Well, this isn't my usual set.
And that's because we're doing a bit
of a studio tour today of Dave Lee's Studio.
Yay. Give him a round of applause.
(applause sound effect)
And we've got Patrick Tomasso behind the camera here.
Shooting the, shooting the other angle.
Thank you Patrick. Appreciate it.
So why don't we take a look around Dave,
and see what the hell you got going on here.
- I'll tell you earlier, but no one's
seen this place before.
Like a behind the scenes thing.
It's not a thing.
Only Gerald's channel.
- Giving you guys the exclusive scoop.
Getting the hot scoop.
All right, let's do it.
For those of you that aren't familiar with Dave Lee,
he runs a YouTube channel called Dave 2D,
focused on making videos about, as he puts it,
useful technology.
His oldest videos date all the way back to January 2015.
And since then he's amassed over 3.5 million subscribers.
He maintains impressive regular viewership on his videos,
shares clean and sharply designed thumbnails,
and approaches his content with an enthusiastic
but pragmatic approach to the latest
and greatest personal devices.
What I like most about Dave's videos is his ability
to remain grounded and provide unique perspectives
in a landscape rife with launch hype, zealotry,
and ludicrous brand wars.
Dave navigates those traps elegantly
and provides relaxed level headed videos that make you feel
like you're just hanging out with a friend who's telling you
about the latest gadget they picked up.
It's a fabulous channel for tech enthusiasts
and I highly recommend it.
Okay, tell me what we're working with.
- This is a Blackmagic 6K, fairly...
- The original.
The original 6K, not one of the,
you don't gotta flip out screen here or anything, okay.
- [Dave] Nope. It's the original 6K.
I run the same thing up here.
- All right so we got mains power here,
which is crucial because otherwise
you're gonna be swapping out batteries
like crazy on this camera.
- That's right. - It's a good call.
And then this is XLR input with the mini XLR adapter.
- It's blue.
I would like a purple one.
- Did you get this from Kondor Blue?
- I don't know.
It doesn't look like a condor blue one.
- It looks like condor blue cable.
- [Dave] It could be.
- And then XLR is coming from the mic here,
which is the Sennheiser 416.
Why'd you choose that mic?
- Cause I was recommended it.
If I could go back in time,
I don't think this is the right mic
for this particular space.
- Is this the only one that you've ever really used here?
This mic?
Have you done any tests with other ones that you've...
- I've only used this.
I used to have another mic.
- What lens is this by the way?
Is this like Nikon lens or something?
- [Dave] It is a Tokina. - [Gerald] 11 to 20mm.
- [Dave] 30 frames per a second.
- [Patrick] 30 frames per a second.
Let's talk about that.
So I have, I have reason for 30.
I used to shoot 24.
I think that visually, 24 looks nicer,
but the moment you show screen footage,
especially gameplay footage and it de-syncs,
'cause I'll play games like 60 frames per second
or like one 120.
There was like weird motion blurring.
I was like, "This looks ugly."
So I switched to 30.
- We got two displays here.
- So recently I've been trying to, just for speed, right?
I try to run my stuff concurrently
and do like split screen.
Like I'll show a product on this and I'll be like,
I'll interact with this.
And I'll cut this image up here in half.
So that's like half of the image is like me,
and half of the image is the overhead cam.
If you have a light colored background,
the text of all the stuff in the home screen is still white.
- If speed is everything for you,
why are you using manual focus setups?
- Cause I, Okay.
I was telling it to Patrick earlier
there was a time when I only had one camera
and I was interested in getting more to run multicam.
And then the one I was looking at was the A7S3.
The one with Auto focus.
But I couldn't find 'em anywhere.
- That's a real thing. Yeah.
- So I was like, whatever, I'll just stick -
- You could probably easier time now.
But there was a while there where
like any of those top three maybe Sony cameras
and then even when the new Canon cameras came out,
there where everybody was just
like sold out of everything all the time.
- Dude, there are times when I'll film stuff
like here and then if I lift it up,
I'll have to adjust it and then check this out.
So I'll adjust it so like my hand's in focus,
and then I gotta wait for this thing to stop wobbling
for 30 seconds and then I'll keep going.
That's annoying.
Autofocus would be pretty kick.
- But when it comes to shooting the video,
is it mostly you winging it?
Or what's your preparation like for...
- I'll have a couple of like post-it notes.
Of like, I want to talk about like the screen
and I'll have like a word.
- [Gerald] Are they literal Post-It notes?
- Yeah.
- [Gerald] Where you stick them?
- Over here.
Just off frame.
And it's usually like three, maybe four Post-it notes.
Sometimes one, if I can fit it all on to one.
And then, yeah, I just, I talk.
I mean I feel like the the type of content
that I want to make is way looser than
what a teleprompt thing would allow me to do.
Sandbags. Probably improperly done.
- I mean in here, in a studio, you got three bags on it.
I'm not gonna give you a hard time
about how they're laid out, it's fine.
