- Here's how to get the best lighting
for YouTube videos for beginners.
In this video, I'm gonna show you
my top video lighting set up tips,
and I'll share some great cheap lighting options
that will help you achieve
awesome YouTube video lighting quickly and easily.
Now, straight up,
there's two things that I want you to remember
with your lighting.
The first one is it's art, it's creative.
There is no right or wrong with this,
and you can dramatically change the look
and the feel of your video with your lighting.
So I want you to take on board
what I'm showing you in this video,
and make sure you're watching it right the way through.
So then you know what you can play around with
so you can dial in the look and feel
that you're after for your videos.
And the second thing I want you to remember
is to focus on lighting yourself
or the subject of your video first.
And not to worry about the background
or what's going on behind you
as the priority is making sure that your viewers
are focused on you and the content that you are delivering.
And then if you've got extra time or extra lights,
then worry about the background.
So I'm gonna take you through
a few different lighting setups now
from using no gear to using one light
to having multiple lights and how you can best set it up
based on the location you're gonna be filming in.
So you don't need to stress if you don't have fancy lights.
I've got solutions for you too.
So I wanna go ahead now
and turn off all the lights in the room here
and we're gonna look at a few different scenarios
with a few different setups to see what you can achieve.
Okay, so this is what my office
or my studio looks like with no lights on.
The light that you are seeing
is coming through a big window
that I have over the side here.
So if you don't have any lights,
a great place to start is by sitting in front of the window.
So for context, if we spin around now,
this is the window that I'm talking about.
But if I sit down in the chair here,
so this is what it looks like
with just the light coming through the window.
No extra lights.
You can see, yes, it is pretty dark in the background,
but, again, we can address that as a secondary.
But so far, I'm lit well, I'm separated from the background.
Viewers will be able to easily see
and focus on me and the content
and not be distracted by what's going on in the background.
So you want to use, first off,
whatever you already have access to.
You don't need to go
and buy the latest and greatest, the fanciest lighting gear.
You've likely already got enough right now
to get started with this,
and you can upgrade as and when you need to down the track.
Now, even just turning on one additional background light
could, again, change the shot
and the feeling that this shot brings entirely.
But, again, this is a really simple setup,
and I don't even have the ceiling lights on yet.
So if we go ahead and turn those on,
then we can change up the shot again.
It could look totally different,
but, again, the main light here is just coming in
from that window to light me up.
The other lights, the ceiling lights and stuff,
are just here really lighting up the rest of the scene,
the rest of the shot.
Now speaking of ceiling lights,
the reason I went, first off, to turn off all the lights
is depending on the room that you're filming in,
the ceiling lights could add to it
or it could actually make it really difficult
for you to film in there,
all based on where they're positioned
and where you are going to be standing or sitting.
So you can see right now,
I'm standing directly underneath one of these ceiling lights
and it's creating horrible shadows.
It's probably creating dark shadows under my eyes here,
hot spots in my forehead.
It really doesn't look great.
So if your ideal filming location
is going to be underneath one of these lights,
I would suggest to turn it off
or you could try to position yourself
away from that light
so you're not standing directly underneath it,
so that it's lighting you up more evenly
from above and from the front instead of from top down.
Now, in my case here, in this room,
I've actually got a lot of these lights.
There are nine of them.
So in order for me to move away from them,
I could probably come back here
and frame up my shot this way.
So this way I don't have those crazy shadows
coming over my shoulders.
You can see there's a little bit here
from the lights behind me,
but at least the light over the front, it's a lot more even.
So look at your positioning in the room,
but worst case, turn them off
and use other lights to light yourself up.
So if you don't have access to any lights,
then go and sit in front of a window.
You can see you can get great results from that,
or use any lights that you have already lying around,
any lamps, desk lights,
anything that you can use to light up your face,
light up the subject of your videos.
That's what's important.
So again, I'm here with no other lights on,
just the light lighting me up through the window.
But let's say that you've got access to one light,
where should you put it and what will that look like?
So I've got here a small LED light panel.
This one sells for around the $42 mark.
