What’s a COB light anyway? For the uninitiated, it’s a ‘chip-on-board’ light based on an array of many LEDs, all built onto a single substrate with a coating over the top. This one joins a growing family of Lume Cube lighting products for stills and video. I’ve been dazzled (in a good way) by the Lume Cube Ring Light Pro, highly impressed with the pocketable Lume Cube RGB Panel Pro 2.0 and have enjoyed the very affordable Lume Cube VC-Lite for Zoom meetings and the like. Thanks to some stylish and clever design work, good attention to detail and high-end build quality, the Lume Cube XL is a neat little monolight that offers a smart alternative to the best LED light panels.
Lume Cube XL: Specifications
Lume Cube XL: Price
Whereas the more basic Lume Cube 2.0 is priced at $89, the new Lume Cube XL costs $249. For that, you get the Lume Cube XL 60W COB Light, Mini Reflector Cone, Diffusion Bulb, and mains power adapter with cables.
Next up is the Lume Cube XL Mobile Lighting Kit at $349.99, which adds a 12” mini softbox, small tripod legs, a light stand adapter, Power Grip XL for mains-free mobile lighting, and a travel case. Top of the range is the Lume Cube XL Studio Lighting Kit which swaps out the small softbox of the mid-range kit for a large 22” softbox, complete with Bowens mount adapter and 70” light stand, costing $449.99.
You can also buy these items separately as optional extras. For example, the Bowens mount adapter costs $39.99 and the large softbox costs $59.99. The Power Grip XL, which is essential if you want to take your Lume Cube XL on the road, or just like a cable-free setup, weighs in a $99.99. Pay your money and make your choice.
Lume Cube XL: Design & Handling
Although compact and lightweight, the build quality of the Lume Cube XL feels super-solid, with a rugged yet stylish metal casing. It’s fully ventilated with plenty of cooling cutouts, but also features a built-in fan which kicks in when the going gets tough (or rather hot). In keeping with its maker’s name, the main unit is in the shape of a cube. It’s small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, making it eminently portable – it’s just a shame that the Power Grip XL for mains-free operation is sold separately, unless you go for one of the more up-market kits. On a full charge, it has sufficient capacity for about an hour with the light ramped up to 100 per cent output and, unsurprisingly, about two hours at 50 per cent.
Even the most basic kit comes complete with a mounting yoke with a threaded socket for attachment to a regular tripod or similar support. The yoke enables a full range of tilt, with a thumbscrew on one side to lock it off once it’s angled at the desired position. You also get a Mini Reflector Cone which is brightly silvered on the inside, for harnessing the light output on the subject rather than letting it spill out all over the place.
The cone comes with a collapsible white Diffusion Bulb that slips securely over the top, to soften the lighting effect or spread the beam. I like that it’s a pop-up affair, so you can simply push it in to save stowage space and pop it back up again when you want to use it, instead of having to remove it (and possibly lose it) between sessions.
Next on my approved list is the full range of colors that the Lume Cube XL can deliver. For ‘white light’, the CT range stretches from 2700K to 7500K, so you can match the color temperature to pretty much any ambient lighting. Switching to RGB output, you get a full range of red, green, blue and any other color that takes your fancy.
For video rather than stills, a further bonus is that the lamp features seven special effects, namely loop, strobe, lightning, fire, candle, siren and TV. You can cycle through these using the controls on the rear panel, which I’ll come to in a moment, and they all come with 10 speed setting options.
The rear panel plays host to an on/off switch, power input socket, USB C port and an illuminated info display. In what I feel has become a time-honored tradition, onboard control is courtesy of two rotary dials with an additional pushbutton action. The combination enables you to cycle through all of the available lighting modes and make adjustments to everything from power output to color temperature, the full range of color spectrum, green/magenta tint and special effects.
The onboard controls work perfectly well but consigning everything to just two knobs makes the interface less than entirely straightforward. For relatively quick and easy control, you can pair the light with your mobile phone over Bluetooth, and take advantage of the free Lume Control app. This makes advanced settings simple to get at and to adjust, as well as serving up a useful range of quick-action presets.
Lume Cube XL: Performance
With any lighting source for stills or video, it’s not just about the quantity of light but also the quality of light. Maximum power output is pretty impressive for such a small unit but, as with the vast majority of LED lamps, you can feel that a little more could come in useful. For context though, when shooting close-ups with many small LED light panels at their maximum output, I’m used to getting enough light for an exposure of around 1/10th of a second at f/8, with a sensitivity setting of ISO 200. That’s an impractically slow shutter speed for many scenarios, where the subject isn’t completely motionless or I want to shoot handheld, forcing me to bump up my camera’s ISO setting. With the Lume Cube XL at its maximum output and at the same range, I could get a usefully quick shutter speed of 1/100th of a second even with the Diffusion Dome fitted, which moves everything into a different ballpark.
The actual quality of light is impressive, with a CRI rating of 97+ and TLCI rating of 98+. I found that the Lume Cube XL ensured that the colors of subjects I was shooting were accurately recreated in my test images, across a wide range of hue and saturation.
Of course, you don’t buy a full spectrum lamp if you only want white light. The RGB mode enables you to pick any color you want. For creative effect, I shot the figurine in the following image with purely red light, as shown below.
Moving on, I switched to blue lighting to give a cool tint to one of my vintage film cameras, somewhat similar to the one extensively featured in the stylish Wes Anderson movie, Asteroid City.
The supplied Mini Reflector Cone works well for focusing the light over a natural spread, while the Diffusion Dome fulfils its aim of softening the light and broadening the spread. I also tried the 22” Large Softbox, which attaches via a Bowens Mount Adapter. As I’ve mentioned, these are available to buy separately, as well as being included in the range-topping Lume Cube XL Studio Lighting Kit.
Assembling a softbox can sometimes feel a bit like wrestling with an octopus but this one is very quick and easy to set up and fold down, with umbrella-like design. This avoids the need to assemble and disassemble a kit of many parts, although the large and small front and internal fabric sheets are separate items.
Lume Cube XL: Verdict
I really like that the Lume Cube XL COB light is compact and lightweight enough to take anywhere and everywhere. With that in mind, I feel that the starter kit that I tested is really missing a trick by not including the Power Grip XL, which enables battery-powered operation on the go, as well as cable-free use in the home or studio. Even so, it’s nice to have the option of whether you want to splash out on the power pack. Either way, it’s a really well-made product that’s easy to use (especially with the companion app) and performs excellently. It delivers high-quality full-spectrum lighting and is surprisingly powerful for such a small LED monolight.
Should you buy the Lume Cube XL?
✅ Buy this...
- You want a compact yet powerful LED light for both stills and video, with a full-color spectrum of output options.
- You need a light that’s especially useful for shooting video and comes with a neat range of special effects.
🚫 Don't buy this...
- You want a light that you can use on the go, instead of being tethered to mains electricity. If so, go for one of the more up-market kits in the range.
- You only shoot stills and not video. A flashgun will put much more power on tap for photographic exposures.
