Welcome to touch technology review today i'm going to share with you all the equipment that i use to
create the youtube videos that you're seeing on this channel. My equipment list and techniques
have changed significantly over the years as i try out new equipment and also new ways of using that
gear in order to get the best possible quality audio and video on my channel the first thing i
want to show you is my camera i'll then take you through my microphone setup and also the lighting
that i use to get these type of face to camera videos and also for shooting all of my b-roll
footage first is the camera choice now iphones and android phones are so good these days they shoot
1080p and 4k video so there's no reason why you can't just continue to use your iphone or android
device to shoot your videos for youtube but if you do have the budget available getting a camera can
really open up some new opportunities in the way that you film your scenes you can get access to
prime dedicated lenses which can give you specific looks and also the larger sensors available on
these cameras can often give you better results when you're shooting low light video so i use the
canon eos r which is a full frame sensor camera and this produces a really clean image under all
lighting circumstances and also i get to use my favorite prime lenses that can deliver specific
looks when i'm shooting my videos for example i'm using the 50 1.2 l series prime lens this
is one of canon's most famous most highly regarded lenses and one of the reasons for that apart from
the high image quality that it can produce is the fact that you can open it up to the 1.2 aperture
and that gives you a nice background blur effect that you're seeing in this video now i've only
got it open down to about 2.8 and you still see a fair amount of background blur if i want to
get even more blur i can open it up all the way up to 1.2 and you get a very surreal looking image i
didn't choose that setting for this scene because i wanted to get more of the subject in focus and
also there's just too much light available during daylight now coming from the outdoors
that it kind of floods the scene so 2.8 is a good aperture for me and it gives you this kind of look
once you've got your visuals sorted out the camera choice and the lens you want to use the next thing
you want to consider is your audio and this can't be overlooked so many people on youtube don't put
enough thought into the audio and it can be as simple as how you position yourself relative to
your camera or it could be more sophisticated by the type of microphone that you use if you
have your camera up close in a vlog style of video you can get away with the built-in audio of your
camera or iphone but if you're trying to set up a scene like this where you position your camera two
meters away or more then you'll find that there's too much room noise and echo in the recording and
it becomes unpleasant to listen to so i'd highly recommend that you pick up an external microphone
of some sort there's three different types of microphones you can consider there's a lav mic
which allows you to place it up nice and close and you can attach that viral wire or if you have
a wireless lav mic you can move around the room there's also a boom microphone such as the pvm
3000m that i'm using for this opening scene and this is a great quality directional microphone
i've got it positioned up on a lighting stand about 30 centimeters away so it's up really close
and that allows me to have this very clear direct vocal and it minimizes that echo and room noise
that i spoke about earlier and you can also use a studio condenser whether it's a usb or xlr
microphone such as the rode nt1 that i have over there that sounds amazing i tend to use that for
my educational videos where i've got it up close and i've got screen recordings going on but quite
often when i'm doing a face to camera scene if i don't want to have the microphone in the scene i
find it preferable to use a boom mic which can be positioned just above the top of the frame out of
sight and it sounds absolutely amazing so there are the three different microphones you can choose
i've reviewed most of these on my channel if you want to see those reviews
i'll leave a link to them in the description box below once you've got the audio taken care of the
next thing to think about is lighting if you're shooting indoors this can be really challenging
trying to use the available light with the room lights can be really give you mixed results you
can use window lighting if you get yourself in the right position but you really need to be
careful where you're positioning the camera and the subject to get the right look and it also
is dependent on what's happening outside in terms of the weather so you're not going to
get consistent results compared to when you're using dedicated lights so for a youtube setup
you could select a single led light source this could cost anywhere from fifty to eighty dollars
you could go for a three light setup where you can use a key light a fill light and also a backlight
or if you like you can go for a ring light which provides even lighting around the camera lens
and this can really be the simplest and easiest solution but that has a very distinct look which
is not necessarily as natural as setting up a three light array so in summary if you don't have
a budget make sure you're using the available light the best you can in order to fill the
scene and if you do have some money to spend on lighting just a simple led light or two can really
go a long way to improving the quality of your videos and the final thing i wanted to mention
was monitoring your video as you go if you're doing a lot of video this is going to save you
a lot of reshooting because there's often situations where you've overlooked something
in the scene you might have something appear in the background you didn't want to be there you
might see some lighting shifts as outdoor lighting floods through the window and changes the exposure
you might have something wrong with your clothing there could be any number of factors that have
gone wrong during the shoot that you wouldn't notice if you weren't monitoring your videos so
if you have a dslr or mirrorless camera with a flip screen you can use that one of the problems
with a small flip screen that i find is that it's so small especially when you position the camera
further back that you can't really see what's going on in the scene so to get around that i've
been using my microsoft surface that's mounted here onto my lighting pole i've connected it via a
usbc type 3 cable to my canon eos r i'm using the canon eos utility app and as i'm recording i can
actually see what's going on there on that surface i've got a focus screen there shows me whether i'm
in or out of focus shows the lighting it's very accurate it's a really large display and i can see
exactly what's going on and that saves you so much time in post-production not having to fix
up problems that have occurred or even in the worst case example having to completely reshoot
because you've overlooked something during the time of recording so if you can monitor your video
as you're going that's going to save you a lot of time down the track thanks for watching hopefully
enjoy this video these quick insights as to the equipment that i've been using in 2021 to produce
these videos as always if you have any questions about what you've seen today feel free to put
them in the comments box below if you enjoyed the video hit me up with a like and if you want to see
more from me consider subscribing to the channel and don't forget to hit that notification bell
so that you're notified of up and coming video releases see you on the next one bye for now