- What's the correct way?
- Well if you're only using one,
then there's a correct leg kind of thing.
But if you've got one on every leg, I mean,
who cares, right?
I picked up some funky audio Dave, right here.
You got a wet spot.
- Yeah, there's a lot of places that you can stand
that don't have good audio.
But up here it's okay.
I don't know how or why.
Here it's fine.
- So you did sound panels along that wall, right?
Are these DIY? Or where'd you get these?
- I bought them from some guy that did DIY.
- Sure, sure.
What's going on here, bud?
Are these three times more effective when they're laid on top of each other?
- So we, like I used to have a, like this was in the office.
I used to have short ones, the short sound panels.
But then I was like, I just use them.
I leave 'em here.
I just don't need that many.
But I don't wanna like toss 'em.
- The rest of this material though, it looks,
for those that don't know, It looks like
I'm about to touch cold concrete.
But it's drywall.
That's like got like a rough kind of like spongy finish
to it or whatever.
And it looks the part.
And then you got these little like... yeah.
I mean I was surprised when it wasn't concrete.
- Always wanted this look. Like that bunker-y look.
Like a man-cave for me.
- It kind of looks, it does kinda like.
What are the lights that are in here?
- These are LED dot thingies and you can control them.
I never really take advantage of it in videos
but you can like adjust the lighting,
like the color.
- Are they like strip lights or they like tubes?
- They look like this.
If you look at this stuff right here, it's literally this.
And I mean it's been a while,
but you can like tweak 'em.
You can color 'em.
- That's cool.
- I wish, I should probably take more advantage
of these things 'cause they're like, they're fun.
- I gotta say compared to the rest of your setup,
this is probably the least exciting.
- [Dave] The light? - The lighting, yeah.
- Yeah. It's one Ikan.
- It's an Ikan. This one's so old dude.
Again, my technical knowledge of this stuff is comical.
So I used to not run a diffuser for the longest time
until I was like, "What if I run a diffuser?
Does that do anything?"
- No. Let me explain something to ya.
(Dave laughing)
- I'm gonna get schooled. I'm gonna get undone.
- These do do something, okay?
But if you put them right on the light,
- [Dave] It's not doing much.
- then it's the, it's like, I mean.
All it's really doing is reducing it
by like a quarter of a stop is all it's really doing.
(Dave laughing)
The idea behind these, or anything,
is to make a bigger source and kind of like further away.
So this is already, panels are already softened.
If you had the the like the beads showing the LEDs,
then you could break up the patterns.
But because this is already diffused, the only,
what you could do is like.
- [Dave] Start further out.
I noticed really early on that yeah,
the further way you put it the better.
But now you gotta run another stand thingy.
- You would need another grip head and like an arm on it.
- [Dave] Yeah, and like we have it, I just don't,
I just want as little crap in here as possible.
- So there like there is some contrast and there's shadows
and I think it looks nice.
It's just funny.
I'm so used to like way more drama.
Yeah, okay.
So let's do them all in the orange.
Yeah, it does kinda have that like Blade Runner-y.
- Right?
Oh that looks good.
It's got that like, I think it was
I was always afraid of like that gamer look.
When we throw in blues and purples, it looks so...
- I agree.
This is not gamery though,
because I think this this kind of exists in nature.
I mean obviously you can tell that it's artificial light
'cause we have lights in the shot, but it still looks
like almost like you could just be in perpetual sunset.
Like some kind of eighties movie where it's like
Top Gun. - Or Mars Dust.
- I mean Top Gun only shoots at like sunset for some reason.
It's like that's what it kinda looks like.
- [Dave] It's the best look. The sunset.
- [Patrick] What you really need is we was talking before
that distance between this and the soft box
would help a lot.
Like if you had this on its own stand and
the thing was back.
- We don't do second stands though, man.
(all laughing)
- You wanna give us a tour of your fish tank?
- Sure.
- Tell us what we got over here.
- This is like an eight second tour, but it's an aquarium.
- Do they have names?
- Yeah. (talking over each other)
I think there's about 50 fish in there.
I'm sure a bunch have died over the year.
Truthfully, there was 50.
A year and a half ago there were 50.
Now there's probably 12.
- Is this a prop or is this, do you edit or what's this,
what's this all about?
- No, I edit on this.
Or I just use it as like my regular computer.
- Yeah. What is it?
- It's an Intel 12900K,
and 3080 Ti.
- Are these phone books? What are these?
- These were a gift.
They mean more to some people than they do to me.
They're like a design book.
They're called the Phaidon design class.
- May I touch? - Yeah, absolutely.
- I think Canoopsy would be into this.
- That's the thing.
So Isaac, he loves yellow.
Shout out to Canoopsy, I love that kid.
- Thank you for watching.
- This is like a, it's totally up his alley.
It's like a design book that has a yellow hard cover
and I think it's like a collection of all of the...
- I feel like I'm like looking at like Mad Men
or like Andy Warhol or something, right?
