GoPro Light Mod review: tiny but powerful

The GoPro Light Mod is a compact, powerful LED lighting attachment that clips to your HERO, and delivers a wide blanket of even light to your shooting subject when it's not naturally available. It's compatible with the top three best GoPros in the current lineup – the HERO 8 Black, HERO 9 Black and HERO 10 Black. To attach it to your camera, you need a GoPro Media Mod (that's the accessory to improve your HERO's audio capture capabilities), which provides two handy ‘shoe’ fittings on the side and top to mount the light. Clipped into either of these it very much looks the part, and can be charged via the GoPro Volta Grip’s USB-C cable if you’ve (inevitably) forgotten to juice it up before needing it. 

The GoPro Light Mod is priced at GBP £49.99 / USD $49.99, and can also buy it as part of the HERO 10 Creator Edition bundle. So is it worth the outlay? I put one to the test to see. Read on for my full GoPro Light Mod review.

• Buy the GoPro Light Mod direct from GoPro

 GoPro Light Mod Review: design and build 

The GoPro Light Mod is a study in simplicity, even for GoPro: a small rectangular lozenge with a single button on top, a shoe-style mount on the opposite side, and an LED array on one side. There’s also a rather nifty spring-loaded port on one end, which seals the USB-C port when you’re not charging the battery. This port means the whole thing is waterproof to 33ft (10m) when closed. 

 GoPro Light Mod Review: performance 

Having a section on ‘comfort’ for a GoPro light might seem a bit daft, but actually it is one of the weaker areas of the GoPro Light Mod. Users without robust fingernails will find this a hard device to operate; the spring loaded port requires a reasonable tweak with a fingernail, but releasing the GoPro mount option is heading into screwdriver territory. The mount has a tiny locking tab that must be pressed down to unclip the light, and it’s not an easy thing to do under any circumstances. But at least you shouldn’t accidentally drop the light. 

In better news, the GoPro Light Mod offers a fair amount of light across four light levels, although the top – overdrive mode – only runs for 30 seconds. Overdrive mode does knock out an impressive 200 lumens or 200 lux @1m, which is better than many dedicated head torches. 

Level 3 is a more realistic 125 lumens, 120 lux @1m, which is equivalent to a decent standard camping head torch, level 2 is 60 lumens, and level one 20 lumens. Runtime is also pretty reasonable, 1 hour at Level 3, 2 hours at Level 2, 6 hours at Level 1. As the GoPro Light Mod is compatible with all GoPro accessories and mounts, this opens up interesting options such as pairing it with a headband or chest strap, or a bike bar mount, making it a very flexible lighting option indeed.

In use, it’s surprising how often you’ll start to use the GoPro Light Mod once it’s there – a quick tap of the power button and boom: better light levels. Especially for indoor vlogging-type environments, the GoPro Light Mod is a bit of an essential once you’ve experienced it. The convenience is the real key here too – there are many lights that can do a similar job, but few-to-none as streamlined and seamless to operate.  

 GoPro Light Mod Review: verdict 

The GoPro Light Mod has a lot going for it: it’s tiny, powerful, and lightweight, and throws a useful light just where you need it. While the charge port and GoPro mount options are slightly fiddly, this is more of a ‘fit and forget’ accessory for the Media Mod than a standalone item, and once clipped into the Media Mod it’ll no doubt happily become a fixture of your GoPro setup.