Welcome back. Today, we're talking about equipment, and I'm going to show you the
equipment that I use and recommend. If you want to follow my strategy
and actually get results on YouTube. If you want to generate leads on YouTube,
I'm going to cut to the chase and show you exactly what you need.
Alright, if I've counted correctly, I've got 10 things that I want to show you that I highly
recommend, and it's what I've got myself. This is what I use, and I want to start first off
with DSLR cameras. I love the look of this lens, the 24 millimeter. So, I recommend start with your
phone and start there. That'll work great. But if you want to be able to blur the background,
and you want to be able to control the lighting settings with more precision get a DSLR. But if
you're going to go that route, you need to learn how to do it. Now, I've made other episodes where
I've talked about, and let me list these off. You want to know what the F-Stop is, the aperture,
okay? You want to know what the shutter speed is and how to control that. You want to know
how to control the sensor sensitivity which is called ISO, and color temperature. Okay, so,
there's four things that you need to learn if you're going to use a DSLR camera. Otherwise,
if you think about using any of the automatic settings on this camera, just use your iPhone
instead. So, I'm actually ready to move on to number two already and that is a lens. Now,
these two lenses right here, they're prime lenses. You can get a higher-quality lens for a lower cost
if it doesn't zoom. You know, if you have a lens that zooms, that's another awesome feature for a
lens to have. But it just makes the cost go way up, and when I say a high-quality lens.
Really, I want to be able to blur the background, and there's a feature on these lenses where it's
got a really wide aperture. It's called an F-Stop of 1.4. So, this is a 24-millimeter lens. It
doesn't zoom, it doesn't change. That it's always 24 millimeter, but it's got an f-stop of 1.4. This
one's also 1.4, but this is a 50-millimeter lens. So, this one's wider, and this one's more narrow
of a shot, and depending on what I'm trying to do, alternate between these lenses. I've got
other lenses, but these are the main two lenses that I use. Now, the camera that I'm holding is
my Canon 80D. But the one that I'm filming on is kind of the newer version of this one,
it's the 90D. I love it, I would highly recommend it. Now, you can get a Canon 90D. I think it's
about 1,200 bucks these days for the camera body. This lens the 24-millimeter lens like I described
is about fifteen hundred dollars. So, the lens is actually more than the body. I think this lens,
it's a really high-quality lens F-Stop like I said a 1.4. So, it can really blur the background.
And in fact, that's what we're filming on right now. The camera on this lens needs to be further
back to frame the subject the same size. So, if you're in tight spaces, you're going to need to
use a wider-angle lens. This one though, the cost on its only 350 bucks. It's gone down over the
years. I've got a few of these lenses. Okay, so, this next one might seem obvious. But I recommend
investing in a high-quality tripod. Something that's reliable, something that's really sturdy.
If you're investing money into camera equipment, you want something that's less likely to tip over,
and something that you know will release and move things that the legs don't get bent. And so,
they get stuck. The brand that I've always used is Manfrotto. There's other good brands out
there. But Manfrotto's from Italy, it's a good brand. You can find them on Amazon, and then I
always get Manfrotto adapters and they're just always screwed onto the bottom. Because then,
that's closed. Here so, if it's open, I can take my camera. Just click it right in. When I'm ready
to move it, I just unhook it like that, and it's ready to go in the next time. So, you notice that
I've got you know an adapter already ready on this camera right here. So, I recommend getting a good
tripod, having adapter. So, you can you know change out your camera, change out your tripod,
and it sounded like there's something more is going to say about that. But I actually want to
tell you about my book before I jump into some other gear. It's a book that I want to give you
for free. If you're here watching this video, you probably want to use YouTube to generate
leads for your business, and I've written a book about it. It's taken me two years, it's finally
launched. It's called A Hero's Guide To Influence On YouTube, and I want to give it to you for free.
