Hey guys welcome to Make Anything, I'm Devin...
hold on, it's a little bit dim in here isn't it?
Lights!
Oh yeah that's better Light is great and as a content creator here
on YouTube it's very important for me to get well lit shots.
It's something that can't be ignored.
Unfortunately, building up a whole lighting setup can get a bit pricey, but today I'm
gonna show you something that's pretty exciting because I've figured out how to make this
fantastic, very well lit lighting setup at a fraction of the cost of what I was using
before and I think it actually looks better.
If you're making videos yourself definitely check out this video.
It could save you a lot of money, and otherwise, you still might want to watch because this
is a fun example of clever design.
So let's get right to it.
Cool!
So for the past year or maybe a year and a half all the shots that have been done in
this room have been lit with lights like these.
This is an LED panel light.
It's got about 150 LEDs on it, I believe, and it's by Neewer, which is kind of a budget
brand that's available on Amazon.
So this light with the stand and everything comes in a 2-pack for about $140.
I actually have been using 3 of these to light myself when I'm sitting at the desk.
On this side we've got my new setup, which definitely looks different and it's kind of
wacky but it works so well.
So, here we go.
I guess through the lens of the camera there both of these lights seem to be about equal
brightness, but clearly this one is a lot larger and so it's producing more light.
And the shot that I did just before this was actually lit using only two lights like this
instead of three lights like this.
So, you can buy a 3-pack of these and get pretty good lighting for $200 or you can build
two of these and have equally great lighting, if not better, for maybe $100.
Maybe even a little bit less.
Basically, if you haven't figured it out this is just a task lamp.
The same hanging lights that you normally have in shops.
The same one's I used to create my really cool Albatross desk lights that are right
behind you.
But in this case I've mounted the task light onto a tripod and there's also a ball joint
here so that I can quickly and easily rotate it, lock it back into place, and I can also
use the tripod, you know, lift it up and down, use it light you would control any tripod
but it's got a massive light on it.
This gives me a lot of control and the whole reason I came up with this is cuz in the corner
there you can see I've got a little bit of a green screen curtain peeking through and
green screens require really even and more than adequate lighting so that's why I decided
to come up with these and they ended up being better than what I already had.
Yeah, this is a very interesting lighting setup.
I've done a fair bit of research on lighting for videos and I haven't found anything quite
like this system that I've come up with so I'm excited to share it with you.
Alright, let's do it.
The first component we'll be using is our light stand, and any old stand should do.
This is the Amazon basics stand, which is sold in a 2-pack for $20, but so long as it
has this standard 1/4-20 thread any tripod or light stand should do.
We'll also be using a mini ball head mount from the Colorado Tripod Company.
I hadn't heard of this company before but I found these tripod heads on Amazon and I
was really impressed by the quality of these especially a the price.
They're among the cheapest ball mounts you could find on Amazon but the quality is just
really nice and robust.
It's got a 360 degree swivel.
It's got the ball mount, of course.
And it's also got this removable plate on the top which is gonna help with the installation
of our light.
As I mentioned, there's also one small 3D printed part.
Although, this part could actually be made with a laser cutter or even more traditional
means.
It's nothing super crazy but it's basically just this little plate which is gonna give
us an additional point to mount the tripod to the light and the way that it works is
that it fits right around our mounting plate for the tripod just like so.
It's a nice snap fit and this is gonna keep our light from rotating.
You'll see exactly what I mean in just a minute.
We'll also use two 1/4-20 nuts as well as one 1/4-20 bolt.
The exact length isn't important as long as it's a full thread bolt and that's basically
our mounting hardware.
Now let's just go ahead and prepare the light.
Here's my LED task lamp.
I got this from Hykolity on Amazon as well and I really trust this brand by now.
I've bought maybe twenty of their lights and I've had a few fail but they've got a great
five year warranty.
They replaced my failed lights right away with no questions so I really appreciate that
warranty.
So what I'm gonna do here is measure the top with a tape measure.
These are about four feet across and I'll mark the center point with this highlighter
or just any marker.
I'll mark the center in this direction as well and that will indicate our first mounting
point.
So what I'll do is start with this small drill bit and I'm gonna drill a pilot hole right
through that mark.
There we go, just a small hole to help mark the center and if you look at the other side
you'll see there's plenty of space in the center here without having to worry about
hitting the lights themselves.
So now that I've got that pilot hole I'll switch my drill bit for the 1/4" bit and that's
gonna create the final hole that we need.
So we'll go right back over that pilot hole and it's gonna help us stay centered while
we drill this larger hole.
As you saw I didn't use much pressure, I just went ahead and patiently let the drill do
it's work and now I'll go ahead and take this mounting plate and put it through that hole.
With that in place we'll flip the light over and on the other end here we'll just screw
on one of our 1/4-20 nuts.
I'll hold that nut on the inside while turning this tight until we have a nice strong connection.
Next I'm gonna take my printed part and snap it into place making sure that this arrow
is pointing away from the side that has the electrical cord since I'm assuming we want
the cord to be hanging down towards the ground.
We'll press that all the way down and then that will actually serve as a template for
our second pilot hole.
There we go.
Now we can remove the plate and once again switch to the 1/4" bit to drill the larger
hole.
One last time we'll snap the plastic part into place, feed this bolt all the way through
and then fasten the nut on the other side.
There we go.
So now with this extra part we have a second bolt connecting to the light and that makes
sure that none of these parts can rotate.
Now we can go ahead and connect our tripod head to that lighting stand and we'll also
adjust this mounting plate so that it's perpendicular to the ground.
Just like that.
Finally we'll open up this mounting mechanism and then we'll just slide the other part into
place.
We'll tighten that up and we've got our securely mounted light.
Now we can just plug it in and it's ready to use.
All those functions of the ball mount are still accessible.
We can swivel it.
We can rotate it.
We can tilt it towards the ceiling or use it however we'd like.
You'll notice the electrical cable is a bit short, so you're probably going to want an
extension cord for this, but that's basically all you need.
It's super versatile, you can orient it every which way and for their size these lights
are surprisingly lightweight so everything is really easy to move around and adjust.
Another thing I really like is that these stands can nestle together like so and take
up very little space, so when you're not using the lights they can be easily moved out of
the way.
Overall I'm very happy with how these work.
Look at that!
That is an insanely powerful set of lightsand they cost me less than the stuff I found online.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video, it was kind of something that I started for my own
sake of having better lighting and the solution that I wanted just didn't happen to exist
and I created it and I thought it was cool so that's why I made this video.
As I mentioned everything you need to build this yourself will be linked in the description
and, yea...
I hope you liked it.
Until next time, I'm Devin, this is Make Anything.
Don't forget, to stay inspired!