle, the Key Light and Key Light Airs didn’t cast any significant shadows. Naturally, the Ring Light aced this as well. Lets move onto more of a challenge, sunset.

Sunset Performance

I changed the Ring Light and Key Light’s color temp to match the sunset. Forgot to on the Air.

For the above shot, all 3 lights are positioned directly in front of me with the exception of the dual Key Light Air shot. I put both at about 40 degrees. The big difference here is the shadows. The Ring Light and dual Key Light Air setup do the best job of getting rid of shadows around my neck. The Ring Light seems to have the softest overall light distribution which is great for hiding wrinkles! This is why ring lights are popular with makeup artists.

Night Performance

Here the difference in lumens is finally apparent. The Key Light Air by itself can’t provide enough light to the back wall for my Brio to know what to do with it. The Key Light illuminates the entire shot even more than the Ring Light.

As for shadows, it’s a similar story to sunset lighting. The two Key Light Airs together clean up shadows better than the Ring Light in this shot. This Key Light casts a shadow downwards below my glasses, but it’s nothing radical. This is only half the story though. As I’ll talk about shortly, keeping the Key Light and Key Light Air light head on is great for getting a shot or two but it’s impractical for long use. At an angle, they’re easier on the eyes, but then they cast a pretty mean shadow.

Pitch black is the worst case scenario for content creators, but it is also an incredibly common one. All three lights transform the shot from unusable to stream-worthy, but I give the advantage to the Ring Light and the 2 Key Light Air setup.

Green Screen Demonstration

While we’re in pitch black darkness, let’s see how each light does with a green screen. The panel I use is the Elgato Green Screen MT (my review). On Elgato’s website, they list the Ring Light and Key Light Air as having “moderate” chroma key performance, while the Key Light is “perfect”. Does that hold up in testing?

The images have had their quality compressed, but the results still get across. Green screens are unforgiving when it comes to uneven lighting. These results mirror the night time shots, but with these the stakes are higher. Honestly, I don’t understand how Elgato decided on their criteria for what makes “moderate” or “perfect” chroma key performance. In my testing, they’re all about even when placed head on.

Features and Convenience

Elgato has done an excellent job with their product ecosystem. All 3 lights are compatible with the free Elgato control center app which can control them all separately in synchronization to adjust their brightness and color temperature.

Each light is compatible with the Elgato Stream Deck hardware and app, and their Multi Mount system (Elgato website). Out the box, I prefer the Key Light Air's flat base to the desk clamps, but again you can buy the base separately. The Ring light adds a camera ball mount which is, in theory, super useful. In practice, the Ring Light's minimum height is still way too tall to make good use of putting my webcam there. If it works for your setup, you can even put a camcorder, full body camera, or a microphone. This is probably most useful if you buy the heavy base attachment and stand the Ring Light on the floor rather than on a desk. The multi mount system with flex arms and other attachments adds even more versatility to this.

Each light took me less than 5 minutes to set up… physically. Actually connecting it to a phone or computer is still just as much of a hassle as it was 6 months ago. I honestly wish they would have just used bluetooth or patched the app or something. The Ring Light comes in clutch with physical buttons so you can adjust the brightness and color temperature even if your app is giving you problems.

All 3 lights are feature rich and easy to use, but I give the edge to the Ring Light for the camera ball mount and physical buttons. However, the base of the Key Light Air does makes it easier to move around on a desk.

Eye Strain

Eye strain is the make or break difference for me. The Key Light and Key Light Air are way easier on my eyes than just getting a big light bulb by itself with no diffusion. That said, when I put them head on while streaming online tournaments for several hours, they were brutal on my eyes and gave me a splitting headache. The diffusion is good on the Key Light and Key Light Air but they're not meant to be positioned 12 o’clock for long periods at a time.

A 30-45 degree angle is the sweet spot. Unfortunately, that introduces the problem of uneven lighting that I demostrated. The price of two Key Lights was absurd to me, so I ended up sticking to two Key Light Airs for my setup most of the time. The Ring Light addresses this by not having a flat panel, but an open circle. It still lights softly and evenly but without the blinding death ray if you put them directly in front of you. Excellent choice.

Verdict

Elgato has released high quality products with their lighting lineup. All three of these lights are very bright, convenient to use, and have good app and Multi Mount compatibility. The objective here is to get soft, even light that's not harsh on your eyes. For that, I recommend the Elgato Ring Light.

Putting the Key Light or Key Light Air directly in front of you and blasting your eyes for a long Twitch session is not enjoyable. Until now, I’ve been using two Key Light Airs angled to solve the issue and eliminate shadows. The Ring Light does both for cheaper than two Key Light Airs and has a camera ball mount with physical buttons. Links to each light are below.

Elgato Ring Light: https://amzn.to/34K9fvK
Elgato Key Light: https://amzn.to/3bcM3YK
Elgato Key Light Air: https://amzn.to/2VW9zEX

Elgato Ring Light Review [vs Key Light and Key Light Air]