Searching for the right video lights can quickly feel confusing and overwhelming.
Options and price ranges are practically infinite, but good lighting is incredibly
important, in some cases having a bigger impact on your video than your camera.
So I hope my footage of these iFootage lights can help enlighten you
to be filled with delight.
Like when I turn these on and off, you're filled with de-light,
like de-light right here.
Okay.
(sorry for that joke)
Normally this is
about how bright our yard is.
There's some market lights and some landscaping lights, and it's pretty dark.
I swear, I'm here.
In fact, if I turn on this giant light right here,
you'll kind of be able to see me.
This is only at 3%.
If I turn this all the way up,
here's 100% brightness, probably too much, but if we
take it down to maybe– this is a 320 watt light at 17% brightness,
I'll turn that off for a second.
This over here is a 220 watt light at 3% brightness.
This is a 60 watt light at 100% brightness.
So let's mix these all together, and then in what was pitch dark we have actually a
pretty nice looking set– "lit" as the kids say 🔥
Now these are the iFootage, Anglerfish series of lights.
And while I'll be using them as an example in this video, the things I'm
talking about will apply universally to pretty much all video lights.
I have been using the iFootage, Shark Slider Nano and friction arms,
kind of like these ones around here, on a daily basis for a couple of years now
and I really liked them.
iFootage reached out and said, "Hey, we're releasing some lights.
Do you want to check them out?"
And I said, sure, not thinking that I was going to end up with a full on
lighting setup! But this is actually perfect because what they sent was
essentially a small, medium, and large light, a 60 watt, a 220 and a 320,
which is perfect because one of the most common questions I get is,
"Tom, why are you sweating so much?"
And the answer is it's a hundred degrees outside.
The other common question I get is, "What size video light do I need, especially for
a home studio or a home office type setup?"
And this is perfect because lights around 60, 220, ands 320 are some
of the more common options out there.
And while iFootage did send these lights, this video is not sponsored,
I don't have to make a video about them,
I don't have to say anything specific,
They're just pretty cool lights.
I do like them.
Thumbs up. 👍
So first and foremost, if you do video work, it's very important to dedicate
yourself to dedicated video lights.
And the reason for that is because they're not going to cause all kinds of weird
problems that regular like house lights or non-video lights can cause. Even super
cool looking RGB bulbs or whatever,
will start to flicker and do weird stuff depending on your
frame rate and your shutter speed.
If you get a dedicated video light, whether it's for photo or video, no matter
what frame rate you're at or shutter speed, it's never going to flicker.
It's never going to cause any problems like that at all.
These lights are attracting a lot of bugs.
There are all kinds of video lights out there, but for the sake of this
video, I'm going be using these, which I'm going to be calling "studio lights."
And I don't know if "studio light" is the correct term, but what I
mean is these just have a lot of traditional mounting options, lighting
patterns, and other features.
And I don't think most people necessarily need a whole bunch of studio
lights in their setup, especially if it's a home setup, but having
one dedicated key studio light can be key to a great lighting setup.
A good, reliable key light will last a really long time,
be super versatile, and basically just save you a whole lot of
headaches in the long run.
I do think these specific iFootage lights are really awesome.
They come in at a good price point,
they have a decent feature set, and they're built really well.
They come with these
padded bags and some nifty accessories.
They're definitely worth checking out if you're in the market for some new lights.
And each of these lights, like most studio lights
have several kinds of standard parts.
First, the light itself.
Shocking, I know.
Actually, hopefully not shocking because that would be an electrical problem.
A power supply and a reflector.
While most studio lights do come with those things,
the big things that you'll need to think about are stands– depending on
the light kit that you're getting
it may or may not come with a stand. Right now I'm using a stand that iFootage sent,
actually two stands,
this is like a monopod stand over here, which is actually pretty cool.
And then
s C stand right here.
And if you aren't familiar with C stands, you should see my C stand video
so you'll understand why they are really, really awesome.
And there's also a very good chance
you'll need some sort of mount that's going to help you
shape or diffuse the light.
And we'll talk about that in a little bit.
Most studio lights have what's called a Bowens Mount, and this has been a standard mount
across all kinds of lights for decades
that lets you attach all kinds of things like diffusers and snoots, which
is a very fun word, and other kinds of modifiers and attachments and all
kinds of fun stuff to your lights.
