Your iPhone photography gets a serious leg up with the LIT Flash, a handheld Xenon flash that puts powerful, studio-quality lighting in your hand that you can shape to your liking.

iDownloadBlog normally steers away from Kickstarter projects but this one was funded in just two days. Created by veterans of the European hardware startup scene who are photographers themselves, the LIT is the first intelligent Xenon flash for smartphone photography.

This portable flash connects wirelessly to your iPhone via Bluetooth. Just fire up their app and it’ll automatically recognize the accessory and offer to connect to it.

With your iPhone in one hand and the flash in the other, you’ll be literally able to shape your scene lighting by positioning the flash right where you want it.

The remote shutter works from up to 130ft, or about 40 meters. The device creates a 90-degree cone-shape light that’s evenly distributed without any visible hot spots.

Can your iPhone’s poor LED flash do this?

The device packs in a 2,800 mAh battery that charges via a built-in USB-C port and is good for 200 to 400 flashes on a single charge. Flash reload time is between 1 and 2.5 seconds. At full power, the LID gives you 40Ws of flash output. If you need even more powerful lighting, you can connect to three LID units in the app and they all sync perfectly.

The app defaults to full automatic mode, but manual control is also available

Another great feature of the LID is high-speed sync that helps take pictures in contrasty outdoor light with exposure times down to 1/10,000s. The app itself features all the main shooting modes from the stock Camera app, including Portrait mode, and gives you full manual control over ISO, shutter speed and flash power.

Another example how light shaping affects overall mood of your photographs

In addition to shaping the light and improving the quality of your low-light photos significantly, the LID Flash is a handy accessory that will make you way more aware of the light and how it impacts your photography game.

The device also has build-in LED status light, a bayonet accessories mount and a 1/4″ tripod thread

The LID Flash will have the expected retail price at $329 when it ships in January 2020, but it’s currently available on Kickstarter for $199. The accessory works with iPhone, with Android compatibility in the works and coming down the pike soon.

Xenon flash renders colors with the same accuracy as the sun

I’m loosely familiar with some of the people behind this project because they’re based in Slovenia, a small European country bordered by my home country of Croatia. I may even visit their offices to test the LID in person and report my findings here on iDB.

Stay tuned!

In the meantime, post your thoughts on the LIT in the comments down below.