Planning your lighting for a photo or video shoot can be complicated, and the terminology used to measure light in lighting equipment can make things even more confusing. When shopping online, most lights list “lumens” or “lux” among their technical specs, though sometimes “lumens” is written as “luminous flux.” You might even get tripped up on luminance versus illuminance. It’s a lot. So let’s break it all down.
One thing to note: You’ve probably seen light bulbs with output measured in watts; LED bulbs often say something like “60W equivalent.” However, watts are a measure of how much power a light bulb uses, not how much light it puts out. This metric is a holdover from when incandescent lights were commonplace and used significantly more energy than today’s LEDs. However, as more energy-efficient lights have grown in popularity, it’s no longer useful…