And, again, I'll have links to all of my recommended gear
down in the description below.
But I love this one 'cause it's small, it's light,
it's got a built-in battery life and it goes pretty bright.
But one of the biggest things with this one
is it's got a built-in diffuser.
It actually throws a nice, soft light
which is what you'll want
if it's gonna be lighting up your face.
Let's go ahead and turn this on.
Let's turn it up just a little bit.
We definitely don't want this on full brightness,
and we can see already, it's totally changed our shot.
So if it's not shining on me versus shining on me,
it makes a big difference already.
Now, you definitely don't wanna have your light down here;
it's gonna create a really horror film look.
So your ideal positioning for your lights
should be just above eye level.
And if you want a nice, even light,
so not too many shadows or anything on your face,
then you want to have it over near your camera
or near the direction that you're looking.
Now, obviously, you move it further back
so that you're not gonna have it in your shot,
but you can see that that's a fairly even light here
across my face.
Now if you do want something more dramatic
and something more that you are used to seeing
in films and documentaries,
then you wanna move it off to the side a little bit more.
So there is more of a slight shadow
that you're getting on the side of your face.
So it's a little bit more dramatic.
So lights, just above eye level,
off to the side or over near the camera
if you've only got the one.
And then once you work out the look that you like,
then you can put this on a light stand
or mount it just out of your shot
so that it's set up there
and good to go every time you want to create a video.
Now the same will obviously apply
for the other side as well.
If we want something more neutral,
then we want to go around here somewhere
so that it's going to be more even light across my face.
We move it over to the side,
then it's more of a dramatic shot.
And, again, we also don't have any background lights
or anything else happening at this point.
Now if you've got a light
that doesn't have a built-in diffuser like this one,
so it's not throwing a nice, soft light,
then that's when you are gonna get
some really harsh shadows in things,
especially if it's pointing directly at you.
So you can easily add some diffusion
by just using a pillow case
or even some baking paper over the light.
Or you could turn the brightness up
and you could bounce the light off the ceiling
or off a wall behind your camera.
And we don't wanna point it in the camera lens.
But I'm bouncing the light now
off the wall behind the camera.
So you can see how it's still lighting me up,
but it's bouncing the light around the room
before it comes back to me
versus if I hide that light now, it's much darker.
So you've got options with your lighting.
So I've set that light up on a light stand now.
So this is what it looks like with just one light,
and we can always go ahead and add another light
or some color in the background
just to make the shot look a little more interesting.
Now if you've got two lights,
you could use one to light you up
and another one to light up the rest of your scene.
Or you can use both of them to light you up.
Again, depending on the look that you're after.
So we could use the second light
to fill in some of these darker areas
or the shadows that this one light has left.
So we grab another light here now.
This one's the same brand, just a little bit bigger.
Let's turn it on, let's dial it down so it's not so bright.
You can, again, see that as we move this around,
we're able to change up the look of the shot.
So this here now is not on very bright.
This one is just filling in
some of those darker areas
that were left from that first main light.
So I've got the main one off to one side.
I've got my fill-in light here off to the other side,
and we can see the difference that that makes.
So it just fills in some of those darker areas.
So if you're going for a two light set up,
then this is pretty standard.
Both of them in front of you,
both of them up above eye level,
but both of them at different brightness levels
with one of them being your primary light,
one of them being your fill light
to fill in some of those shadows.
So with that light now on a stand,
this is what that looks like.
So some behind the scenes here.
We've got our main primary light here, the bright one.
This is doing most of the lighting me up.
We've then got our secondary light here.
So it's much dimmer light
just to fill in some of those shadows.
And, again, this already is just lighting me up
with really cheap gear.
And if we add a background light,
then that's what that can look like.
Now if you've got access to three lights,
then a three lighting setup
is actually something that's really popular
with film and documentaries, a three-point lighting setup.
So essentially it's very similar to what I've got here
with a key primary light here that is lighting me up.
There is a fill light to fill in some of those shadows.
The third light then will be to create some outliners,
some depth on the shot by lighting me up from behind.
So your third light should be directed at you from behind
and ideally from up above as well.
