Camera and lighting advice

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StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2394
I'm looking for a setup that will enable me to make video material for YouTube, Instagram and so forth. Initially it'll just be me talking to camera, with cutways to B-roll footage including some close-ups. This will all be shot indoors in a room with little or no natural light. Later on I might want to add a second camera. Sound recording will be handled separately and I'm happy to sync by eye using handclaps or whatever.

Can anyone recommend suitable equipment? I'm thinking I'll need one camera body, possibly a couple of lenses, and a couple of LED panels, plus stands etc. I don't want to spunk thousands on it and I'm happy to go second-hand, but I do want it to look professional as this will be a fairly serious endeavour. I'm hoping that once set up it can mostly be left in place.


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  • BudgieBudgie Frets: 2099
    This might be useful - https://youtu.be/1xcjN-e-TUo
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  • WolfetoneWolfetone Frets: 1479
    Here's mine. In addition to this, I have a large silver reflector to lighten up my face. I also use a lapel mic. It's important that the camera You use has manual operation and a mic input. headphones not too important.

     
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  • WolfetoneWolfetone Frets: 1479
    Oh yes, and place the camera as far back as possible to avoid seeing excessive eye movement.
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  • TTBZTTBZ Frets: 2873
    edited July 2019
    What's the budget? You can get good super cheap LED panel lights by brands like Yongnuo on Amazon, eBay etc. Don't skimp on lighting though, it's much more important than the camera you use. Get a good strong soft key light and something for a hair light to separate you from the background. Big bit of white card/foam etc will probably do as a reflector for a bit of fill. I use Aputure stuff which is reasonably priced for the quality. The Godox SL-150w looks like a cheaper 120d, that with a softbox would be fine to start with if reviews are to be trusted.

    Camera wise i like Canon colours but they're so far behind in spec now. Sony colours are weird so I'd go for a Panasonic. The GH5/5S is the perfect YouTube camera imo if you don't need pro video camera features/form factor. Still about a grand without lenses though. There's also the Black Magic PCC4K for that sort of money which can give you amazing results with raw video but it had too many drawbacks with batteries, reliability etc for me shooting on location a lot. Needs a lot of external kit to get it up to scratch. On the cheap the GX80/85 is a great little camera, or a bit more for the G80.

    Budget for a decent shotgun mic and boom stand. I don't really like lav mics, they can be too boomy and unnatural sounding. Treat the room a bit to kill reverb. Nothing worse than bad audio and it's often overlooked.
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4028
    If it's not a thread de-railer, what software are people using to put it all together once it's recorded?

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  • oafoaf Frets: 300
    Resolve or Premiere.
    Free version of Resolve is very capable, paid version (one off fee) isn't expensive. Premiere is well known/established. Both have pros and cons, I rather like Resolve though and it has seen a lot of new features in recent versions.
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  • TTBZTTBZ Frets: 2873
    I use Premiere for work. Does the job but I miss Avid still. There's a free version of media composer which would be worth a try. Sometimes I feel like Adobe are the Gibson of the industry - loads of problems and bugs which never get resolved.
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  • Light is better than camera.

    For a camera, look into an older micro 4/3 model that has good 1080p. No one gives a shit about 4k on YouTube tbh. And it's a pain to work on. Fuji and Sony have good video features, but more expensive than micro 4/3 and still not as good tbh. 

    I don't get the colour argument - I've shot Sony, fuji nikon and Canon and never thought Canon colours were anything particularly great or bad - they're all fine and can be graded. If they look off to you, just watch for a bit longer and you'll adjust... 
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  • If it just you talking to static camera to start with then consider a Logitech C920 and then focus on lighting. 
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  • TTBZTTBZ Frets: 2873
    edited July 2019
    I just find everything I've shot on Sony to have strange looking skin tones - a bit greeny yellow, needs more work in post to get it looking as good as the C100 straight out of the camera. I find with Canon I only have to do minor tweaks to make things look a bit nicer, but skin tones always look natural and nice. The menu systems are also a lot nicer to use which was a big thing for me as I often have to change up stuff on the fly and it's embarrassing faffing about with menus. Then again the FS5/7 have loads better features than most Canon and I probably would have put up with more work in post if we had moved over!
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  • WolfetoneWolfetone Frets: 1479
    Light is better than camera.

    For a camera, look into an older micro 4/3 model that has good 1080p. No one gives a shit about 4k on YouTube tbh. And it's a pain to work on. Fuji and Sony have good video features, but more expensive than micro 4/3 and still not as good tbh. 

    I don't get the colour argument - I've shot Sony, fuji nikon and Canon and never thought Canon colours were anything particularly great or bad - they're all fine and can be graded. If they look off to you, just watch for a bit longer and you'll adjust... 
    Absolutely agree wholeheartedly and utterly completely...

