My Complete Lighting Setup for YouTube and Livestreaming

[00:00] I'm going to go ahead and show you exactly the type of gear I'm also going to do my best to explain my choices and the different looks that I usually achieve

[00:15] about a decade of experience as a professional photographer. So maybe that helps a little bit when it comes to choosing my own lighting.

[00:28] I at least have a good idea of, you know, how the camera is going to react This is a simple YouTube and Twitch setup. you need to have those skills in order to replicate something like this.

[00:41] you need to get familiar with your camera in general, even if it's a webcam. the most important subject of my scene, which is my face. I currently have two lights lighting my face.

[00:56] In fact, I'm going to show you. As you can see, this is, a softbox that I got from Amazon here. And the bulb is like 150W, which is absolute overkill,

[01:11] So it's probably like on 10% right now. And then secondary light I have is this cheapo probably $5 ring light that probably came with a kit or something like that.

[01:26] If you look at my eyes right now. And sometimes this part of the room is a little too dark, I'm going to turn it off so you can see the difference with my eyes.

[01:41] It also covers a little bit of the shadow. This is the YOLO cam S3 by the way. I love this thing. This is not a bad look by any means, but the shadow here is a little too dramatic

[01:53] I don't want to put any lights to fill the shadows or anything. sometimes I move it around depending on how soft I want it to be.

[02:06] Just assures that I have that little catch light. If I were to turn off the softbox, you realize that.

[02:18] Technically, I wouldn't consider this lighting my face, even though it's very visible right now. I also, you probably notice.

[02:30] And it's supposed to prevent, like, spillage. that is the exact dimensions of my softbox, just, you know, something to prevent that much spillage.

[02:45] is hitting my wall behind me, and I don't necessarily want that. and it's creating a softer look, which I do want.

[02:57] Having that modifier on would actually give me a more dramatic look. Since I make videos for, you know, gamers, live streamers, people who are very hip

[03:11] I really go out of my way to display my branding colors, which is purple and cyan. So let's turn those on. Those two lights I am so proud of because they are rim light.

[03:26] They really, really separate me. They are the thing that is actually separating me from the background. And I have them actually relatively close so that they're as harsh as possible,

[03:39] And those are. Let me see which one is closer. They are little light bars, but they have the power of, like, projectors. They're basically like light bars, but they're like floodlights.

[03:54] which means that I can pick whatever color I want. I use this remote control and they actually connect to Wi-Fi, but I've. I haven't gone through the trouble of doing that.

[04:06] because this room you can't necessarily tell this room is huge. or if I want to, light my background, for example.

[04:18] Look at that. Just super easy. And then boom. Even though right now I'm only using them as, you know, my rim light. One con is that they don't actually fit on my tripod.

[04:32] by a thread on the tripod. Pretty good knowing how to install them to make them secure. Now the goal of having those is to keep them out of frame.

[04:46] Because while this looks good, especially when you don't see where but sometimes, like, I don't shy away from actually having them in frame. honestly, but, the cables, the cables are my big issue.

[05:03] I'm like, oh, I can't figure it out. Let me put them off screen. now obviously you have two white things completely peaking on screen. So you don't necessarily

[05:15] want something that is way brighter than you on screen at all times. so the background actually doesn't catch any of that colored light. But most importantly, I can switch the colors on the background,

[05:31] I should probably turn off one of them so you can actually see what it looks like It's, it's a bar with a lot of super bright LEDs in there. If you're seeing this and you're saying, wow, those are cool.

[05:47] It's good for a big room like this one. and your back is against the wall, you do not need 50W. But 30W should be okay.

[05:59] And make sure you get lights that are made to be on camera. If you just get flood lights that are like that, you're probably going And I might demonstrate this because I do use some floodlights.

[06:13] Oh, and there's another look that I sometimes like to have, and it's, it's my my eyes are red because of allergies. I don't feel like being on camera. Look. And it's this one.

[06:26] Because even though you don't really, really, really see my face, it creates enough of an outline for this look to be acceptable. And sometimes I'll go live on Twitch and I don't feel like

[06:42] I'll go live like this and that's completely fine. Keeping in mind that in general, I also tweak the, the colors a little bit. The, the lighting, the the exposure, mostly in OBS studio itself.

[06:57] I'll tweak with the colors and everything. And remember, at any point, if I want to turn one of them towards the wall.

[07:09] Like that, for example, I still get, like, a pretty cool lighting on the wall. Just like that. I'm even thinking of having, maybe a haze filter on my camera

[07:25] I think that's a pretty cool look. Back with a softbox. There's another tiny light Keep in mind that I could automate those.

[07:38] Hey, why don't you get things that work with WiFi? And right now, the way I have my setup, I don't mind going and just I used to use, my Alexa to do that, but not anymore.

[07:55] what I call a decoration light because, well, it's a white wall behind me. So when I turn this one on and it's very sensible to the

[08:07] This one like was an AliExpress buy I think for five bucks. So it's also RGB.

[08:19] Wow. The blue is barely visible. And it also has like fading and strobe modes and all that stuff. because it's actually super tiny and you can place it wherever you want.

[08:34] I just love having this, you know, when I'm sitting straight, having this little well, this, this white halo around my head, it gives it more depth. more than just me standing in front of a white wall setting.