Now to show you what that looks like,
I'm just gonna turn on the light
that's in the background of the shot here.
That one we just use as a prop.
We don't normally turn it on,
but you'll be able to see what three lights can do.
So I've got that third light on now
and the brightness is turned right down.
But you can already start to see
that there's like a glow outline,
even up into my hair here.
And that, again, helps separate me from the background.
So if you're gonna be using three lights,
then this is typically how you'd set it up.
You don't have to have it in your shot;
you could move it out of shot,
up a bit higher so you're not gonna see it,
but this is the effect that it will have.
And with the other background light on
to make this shot more interesting
and add a little bit color, it doesn't look too bad.
Now I've got a couple of quick tips for you
with your lighting before I show you what we use
for our regular YouTube lighting setup here.
The first one is that you want to try
and keep the color temperature matched
on any lights that are in your scene wherever possible,
especially the ones that are lighting you up.
So if you're gonna be shooting with lights
that are on in the ceiling,
any additional LED panels or lights
that you're gonna be adding in,
you want to try and dial those in
to be the same color temperature so that it's all matching.
If they don't match,
then you can get some really weird colors
and things happening, especially in skin tones
and it can be pretty difficult to fix.
And the second tip,
I already told you that you need to have your lights
above eye level but this becomes even more important
if you are wearing glasses.
If your lights are just at eye level,
then the light's gonna reflect off the light
into your glasses and directly back to the camera lens.
This problem goes away if the lights are up much higher;
it's gonna reflect and bounce down not into the camera lens
so they're not gonna be visible in your shot.
So this is where positioning your lights up high
and off to the side is going to help remove
any of those distracting reflections.
Now for the lighting for our main YouTube shot,
at least for right now with our current setup in this space,
this is how it currently is.
So right now the only light I have on me
is coming through the window there.
I have a main light up here with a big diffuser.
I'll go ahead and turn that on
so you can see what that looks like.
So as you can see that one light is doing an amazing job
of not just lighting me up
and making me the focus of the video
but also lighting up some of the background as well.
And that's because it's got this massive big diffuser on it.
So it is throwing a nice, soft light.
It also means that I don't have really harsh shadows
on this side of my face,
but in order to fill some of those in,
that's where I've got the light coming through the window
to soften that off as well.
So I don't need to have a dedicated second light
to light up the other side of my face.
I'm just using natural light for that.
Now one thing we did do
when we were fitting out this studio
was change all the lights in the ceiling
to be Philips Hue smart lights.
So I can control each of the lights individually.
I can change the brightness,
but I can also change the color.
Now obviously that's not something that you need to do,
but personally I love to have the control,
be able to adjust everything manually
and also change the colors
which change the colors in the background too.
Now if I go ahead and switch these ceiling lights on now
so you can see what this looks like.
Now this is all lights on max
and because they're smart lights,
I can create different scenes
to control each light individually.
So for filming, I don't want these bright lights on.
I want to use my main light here.
So I've set up a scene where those are dimmed down,
but in that same scene,
I can also change the background lights as well.
So I've got some different presets here
that I can change through
just to change up the look and feel
of the shot a little bit.
But they're full RGB lights in the ceiling,
so I can really change any of them
to be whatever color I like.
And the only other light that I have on is this other lamp.
So you can see that that just adds a little bit more color
and a little bit more depth and interest to the shot
without being too overpowering,
too bright or too distracting.
So again, the focus is on lighting yourself up first,
then play around with the background afterwards
because it's definitely not as important.
So while this lighting set up might look overcomplicated,
it's actually really simple.
That one main light is lighting me up.
I've got the ceiling lights turned off
at the front here or dimmed right down.
So they're not creating any weird shadows
or anything like that.
The other lights are just lighting up the room
so it's lighter.
And I've also got that little bit of light
coming through the window as well.
So you don't need to overcomplicate it.
I hope now you can see the different lighting setups
you can get really, really simply.
So now that you've got your lighting sorted,
if you want to find out why I use a $15 microphone,
then check out the video linked on screen,
and I'll see you in there.