- [Dave] Well that's the thing, it's like...
- It's a time machine.
- Design work and advertisement work
over the years that were like iconic.
- And then like every other YouTuber in the world,
you've got a tool chest.
- Dude, this was not a thing before.
That's one thing I really like.
That's something that just gets me personally.
I find that when things look cool on YouTube,
and it's not just YouTube, it's like the world.
When something's interesting,
people like everyone just gets it and does it
and then like I don't want to do it anymore.
- So that whole rant I'm just gonna put
like hipster talk from Dave. - No!
Okay. But same thing with this.
When I got this, it had like, I don't know,
it was just so functional
and then everyone started getting them.
I'm like, God dammit.
- But you did it before it was cool.
So that's, that's...
- Truthfully, I probably did it way after it was cool
but I didn't realize that everyone was already doing it.
- No, but in your mind.
- No, no, no, no. (both laughing)
So this is a place that has more hardware.
But maybe if we flick on all the lights.
- This is where you got all the lights hidden, Dave.
You got a jib?
- We have tried to use jibs for many things
and in the end we basically use it
as a shiftable overhead cam.
- It's like Dave doesn't realize we're running a
camera gear channel.
He's got me out in that room with the sparse camera gear.
- [Dave] Oh, sorry, sorry.
- He's like, by the way, there's another room.
We come in here and I'm just like.
This is all the camera gear.
- There's some stuff in here.
- So you got two P300cs, right?
From Aputure.
- I don't know what they're called.
They change colors.
That's all I know.
- Yeah. So these are the Novas, right?
And they're the three hundreds.
- This thing, Nova P300c.
How do you know that?
Just you just, you they, they just...
- [Gerald] This is what my channel is.
I don't know what any of those phones are.
- Dave] Have you reviewed these lights?
- I think so.
Regular and family size.
- [Dave] Are they good?
- Yeah, they're fantastic. - Thank God.
- They're like going after the ARRI sky panels.
But at a, I don't know what much, much fewer...
much fewer dollars.
That's what I said in my review.
So you should get it guys.
It's much fewer dollars.
Get it together.
- We'll do thumbnails in here.
We just use it as a like, as a thing.
You cover the thing so the reflection isn't as strong
on the screen.
Does that make sense?
- What screen?
- Okay, so let's see. (Gerald laughing)
Let's say you have a phone
that you're shooting a thumbnail for.
- Oh, and like the phone reflecting. Oh, I gotcha.
- Yeah. That screen.
- So you can kill out whatever.
That makes sense, okay.
I was like, what screen are we talking about?
Tons of grip gear.
And then what?
You got a little edelkrone slider up there.
- Back when I used sliders.
- [Gerald] Back when? - I don't know.
- [Gerald] Before everybody else started using it?
- No.
- Hah! Got 'em! (laughing)
- [Dave] Do we really wanna go through this stuff?
- [Gerald] I might have a rough sense of what it is.
Just cables and stuff? - Mice. Cables.
Some mice.
- [Gerald] Are you organized, Dave? Is this organized?
How about this, don't open anymore.
Okay. What's in that one?
- Batteries.
- If you can tell me one thing that's in it.
- Battery things. - Some kind of battery.
- [Dave] Come on. Fudge.
- It's cords!
(all laughing)
- Nope, I'm not organized.
That's the mic that I used to use. Audix.
It wasn't an Audio-Technica.
- It's the SCX1.
You wanna do a microphone test?
- [Dave] Sure. - Okay.
- Well wait. How we do that?
- You sit there.
We'll do your voice.
We'll let the audience decide.
Well let my audience decide.
- I don't know if I would,
if I would position the mic here though.
- I'll help you out with that.
- Yeah, dude, that's the other thing.
Where should the mic be positioned?
- So we gotta just be conscious of this shot.
How, so, do you go looser than this sometimes?
How big of a frame are we working with here?
- Yeah, I'll normally go wider than this.
- Okay, well that's max there.
Okay. This isn't perfect, but we'll go with this.
Okay. Okay.
So gimme some kind of repeatable audio thing,
you know what I mean?
Like say something and then we'll put the other mic
on and you'll say it again.
- And then how are we gonna listen to it?
Onto a com...
- When I publish the video.
- Oh! (hands clapping)
And then people will know.
But I will never know until that video comes out.
Okay. So the iPhone 16 is new for this year.
It has 14 cameras and 12 batteries.
- So now for this one, you know, theoretically we could,
we had more space before we would encroach upon the frame.
So, you know, we could bring the whole enchilada down.
- Okay. Ready?
- So tell me what this iPhone is.
- So, so the iPhone 16 is new for this year.
It has 14 cameras and 12 batteries.
So the iPhone 16 is new for this year.
It has 14 cameras and 12 batteries.
So the iPhone 16 is new for this year.
It has 14 cameras and 12 batteries.
- Okay. So what do we think?
You guys can decide in comments below or whatever.
- I'd love to hear people's opinions on it.