And the cool part is because it's been around for so long, the range of
accessories you can get for
Bowens mounts is huge.
The price range is pretty much whatever you can imagine for it,
and you can very easily mix and match manufacturers.
And of course, as is the case with pretty much any video light, you'll
find these days, these are LED.
And that's great because even the giant ones don't take a ton of power and
they don't really get very hot. Giant lights like this, boost it up to 100%
will get kind of warm and you probably don't
want it to be right next to you
because it's also super duper bright.
But they're not going to get anywhere near the dangerous temperatures of
the incandescent lights of years past.
So let's talk about these lighting sizes because chances are, if you're looking
for a video light, you're probably considering something in this range.
60, 220, 320, you probably don't need anything beyond that.
The light above me is the 60 watt Anglerfish light.
60 watts is pretty much the most standard, common, affordable
studio light that you're going to find when you search for video lights.
And generally 60 watts is going to be more than enough for pretty much
most home setups or small setups.
If you're going to use it as a key light, the iFootage one specifically is
very tiny and very adorable, and it doesn't actually come with a Bowens mount.
It has this really adorable little reflector here, and it can take little
tiny attachments, but the way that I have this lantern attached to it is it
does also have a Bowens mount adapter.
So you can go from this mini type mount here to a standard Bowens mount on the
60 watt light. Whatever light you're getting,
it's a good idea to make sure it either comes with a Bowens mount
or is able to be adapted to one.
🌬
Oh, it also comes with this, which is really cool.
It's a handle that then can take a V Mount battery.
So then you can have the light kind of wireless and that's super fun.
This light is in a diffuser at 100% brightness.
So if I turn off the other ones, there now we're only–
(man talking to lights in his yard) You can turn that way,
it's okay.
Now you're only getting the light from the 60 watt Anglerfish.
So I actually do think this is a really great place to start if you're looking
for a light, because even if you decide that you want to upgrade later on to
something bigger and more powerful, there's always going to be room for a
good 60 watt light in your setup as a fill light or a hair light or some kind
of accent light. You really can never go wrong with having one around.
Now even though 60 watts is probably enough for even like my normal setup,
my preferred power is the 220 watt here, which I know might seem crazy because when I'm
using it as a key light in my studio, I usually keep it at like 40% brightness.
So why not just get a less powerful light?
But the reason for that is I love diffusion.
And when you shine a light through a diffuser, it's naturally
going to lose some brightness.
And then I also like extra, extra soft light, which means I like to
bounce the light through a diffuser off of a wall or a bounce card or
something, which just takes more power.
And I like having 200 watts because I never have to worry about my
setup having enough light.
Another reason that I like 200 watt lights is they kind of start
having more robust feature sets.
It has a native Bowens mount, and it also has this power box here, which
all of these lights have effects.
This is going to be really fun.
So we have something that's going give me a seizure. (there are more effects, but my brain can't handle them)
These are all daylight balanced at 5,600 Kelvin.
They're not bicolor.
These also do have an app that works with them as well, but I really love having
the nice power box like this. And it does have a strap and a 1/4 20 mount on it
so that way you can mount it to a light stand or hang it from something
or put it on the floor or whatever.
There is a small fan in the power supplies, and there are
small fans in the bigger lights,
but the fans are not nearly loud enough to be picked up on camera in pretty
much any normal circumstance. And both the 220 and 320 watt lights
have these external power supplies that give you access to more features.
These are incredibly well built and the most fun part about them is they have a
very silvery fun-to-press power button.
It's like supremely satisfying to use.
If that matters to you.
And as much as I do like this 220 watt light part of me does actually
wish that it was 216 watts instead.
I know that's very nitpicky,
but I just think it would be really cool if this light could Turn Down 4 Watt.
And of course last but not least,
This is the 320 watt light, which is getting blown around in the wind
because it's got this giant soft box on it, which is basically just
a sail at this point right now.
It seems to be pretty good at about 16% brightness.
Now, one thing I will say that I've noticed recently is a rise in the
popularity of 300 and 600 watt lights in home studio setups. And far be it
for me to judge whatever you want to do in your home studio setup.
Have fun, spend your money however you want,
but if I'm keeping my 200 watt key light at 40% most of the time running
through like double or triple diffusion, chances are, if you have a 300 or a
600 watt light in your home studio, you're going to be keeping it on like
less than 10% for 90% of the time.
