so should you be using a soft box or an led panel
well that's what we're going to have a look at today
I'm Adrian Salisbury from the Pro Video Academy and I help entrepreneurs to
get over the hurdles of getting on video and get professional results like this
and in this video we're specifically looking at lighting
now I've changed around a little bit recently
I was always using led panels like i've got in front of me right now i find them fantastic they're small
they're convenient you can put them up on light stands they're pretty affordable in the past i've
had these hung from ceilings on rails or for other customers we've actually had them mounted to the
desk so very versatile one of the main benefits of them is that we can actually adjust the color
temperature and that's been a big deal because i've been encouraging people that the lights
you've got here shouldn't be your only lights that you've got going on i've always been trying to
help people to just use the ambient light that they've already got in the room i'm not talking
about daylight i'm talking about lights you've got on the ceilings lamps around you if it's lighting
that you're working with at your desk then we can use that in your videos and so really the LED
panels have been there just to fill in a bit and knock out shadows and things and it's been really
important that we can actually match in the color of these lights to the lighting that you've got
going on in the room but i have to say a couple of disadvantages really with these led panels is
firstly the shadows that it creates like this for me as a glasses wearer and if i lift my eyes up
they become quite strong and they are a little bit intense shining down on me if they're too close
into me like this now i didn't really consider an alternative until last year and i started dabbling
with soft boxes and i've actually got a setup now where i've got this soft box sitting right above
the camera and let me just show you the difference so at the minute I've got two viltrox led panels in
front of me i work them off of a remote control i can put them on separate channels if i want to
i've actually got another one that's behind me that's lighting up back there i just find these
really good i know you can get other lights that will work off of apps you can download on your
phone and things like that but i think a physical remote control like this is really good so let me
just show you if i first of all turn off that light behind me just so that we can see exactly
what we're getting and uh if i change this one you can see how much light that in this scenario now
i know i was just saying earlier about using the ambient light in this scenario now
i've got nothing else on apart from these led lights so let's just see
turn them off as you can expect just a little bit of glow off my monitor in front of me
so this is all coming off of these two led panels so what happens when i switch this over and we
put the softbox on instead this now is the light as you can see coming through from this softbox
overhead notice that my shadows have pretty much gone the sides there's nothing there there is
a little bit around the bottom and actually i could bring this light a little bit lower
and help eliminate that and i have to say this is a much nicer light to be looking into so i don't
feel that this is like having those headlights pointing at me and the reason i've gone with
this dome one which we'll cover in another video is that i find that this casts light around it
as well it isn't just all 100 coming forwards at me with a black space behind so this godox light
with the godox lantern has actually become my favorite and again the convenience of having all
of that on one stand in front of me i don't need now to have three different stands these two can
go and i've just got one light overhead i can bring back in now that light that i had behind me
and so this would be more the setup that i would use so if you've got led panels you can still be
using them and lighting up the background and doing things like that and i do think there
will be times when i want to change this around maybe i feel like i need to bring another light in
from the side maybe i want a light that's going to shine back over my shoulder here so very versatile
i'm certainly not going to be putting these away in a cupboard and not using them again but i do
like this softbox and i think again just to be able to mix around with these different lights
can be really useful now i'm not saying that this light is going to replace led panels for everybody
as you'll see there this is a pretty big light that i've got in front of me so if space is a
problem and you're backed up to a wall you might not be able to get this thing in front
of you or if you plan to stand you might find that you don't have space above you to get this
thing up and as you can see there's not a massive difference when i switch these over
going back between the led panels and the softbox and certainly if you're not wearing
glasses slightly different colour temperature going on there but less noticeable there now I mentioned
light reflection so with glasses when I'm looking up here and I'm catching you can see these panels
i do have a film on these glasses that is designed to stop that glare but it still picks it up a bit
so what happens with this big softbox well actually it just because it is a bigger softer
light doesn't seem to catch the same way you can see it up there but it doesn't look as obvious as
having two squares pointing at me so several reasons there why I've chosen this is now
part of my current equipment setup and i think it's pretty reasonably priced so i would encourage
you to have a go at it and try it and see what you think to it now i've chosen this dome here
and we have put another video together where i show you the difference between this and a regular
softbox and we've already done a little series where we pulled a whole load of soft boxes out
different shapes and sizes and compared them for you as well i'll put a link to all of those
check out the description uh we've got plenty of videos on lighting really keen to help you let us
know in the comments is this helpful any questions that you've got about it would love to really come
back to you and uh just make sure we're supporting you with all this so it goes without saying if
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every time we post up a new video thanks so much i'll see you in one of those other videos