In about a couple of months from now, I plan to upgrade my entire vlogging setup.
And so I guess the purpose of this video is so I will have something to look back on in
the future, when I have more gear.
I can see how I did things back then.
So here it is, my entire vlogging setup as of May, 2017.
So, the camera I use most frequently, I would say, for vlogging, is my iPhone 5S.
Now, this is not actually my daily driver.
My daily driver is the Nexus 6P.
The iPhone is the camera I use for on-the-go vlogging.
I mean, the quality doesn't look as good as my Nexus 6P, but it's just way more convenient
and having such a nice form factor makes it easy to carry as well.
And for like, a five year-old phone, the camera is actually holding up really nicely.
As long as the subject is at least partially well lit, you're going to get a pretty good
picture.
So yeah, my on-the-go shooting camera is my iPhone 5S.
The next piece of equipment is my Snapchat Spectacles.
The Spectacles have a camera here on the right side, which gives you a first-person point
of view at eye level.
And being at such an angle, when viewers are watching, it's almost as if they are living
through the footage that you recorded.
Like they were there.
So I also use this camera for vlogging very frequently, and you can actually tell when
I'm using this one because you'll see white borders around the edges of the frame.
If you see those, that's how you can tell I'm shooting with Spectacles.
I just love it because it's so casual.
You won't look totally out of place recording with it and...
Like in an environment where it might not be so appropriate recording like this, recording
using these is, it won't look as strange I guess is what I'm trying to say.
Also, here's a tip I've heard from other Vloggers, if you're just starting a Vlog, and I don't
know, maybe you're a bit camera shy.
Or you don't like the idea of Vlogging in public.
Having a pair of shades actually seems to help.
It kind of blocks out this whole atmosphere of people around you just looking at you.
I mean, people don't really care, but it's all in the head really.
And then the third camera I use for Vlogging, is actually my main camera right here.
So, my main camera right there is a Sony DSLT A58.
DSLT stands for digital single lens translucent, but you can pretty much call it a DSLR; it's
almost the same thing.
My main camera is equipped with a Sigma 18-35mm Art Lens.
It's a super popular lens, it makes a great picture, I love using it.
It's a little heavy, though, which makes the whole main camera setup a little inconvenient
to use when I'm outdoors.
Which is why I don't use it very often.
And you only really see me shooting with the main camera in this studio.
I do want to make a habit of using this one outdoors a little more often, though, because
it takes your quality from here, to here.
I also have a Rode Videomic Pro on top of the camera, for capturing better audio.
Although, when I'm shooting my Friday uploads, I'm always recording using this lavalier microphone
right here.
So, a couple of videos ago, I got a comment from someone asking how I get my videos to
the level of quality that I do.
I mean, I see a lot of room for improvement, but I'll share with you what I know right
now.
Three quick tips when shooting with a DSLT, or a DSLR, or a mirrorless camera, or just
shooting with a big camera.
First one, I touched on this earlier.
Lighting.
You need to have good lighting to have a good picture.
It is probably the most important thing when it comes to video.
When you have poor lighting, you have to compensate by raising the ISO, which introduces grain.
And that just doesn't look very good on video, not when you have too much of it anyway.
Alternatively, you can compensate for that by slowing down the shutter speed, but that
kind of introduces this laggy motion, and it just doesn't look very good.
So yeah, bad lighting can literally make your footage look laggy.
Tip number two is white balance.
I know my two light bulbs here are balanced to 2600k, so if I set my white balance on
my camera to 2600k, what is white in the scene actually appears white on the camera.
And that just makes everything look cleaner.
It really pays off learning how to white balance.
If you really want to take your quality up a notch, learn about white balance, it'll
make your colours look that much better.
Lastly, tip number three, if you're still shooting on the kit lens, you should look
into other lenses.
Not that the kit lens is bad, it's actually super versatile, but it doesn't produce the
sharpest looking image.
This is the kit lens that my DSLT came with, and it's pretty good but for approximately
$200-300, I picked up this 50mm prime lens.
And when I shot my videos using this thing, it just looked way better.
It looked cleaner and I was able to use a faster aperture.
What that allows you to do is, create this really nice looking blurred background, while
your subject is in focus.
That can't really be achieved using a standard kit lens, but that does cost a lot of money.
A word of warning, if you really take your time and learn how to use lenses, you might
end up using up all your money because...
Lenses, they're just...
It's so easy to be tempted to buy lot of lenses once you know how to use them.
Okay, a few other pieces of gadgets I use to help me Vlog...
This is a white balance card, you can use this thing to help you set your white balance.
Another piece of equipment is this little tripod thing for your smartphone.
It's called the Glif.
Basically, it hooks onto your smartphone and it props it up so then you can go and do something
else in front of your camera while it's recording you.
It also lets you clamp it to a tripod like so, there's a threaded hole on the bottom.
This one right here is called a Gorilla Pod.
If you watch Casey Neistat's vlogs, you already know what this thing is.
Pretty much all the big vloggers are using this.
I don't really like to use it, but I mean, it does make carrying your camera a lot easier.
Basically, it's a tripod, but it bends to whatever shape you want to make it into, and
you can pretty much put it anywhere.
Let's see, okay one more thing.
If you want to take some really cool timelapses in your vlogs, you can already do that using
your phone, but this thing will allow you to kind of pan around while you're taking
the timelapse.
It's a really neat product, and it works like a kitchen timer.
So that's it for this video, I'm really excited to upgrade this whole setup but that is not
happening for a couple of months at least.
Alright, thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!