-[soft thudding] -Aah!
Fucking just bit my finger with that now.
Hey, everybody, so today I wanted to talk about light
and how it pertains to making videos.
I've seen a lot of videos on YouTube in which,
didn't seem like there was really
much thought put into lighting.
Now, in some cases this is fine
because of the requirements,
but in other cases, it seems like there's
hobbyist YouTubers out there who could benefit
from maybe just a little bit of information involving
how to light their shots a little bit better.
So, I'm gonna start out from the least expensive,
most hack-job way to light your videos up to, you know,
a little bit more expensive, buy-only kind of thing.
But we're not gonna go anywhere near the high-end lighting
because you could literally spend thousands of dollars
on lights if that's what you want to do.
So, the first thing that would be important
is the light itself.
Now, what I have here is a Philips Twister bulb.
It's a CFL bulb and it is 42 Watts.
Now, there's a conversion on CFLs,
so it's actually 150 Watts, I guess like,
comparative to old bulbs,
but that's what you're looking for
in terms of its, like, nominal value, would be 150 Watts.
42 Watts is just, kind of, what it pertains to
whoever's paying the hydro.
Now this, and this is probably the most crucial part,
has a 6500K temperature.
Now, what that means, if you've seen this
on your bulbs or TV screens or camera gear before,
is it's the colour balance, or the temperature, really,
you know, from warm to cool.
And 6500K is considered daylight.
Now, that's important because daylight typically provides
a nicer image, I guess. I mean, that's subjective
and you can change the temperature based on
what you want your shots to look like.
But you ever know when you're outside
and you take some photos outside
with your iPhone, a selfie or whatever, and the sun's hitting
you just right and it looks really good?
That’s why you want daylight bulbs.
It gets rid of that yellowy cast that your lightbulbs
that you would have in your ceiling or your office
or whatever, it gets rid of that kind of colour.
It also gets rid of the green, kind of, cast I think
that fluorescents have in office spaces and that.
So, daylight doesn't have those things, so that's what you want.
6500K, daylight.
The other thing to know when it comes to Watts obviously
is that the higher the output of a light bulb,
the hotter it's going to get.
So, if you go out and you buy
a bunch of bulbs because I said so,
and then you put them all in different places,
you gotta be careful about the heat that they're gonna
generate, what you're going to have them next to.
When we get into talking about diffusion material,
not melting that, or setting it on fire,
not discoloring things around you, not making
your camera too hot, that kind of thing.
So, make sure the more powerful the bulb, the more space
that you leave from it, and that you keep in mind
how long you keep it running
because they'll get hotter and hotter and hotter.
Don't touch them, don't burn your hand, all that, okay?
So, the first thing that I made,
cheapest bare-bones item...
...is this.
So, this is a Walmart special, okay?
It's like, I don't know, $7 or something.
It's just a plastic desk lamp, okay?
Rickety, and this comes with a cord,
clicker on the back so you can turn it off and on.
And all I did was I just drilled a hole in the bottom of it.
But this is optional because you could keep it
as a desk lamp if you wanted
and if you had a place to set it, then that will work as well.
But I have light stands that I wanted to mount it to.
Oh, gonna get into this later,
but I'll give you a quick idea about a light stand.
So, this is a light stand.
It has the ability to tripod out, and has a mount on the top.
Now, I attached this little job here--
show it to you better, like this--
which is very similar to the one that's one top here,
because I know that these are pretty standard in
light stands. And, if you thread it in
like that, then... it’s gonna be mounted. Okay?
So that’s that. Really simple:
you take your daylight bulb,
screw it in, plug it in, turn it on, boom.
Pretty easy. And so, the total cost of this,
I would say, would be about 25 bucks?
$30, all in? Maybe with hardware.
Okay. So that's the first.
Then the second thing goes up just a little bit from that,
but is a bit more versatile.
So, this is a high-- Same, same idea.
Desk lamp, but it's a higher-end one.
I got this at Home Depot as well, and it's got
a pretty strong clamp on it, as you can see.
And that kind of, you know, flexi-crap.
And same idea, it turns on with a click, with a switch
in the back and a cable. So exactly the same,
screw your bulb into it, and Bob’s your uncle.
Now, the advantage of this is you can do
a few different things with it.
If you have your camera on a tripod,
or something of the like,
you could snap this on to the tripod
and then you could have it, kind of, like a, you know,
over the camera kind of light like that,
but these are great because I have a works space--
A work stace. Work stace?
Work spation.
I have a work spation set up, so that's awesome.
And in my work spations I like to clamp lights on them.
So, this works okay because I can double it
as a work light, so you might even have these kicking around.
Anyway, I'm rambling too much about this guy.
This is the next step up from that Walmart job
and it offers you some more flexibility.
Now... [rattling]
Now the next thing is... this.
Now, I don't know if this is in the shot or not.
This is just a floor lamp. Okay?
At the top, which you probably can't see, is a--
I just-- Aah! [groaning] Aah! 'Kay?
It’s a floor lamp, and you put a light bulb up top there.
