While I do like most of the features of this ceiling light, I was a little surprised at how dark it is. The photo used on the website seems to show certain metals are lighter in color but they are not. I would imagine they are merely reflecting the lighting used at the the time the picture was taken. Either way I decided to keep it although my preference would have been for a "lighter" finish. I primarily chose this because its overall height could be used with low ceilings. My husband is tall and we didn't want something that he'd bump his head into. I figured if worse came to worse, the ball could be removed if needed and not detract from the nice appearance of the fixture. We didn't need to remove that ball. It works well in a small living room