And since price does increase with power output, I would recommend not going too
overboard unless you're looking to use it for actual production work, you're
traveling to all kinds of different sets,
you need to illuminate a large space or you're going to regularly
be doing lighting outside, even in the daytime,
that's where you need something that's maybe super bright.
But for most of us, a light 200 watts and less is going to be more than enough
for pretty much all of our needs.
Now beyond the lights themselves, I would like to modify your opinions on these lights
by talking about light modifiers.
The possibilities really are endless when it comes to ways
that you can modify lights.
And so here, I've got some of the more common methods.
I've got a softbox,
A softbox with the grid, and a lantern.
And of course we've got just sort of standard reflectors, which is almost
like not having a modifier at all in some ways.
Most studio lights will come with a reflector.
This is kind of the standard light modifier, and they don't
do a ton except really sort of amplify and direct the light.
It almost turns it into kind of like a spotlight, and that can be great for
certain situations, but what you'll probably find in a lot of cases is
going to cause a lot of
very harsh shadows.
Now if you've just spent a bunch of money on lights and you don't have
the budget for more modifiers, what you can do with your reflector is
actually just bounce it off of a wall or a ceiling or some other surface
where the light can then be diffused and reflected back– stop turning away. (Why do you hate me?)
So as great as reflectors can be, it's important to reflect on how you're
going to use them because pretty quickly, you're probably going to
want something a little bit different.
Probably a softbox.
This is a ginormous 90 centimeter soft box, which is why it's
acting like a sail in the wind.
And it's just going wherever it wants to go, because it's massive
and it's very, very deep.
This is a much smaller, softbox.
I believe this is 60 centimeters.
This is much more practical for like a home studio setup.
I've been using a small soft box like this for years in my
personal studio because it just doesn't take up as much space as this does,
even though this bigger, brighter diffuser does give off softer light because it's
bigger and it diffuses the light more.
Now one thing I really love about these iFootage soft boxes is that
they have dual layers of diffusion.
They also come with the grid, which is a great way to direct soft light
without causing too much shadow.
So that's if you want to control light spill, but you don't want those harsh
shadows, that's what you would use
something like a grid for. It's great.
The grid is great!
It's really too windy to be doing this right now.
But inside this softbox, you actually have the option to add another layer of diffusion.
This isn't super uncommon with higher end lights, but what's really great
about these is the way that you add that second layer of diffusion.
It's a really high quality
piece of diffusion material,
and you just attach it with snaps.
And I saw that and I thought, "Oh snap!" this is way better than what I've used before,
which is oftentimes these little kind of flimsy clips, that even if you're
very careful with the lights, seem to break pretty easily. I think it might
be because even though the lights don't get super hot, they do generate heat.
And then the clips are getting heated up and cooled down and heated up and cooled
down and then they just start
failing pretty quickly.
And that's really frustrating and sort of tough to fix.
Now up here, I have something really interesting, which is a lantern.
These are an absolute pain to set up.
If you've ever struggled to set up a camping tent,
this is just as in-tents as that. 😬
Good timing on that light move there.
Lanterns are great,
and that's what I wanted to show in this situation actually is because
I'll turn these lights off again.
This is probably a little too harsh for this specific situation, but
hopefully you can kind of see the soft light that's being projected
in every direction from the light.
It's really, really cool.
And if you have a couple of these, this is a small lantern.
There's actually a larger one that iFootage sent as well.
And I also don't want to skirt the issue of the skirts, which is basically
just a black piece of material that you can attach to different
parts of the lantern and stop light from projecting in that area,
so it almost is like you turn it into a more traditional softbox.
If you wanted to save some money and you think you're going to use a lantern
and a softbox, you could get a lantern,
put a skirt around it and then remove the skirt
when you want the full light source. It might be something
that could work for you.
So because it is so fun to get something like a new camera, it can become
really easy to overlook the importance of lighting in your video setup.
But if you remember that a camera's entire purpose is literally to
capture and process light, then it starts to make sense why you wouldn't
want to overlook the importance of lighting within your setup so that
your setup can fill you with delight. 💡
And speaking of things that are delightful, thank you to everyone
who helps support my channel through Patreon and YouTube Channel Memberships.
And it's probably also a bright idea to check out some of my other
light related videos right here.