I mean, that could do something.
I don’t know why I’m looking up, but...
[muffled] You can’t see this.
[normally] That’ll shoot light against the ceiling
and you could do some, sort of, like...
hair lighting with that, like bounce off the ceiling
from down on top, but more importantly,
you kind of have a light stand.
And light stands are more expensive than floor lamps,
but for your purpose, you don’t need to mount it
to anything, basic same cord idea.
It’s got a heavy base, and comes with its own
little heat shield, you know,
so you don’t have to worry about burning things down.
You automatically can’t put it too close to something.
And it gives you a little bit of positioning on it,
and you can get fairly high.
Like, I would say I’m using the light stand now
behind the camera; I would say that this is
almost the same height as that.
So, this is a decent option.
The next thing, this is an Opus.
just this part. Okay?
It’s an Opus OPL-SA02.
Again, it will be in the description, okay?
So, the light that I put up there now
is the one that I showed you before
that was that, like, cheap Walmart one
that I hacked all up and bolted into it,
to show you that it does pretty much the same job.
It’s on a light stand, just like this one here.
And so, this Opus thing,
it’s sort of an all-in-one solution.
It’s got the socket on it,
it’s got a nice switch on the back,
and is just it's corded up the same with, all right.
Argh. Okay, same as the other ones.
And it’s got a few different options here.
So, without having to bolt anything or do any,
kind of, like, screwing in,
you can just put this on a light stand.
If you can see this well.
Just put this on a light stand like this, and then you just...
The other thing that it does is it has a umbrella holder
here, and I have an umbrella here.
So, for those of you who don’t know, like I said,
photographers, this is gonna seem kind of stupid,
but for anybody who doesn’t know anything about this,
these umbrellas.... [rustling] Aah!
[audio slowed, distorted] Ha!
...Will poke your eye out.
So, these umbrellas are diffusion material.
So, the idea is when you shine a light through there,
it softens the light and makes a nicer finish,
less harsh, but they’re optional.
[folds rustling] Aah!
Fucking just bit my finger with that now.
So, they always said never open umbrellas in the house
and now I know why. Plus, I pinched my finger on it.
So basically don’t buy umbrellas because--
if you’re like me-- you’ll just hurt yourself a lot.
So, I’m going to show you a comparison now.
Just one light on my cheap, little Walmart build,
with the $20 daylight bulb in it.
So, this setup right now is with a Canon 7D Mark II.
Now, that’s a really great camera
and it has really great image quality.
So, I’ll show you a comparison of that with or without
the light before I move to another image quality.
so you can have a better understanding
of what the light will and will not do.
Okay, so we got the 7D Mark II by Canon,
and above it, about ten inches above it,
as you can see in the photo, we have that Walmart
light contraption that I made with the Philips bulb.
And this is what the image looks like. Okay?
So, take a look at it, and I’m gonna turn the light off
and then I’ll turn it back on and give you an idea
for it, okay? So light off.
Okay. So make sure you pay attention to the background,
look at my face, look at any shadows,
look at the, sort of, we’ll call it graininess,
for keeping the terms simple.
That’s because the camera has to increase, generally,
its ISO to compensate
and generally the higher ISO goes,
the more noise you’ll get in your photo.
So, this camera’s really great
and it’s really great in low light,
so may not be a great example of noise,
but you may find that with and without the light
that your noise goes way up when you turn the light off.
You may have noticed this already in some of your videos.
So, now, keep that in mind, look at the background,
look at the fill on the wall, look at the fill on my face,
and then my lovely assistant will turn the light back on.
And once the camera adjusts, you should be able to see
a much more even, much more punchy image. Okay?
Now what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna switch to an iPhone.
So, I got the light up there, everything’s exactly the same,
just filming on the iPhone.
Again, try to pay attention to the way that everything
is filled around me and how,
possibly, the light looks even.
And now I’ll turn the light off. Okay?
So, you might see shadows and some grain and noise
that I was talking about. Probably a little bit less even.
Turn the light back on.
But hopefully you can get the idea between
the way that the light changes.
Okay, so now we’re back with the 7D
and the light the way that it was before.
Anyway, that’s it guys. Thanks for watching.
Hope you found the video helpful.
I hope maybe it inspired you to wanna try
some different lighting combinations in your videos,
play around with them a little bit.
You can do it for not too expensive.
Like I said, the combo that I’m running
right now only cost me about $30.
I’ll take, like I said, the products and the descriptions
and I’ll put them in the description below.
If you liked the video please like below, and comment
if you have other ideas for what you want me to do
for, like, these DIY kind of things.
Please subscribe if you like these kinds of video.
This is my new channel,
so I’m hoping to make more videos in the future,
but I just wanna little bit of direction, motivation to do so
because, ah, I don’t know what I’m talking about.
And the most important part of ending a video
is having it all fall apart in the last few seconds.
And, usually what you wanna do then,
is just keep talking, right?
So, the longer you talk, the better chance
you have of karate chopping your hand?
and that’s usually where you wanna stop.
Okay.