So, I'm not going to make any profit on this. But I am going to charge you a shipping. So,
as long as you'll cover the shipping cost. Go to natesyoutubebook.com and that book is yours. So,
now, I'm going to talk about audio. I'm going to talk about these amazing devices,
and this device right here. So, I've been using this Zoom H2N. This became popular, I've been
using it for many years before the Zoom service we use for live streaming and group conferences came
about. But it's spelled the same way Z-O-O-M and the H2N. They've got versions that are smaller and
more basic than this. They've got versions that are more robust and capable. This one is right
in the middle, I believe it's like 150 dollars, and there's several settings you know depending
on if you wanna. Right now, it's pointing right at me, and it would record me right here. And In fact,
you can't see it. But I've got one right above my head that I'm using as my backup audio to
this lav mic here. The setting that I love to use on this it's called X/Y, and I know you can't see
this from the distance of the camera. But it makes it directional. So, as long as I have it pointing
at me. It muffles out the background noise, and let me tell you a story about how effective this
microphone is. I was filming with Kris Krohn in downtown Salt Lake City. We were on a street right
where the tracks train comes by, and I don't know why that train is so noisy. But it squeaks, it's
just awful really. But we've gotten used to it. Well, Kris was interviewing a man on the street,
and I was probably 10-15 feet away from them, filming them. Kris was holding this microphone
with a little handle on it. There's a little screw thing, you can put a handle in. So, he's just
interviewing him, kind of like a newscaster would be out on the street. Pointing the microphone kind
of in the middle between the two of them. Now, when the train came by. I could not hear what
they were saying, and I'm I was just thinking. We might not be able to use this footage. But hopeful
let's see, let's see how it turns out. Well, after the fact, I listened to the audio, and yes,
you could hear the train in the background. But you could see the train on the camera anyway. So,
the noise fit in. But it was actually perfectly usable. We could hear the conversation between
Kris and this other man. It's a great, great, microphone. Many times we'll use this as primary
audio, as long as it's just right out of the shot, but aiming at me. So, I'm assuming you can't see
it right now, but you can obviously see my arm. So, have it as close to you as possible. This is
a great microphone to put on a boom arm when you don't want to be wearing a lav mic. Now, if you
are willing to wear a lav, and I'm not concerned about hiding this. I know some people will try and
use to pay tape or things to hide it under the shirt. I just say you're wearing a mic, you're
on YouTube. But I use these wireless transmitters. So, right now I've got a box just like this in my
pocket. So, this lav mic is plugged into one of these, that's in my pocket, and it transmits to
the receiver. And so, the camera that's filming me has this right on the top, and you can plug in
the end of it right there, and then the receiver actually can fit right in the slot on the top
of your camera. So, that's the setup I'm actually using to film this episode. So, this is my primary
audio. I've got the H2N right here which is my secondary audio, and this is awesome, and it's
got battery indicators so you know if either the transmitter or the receiver is low on battery.
And in fact, this is called the rode wireless go 2 version 2 comes with two transmitters with one
receiver. So, I might have a second person or even a second mic, that's wirelessly transmitting into
the camera like this. I love this setup, these devices are a game changer. So, in talking about
the Zoom H2N, I do have it on a boom arm. So, I'll show you some footage of that right now. So, I got
a boom arm that's extendable so you can reach it out to whatever length that you want, and you can
adjust it easily, and I had to get an adapter, depending on how you want it to screw into
the bottom of your Zoom H2N. There's different adapters so that you can reposition it and make
sure it's angled. Because you want the microphone to be pointing right at the person. They've really
fine-tuned the direction of the audio on this. Because it muffles out everything, that's not
right in front of it. Then I also have the boom arm held up by a C-Stand. Now, for many years, and
we're going to talk about lights in a moment. For many years my lighting, I just used regular light
stands. But they're nothing compared to a C-Stand. So, I'll put on the screen here. I've got a whole
collection of C-Stands that are really sturdy. I put my lights on them. I put my boom arms for
my audio on them, and they're pretty affordable and they're pretty standard. You go to Amazon,
you can search for C-Stand, and you'll find some you know for 100 to 150 bucks. Okay, now, let's
talk about lights and I'm going to talk about lights in two parts. The light itself you know
the electric device, and also like the reflector, and we use big reflectors called V-Flats which I'm
going to explain and show you what those are. I love them. I've been using V-Flats for a long
time. The lights that I used in the beginning and for many, many, years were soft boxes. In fact,
I had softboxes for many different uses. I had a travel set that I could take on a suitcase on an
airplane, and I fit four of them in one suitcase. But the reason I started using soft boxes is I
would watch YouTube videos that I thought man, those look like they know what they're doing,
they look very well lit. I remember I was watching an apple video, and I looked at the reflection in
the guy's eye, and I could see this rectangle, and I'm like oh, they're using a rectangular softbox.