    80% of your output success is composition and lighting. With video, a nice vocal tone is important too.
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2394
    Sound is my field professionally speaking so I am not worried about that... it's more the bewildering variety of cameras and lenses on the market that is doing my head in.

    I do need something that can do good close ups with focus pull etc, as well as the talking head stuff.

    It looks as though I could pick up a s/h Panasonic G7 with a couple of lenses for £400-500, but is that overkill?

    It strikes me that one thing that would be useful is the ability to both remote control the camera and flip around its screen so that I can see it from the position I'll be speaking in.
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  • WiresDreamDisastersWiresDreamDisasters Frets: 16664
    edited July 2019
    I'm not an expert at all. But I have done some stuff for work using Sony cameras. I'm very impressed with my Sony A7III. I also have some Newer NL660 LED panels, and a couple of the Yongnuo 360 light wands, which are very cool for throwing some colour about the place.

    4K gives you a lot of possibilities during the edit, because you can actually zoom into the footage without it looking crap. 1080p is limited in this respect. My mate who films for things like Portrait Artist of the Year keeps telling me that 4K is pointless, but I completely disagree tbh.

    Sony autofocus is really great. I don't *think* my skin tones are too bad straight from the camera, and I don't tweak that much. I just expose for the skin. You can see them here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQwN-OUjzG4

    And here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc4GIrmjq8Y

    I usually film in S-Log3 or if it's super low-light I use a tweaked version of the stock PP2 colour profile.

    Light is super important, but being able to expose without blowing out your highlights completely is something I've had to learn over time! Strangely enough I didn't find it that easy to predict what sort of image I was going to get. An external monitor can help loads with this.

    Last Canon I had was too cheap to even really talk about tbh. But it was the D650, and I didn't like any of the images I got from it to be honest. But this is way more likely to be down to inexperience on my part.

    Sony menu systems are a ballache to get used to. A7III gives you custom menus to alleviate the pain.

    Anyway... if you've got the cash.. Sony A7III... A6500 for a bit cheaper... then learn the basics of filming, shutter speed, ISO, etc... that's my recommendation.

    Bye!

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  • Grunfeld said:
    If it's not a thread de-railer, what software are people using to put it all together once it's recorded?

    Final Cut Pro sometimes, because I have a license. Adobe Premiere when I can get ahold of the work login. I have tried Resolve but it just seems buggy and crashy to me.

    Bye!

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  • mrleon83mrleon83 Frets: 185
    I just used a canon 600d (cheap on eBay) with a couple of softboxes (can be cheap)

    used final cut to edit etc

    videos at dragon heart studio (YouTube) to show the results 
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  • TTBZTTBZ Frets: 2873
    edited July 2019
    If you want shallow depth of field for nice focus pulls etc you'll want lenses with a wide aperture, longer lenses help with this too. As will a larger sensor, full frame will generally be better than M43 but also means more glass which means more expensive lenses.

    4k does let you reframe stuff in post but also.. just do it right first time. Imo that's not worth the massive increase in file size, processing power, storage, render times etc. Experience has taught me that life is much easier getting everything right in camera.

    On the cheap you could do a lot worse than a Canon 70D. Whilst autofocus is usually crap and switched straight off, the face tracking on that would probably be quite useful for solo pieces to camera.
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  • Jez6345789Jez6345789 Frets: 1756
    There is so much good video out there these days
    Work use a Sony 6000 and those little Tascam rechargeable lapel mikes and they sound fine to me. 

    If you light modern iPhones they do pretty well in my estimation, you lose stuff you get with DSLR but sometimes you are better using what you have and getting the delivery and performance right. A good style will take you a lot further than a Dick with a heavy Pro camera and studio. 

    Even if I use my OMD for video I use the iphone for a different angle shot to break up the monotony of someone talking to the camera. You can balance out the colour easily in modern post. 




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  • TTBZTTBZ Frets: 2873
    Yeah that's a good point, get a couple of lights and try the iPhone out first (if you have one!)


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  • relic245relic245 Frets: 945
    Wolfetone said:
    Here's mine. In addition to this, I have a large silver reflector to lighten up my face. I also use a lapel mic. It's important that the camera You use has manual operation and a mic input. headphones not too important.

     
    What software do you use for autocue?
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  • TTBZ said:

    4k does let you reframe stuff in post but also.. just do it right first time. Imo that's not worth the massive increase in file size, processing power, storage, render times etc. Experience has taught me that life is much easier getting everything right in camera.
    128gb SD cards are cheap these days, and you can work with proxy footage during the edit to bring down your render times, and then just do one final render when it's all put together. Unfortunately I have to be pragmatic in the sorts of rooms I am filming in. It's not always possible to "get it right first time" imho.

    Bye!

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