What is up my friends!
It's Ray back here and over the past few weeks, if you've tuned into the channel here, you
may have noticed a setup change in my studio.
Things look different in the space where I'm filming.
That’s because I've been filming with my new gear tree that I built.
This tree has everything that I need together all on one stand.
From a big, bright softbox light to my camera to audio to even power.
It's all right here and ready when I need it.
The best part of this is that it's highly mobile so I can move it around anywhere that
I want and still achieve the same lighting, audio, etc - only with a different background!
My studio has been through many different iterations over the years and throughout that
time, they've become progressively smarter and more efficient.
This latest version is arguably my most ambitious yet.
The idea for a new studio setup came a few weeks ago when I decided that it was time
to consolidate all of my production gear and make it easier to just sit down and hit record.
That's when I thought of a video that I saw a few years ago from DSLR Video Shooter, Caleb
Pike.
He shared a video about a YouTube studio setup on one stand that had a camera, microphone
and light all in one place.
Caleb is like a master at coming up with these creative, minimal and practical setups for
creators so I decided to follow his idea.
I bought most of the gear that he recommended however, there were a few things that I did
a bit differently to make it a little more practical like add a power strip, a tray to
hold things and more.
This setup is made of professional filmmaking gear so the pieces that you use to build it
now, could potentially be repurposed down the line to build something else.
So without further ado, let's get right into all of this gear.
So the foundation of this setup is the Impact folding wheeled C-Stand.
This stand is rock solid and perfect for mounting things.
It's meant for lights and rolling things like that around a studio but it also works great
for building a gear tree.
To mount my camera, I use an Impact Super Clamp with Ratchet Handle, an extension arm
for the Super Clamp and a Pergear TH3 ball head with a Manfrotto quick release on top.
Once the Super Clamp and arm are mounted, it's rock solid on the stand and doesn’t
budge one bit.
The Pergear ball head is great for angling your shot and moving your camera around.
The addition of the Manfrotto quick release is also a time saver because it lets me easily
mount and dismount my Sony a7c in about a second.
For audio, I'm using an Impact End Jaw Vise Grip with an Impact Grip Head at the end,
which is holding a Neewer mic arm into place.
At the very end of that mic arm is my Sennheiser MKE600 shotgun mic.
I've been using this shotgun mic for all of the talking that I've been doing in this video
and a few of my other recent videos.
To power the mic, I have an XLR cable running along the microphone arm and down to Zoom
H4n Pro Audio Recorder on the tray.
At the very top of the stand is lighting stuff.
There I'm using another Impact Grip Head, which is mounted onto the end of the C-Stand
which is holding a 20-inch Impact Extension Arm into place.
At the end of that arm is my Aputure Amaran 200x LED light with an Aputure Light Dome
Mini II softbox.
Softboxs for lights can be huge and I'm really glad that I discovered the Light Dome Mini
II.
It fits this stand perfectly and keeps it looking sleek and compact.
The 200x gets extremely bright so when I'm filming like I am right now, I only have it
set to about 11%, which is more than enough.
It gives off a really nice, pleasant look.
Lower down the stand under my camera I added a tray to hold additional gear like my audio
recorder, remotes to control things and various other gear.
If I really wanted to, I could also put my laptop on here and make this a streaming setup,
which is another idea for the future.
A little above that, there's a Lilliput 4K preview monitor mounted with a clamp from
Ulanzi so I can preview and easily see what I'm filming.
Last but not least on my stand is a Phillips power strip.
This of course, is used to power all of my gear on the tree and whatever else is nearby
that needs to be plugged in.
I mounted this with Scotch Extreme tape and some backup zip ties just in case.
The only limitation is that you're limited to the length of the cord on the power strip
but even then you can get an extension if you really need to.
So that my friends is my new and improved YouTube Studio setup!
I've been using this gear tree for a few weeks now and I have to say that it has been a complete
gamechanger for me.
Surprisingly the gear used to assemble this tree isn't too expensive either, all things
considered.
It came in at around $350 for the stand and all of the mounts.
The expensive stuff comes when you add in lights, microphones, cameras, recorders, all
of that.
If you're a creator though, you may have that stuff around already, so you can totally get
building something like this for relatively cheap.
Looking at this thing and thinking about all of the time I spent setting up shots and things
like that, it makes me wonder why I didn't follow Caleb's idea a little sooner!
Anywho, that’s about it for this video my friends!!
I hope you enjoyed it and found out helpful.
If you did and you liked what you saw, be sure to give it a thumbs up and hit that subscribe
button because it always helps out the channel.
Also, don’t forget to follow @raystrazdas on Twitter and Instagram for much more!
Until the next one, I will catch you guys later.
Peace!