So, I got rectangular soft boxes, and I found them that had. Nowadays, they have dimmer switches for
LED and that's way better. Back when I started LED wasn't as prevalent yet. And so, I would get soft
boxes that had five different bulbs, and therefore five different switches. So, if I wanted a lower
lighting setting, I would just turn on one bulb or then increase it to two or three or all the way up
to five, and I could even take off the screen if I needed to make it even brighter. A softbox is
great because it really softens the light. In a big softbox isn't as direct and having a point of
reflection, but it will make the light smooth across your face, and the closer that softbox
is to you, the softer that light will be. Now, softboxes are cheap, you can go to Amazon right
now and get a set of three of them that come with light stands, and pay 120 bucks, 200 bucks,
somewhere in that range, and nowadays, you don't need to get multiple light bulbs, you can get an
LED that's got a dimmer switch. So, that's very handy. Now, I'm going to talk about V-Flats first,
before I come back and show you the lights that I use now, and I'll talk about why I use them,
and absolutely love them. So, a V-Flat as you can see here. It's just a big reflector panel.
I'm going to try and show you a lot of different angles so you can actually see what this is. It's
difficult with the lighting because they reflect the light. So, I actually make these, and how I do
that is I buy these panels. They're four by eight sheets of foam board foam core. One side is white,
one side is black. Occasionally, I'll use black if I need to shade something or darken something,
or film on black. But most of the time, I'd say 95 percent of the time, I'm using the white
side as a reflector, and I'll tape two of them together with gaff tape. I'll use white gaffer
tape on the white side, and black on the black, and black around the edges. As you can see here,
I put it around the edges just so I can toughen them up. We fold these up and move them around,
take them around hallways up and down stairs. And so, they can get bumped, and if you put gaff tape
on the edges. It makes them tougher and last longer. But the tape that's in the middle acts
as a hinge. And so, you can fold it in half. So, it's a four-by-eight panel, or if you open it up,
it's like an eight-by-eight reflector. Imagine, having a softbox that was eight feet by eight
feet, and that's essentially what we have. And so, I've been using V-Flats like this for a long
time. I learned it from a photography trainer, and she was using a variety of different lights. So,
I just used the soft boxes that I had. I would aim several softboxes at it and then reflect
the light back. The one disadvantage that I had is if I put multiple. Let's say I needed really
bright light shining on me, and I put three soft boxes aiming at the V-Flat. Those softboxes are
big and they actually block a lot of light that's reflecting back. And so, now, I'll transition to
talking about these aperture lights. This company is amazing. By the way, they're LED lights which
use way less energy. They're very quiet and they are way more powerful. The settings for these
lights right now are probably in the range of 10 to 20 percent. When we're competing with sunlight,
we turn them up to 50, or if we're aiming it at the ceiling, we're really trying to light a room,
we'll go up to 100 percent. But there's times where I'm filming in dim light. Where I've used
all the way down to one percent, they're so fine-tuned and adjustable, and the profile
is small. So, I can have a really powerful light shining at a V-Flat, and it basically replicates
a window. Because I've learned that I love filming in front of a window where the subject is facing
the window let's say, and it just puts such great light that's balanced on the subject,
and you look great. Well, with a V-Flat, and a power powerful aperture 300D Mark II. You can
simulate, and basically replicate a window, and in this room right now where I'm filming here. I've
actually got two different V-Flats, I'm bouncing light off of it. So, it makes it soft, and I love
that. And so, these are my go-to lights, they're not cheap. When I used to film in Airbnb. If a
client would fly into Utah. I'd rent a vacation home as my filming Studio, we'd have that space
for a couple of days so we could film there, and just because we're moving things around,
I took soft boxes. They were so cheap that if they got ruined or whatnot, or banged up,
I didn't care so much. But when I purchased houses to use as my filming Studio. I then upgraded my
gear, and I haven't been disappointed. I've got a dozen of this aperture 300D Mark II. Whenever we
have a conversation about gear. There are always lots of questions, and I'd love to hear them,
and I'd love to answer them this Saturday. So, go ahead and submit those questions to me. Go to
asknate.net, and there's just a quick form where you put your question in. It all gets added to a
list that I will have on Saturday during our live stream. So, I'm doing a Q&A as a part of
this whole series this month to help you learn and master YouTube. So, we will see you on Saturday.