[08:48] It's just that it's that little thing. with a phone mount on this little arm, so I can easily move it around. The lights that I'm showing today is not all the lights that I have.

[09:02] Elgato Key Light and I have two of those, I have all of them. I have a review, I believe, on my tech channel for this one.

[09:14] Believe it or not, it's pretty bright, and it's USB like yours. I think this is 4 or 6W or something. I have it on a USB extension cord.

[09:30] I can easily just place it where I want. Sometimes I have it exactly on this little piece of furniture just pointed up.

[09:43] Sometimes I have it on the side and it. I like this thing. pointed at my own face and have it be like some sort of cool effect like that,

[09:59] You can see it. That's why I call it decorative light. I just put it against the wall to make you see that there's something there. Okay. What else do we have?

[10:14] little piece of furniture behind me, you'll see, like some sort of light bar And this one is the Govee glide. It's a wall light where you can, you know, turn it in different shapes and blah,

[10:26] But I decided to just keep it on there because I don't know, I'm I have a hard time using the adhesive and putting it against the wall. I used to have I made a DIY light that I really, really stuck to the wall.

[10:41] And when I was moving, when I lived in Paris, I just left it there. On my phone. So I can have all sorts of effects, including some that react to my voice.

[10:55] is compatible with, like, your Amazon devices. So. Maybe change scenes, I don't remember.

[11:07] I just use my phone because like to see all the options when I'm about to film and then turn it on, or if it's late at night and I have everything turned off. I love the nightlight but yeah, right now it's on bouncing ball.

[11:21] I have some I have some garbage on this. I have crossing where those things are crossing.

[11:33] But it's pretty cool. And as you can see it's actually affecting the wall quite a lot. But that's not the only that's not the only thing.

[11:47] So, Yeah, all of a sudden, it's funny, when we went from darkness to this, it feels like everything is way too bright now, but it's not. Turn it back on.

[12:01] So yeah, considering just how bright things are right now, this is still all of the lights that I usually have when I have my full brightness, I have, a projector, a floodlight

[12:15] literally meant for outdoors behind this Ikea furniture. And it's slightly pointing towards the wall Turn off the govee glide so you can really see the effect.

[12:32] It provides that little glow, especially like if I don't want to have the govee glide on, I still want to have something on I believe I can change the color,

[12:45] And blue is not a bad color for the background. So yeah, this is another 50W, believe it or not. This is a setup right there.

[12:59] I don't have my rim light, but, you know, if I wanted to keep things simple, It still basically floods the room with light. lights, you know, especially those ones that were not meant to be on camera.

[13:11] so you cannot pick whatever color you want. Usually the primary colors red, green, blue, even white sometimes will be fine,

[13:23] Sometimes you have to play with the shutter speed of your camera Let's say like you like pink and you're going to buy a floodlight. is not going to be able to handle it, but there's a huge advantage

[13:39] Let me actually grab another one because I own probably five of those. It's just RGB comes with a remote control. And, the huge advantage is that those are dirt cheap.

[13:52] You get a lot of power for so cheap for like, really not a lot of money. Probably around ten bucks, more like 15 bucks or something like that. That's usually around $50 or more is nine watts of brightness.

[14:10] This is 50W, and it's like 10 or 15 bucks. If you pick pink as a color, it's probably not going to give you banding. Now there are floodlights that are made basically same technology

[14:27] So like it operates at a different frequency Those are the ones you really want. If you're going to be like if you want to have all of the power,

[14:41] this is why when I moved here, I decided to get those because those I can, you know, I can actually go with cyan and and purple and not worry. I can also dim them down a lot without having to worry about bending.

[14:56] You see that with that one, it would, it would be tearing my frames right now. So. So if you're poor or if you're very cheap especially if it's a small room like 10 to 30W, should do the trick.

[15:11] Just know that you won't be able to be too picky So if you're fine with blue, you're fine with red, you're fine with green. I tried to convince Elgato to come out with like, floodlights like that,

[15:25] or maybe the Elgato Key light, but RGB, we'll see, we'll see. Now that we got like, I realized just how much the floodlight back Okay, I'm going to turn to the Govee glide back on.

[15:38] Fun fact my ring light is actually it's actually sitting on my monitor So if I shake the table, if I bump the table or anything, Not permanently, but, like, securely.

[15:54] I remember again, shutter speed, your aperture on your camera, your ISO. You usually want your ISO to be as low as possible so that you don't have noise. Noise usually like kind of distract people sometimes, especially in a dark areas

[16:07] And it can make your camera look super cheap, even though it's not. because that that bad boy was like, hey, there's no noise.

[16:19] because while I was pointing it directly at light right? In case people were thinking, hey, it's just, it's the camera. If you're thinking that's what makes, you know, the image look good or anything.

[16:35] This is a yolo cam S3 Most webcams do not look like that. So right now that is it. but I'm telling you that webcams nowadays can give you this quality.

[16:53] So, the difference between 700 and $800, which is what I paid for it And something like 400, 300 and $400. so my skin tone is going to be redder on my Sony Cv1.

[17:08] Let's see what else. I have a sharpen. I'm going to turn that off right now. I have a lot that is kind of punching the colors.

[17:24] I really love, like, vibrant colors. I'm going to turn it off right now okay. you're going to see is my color correction.

[17:37] because my camera you're going to see it's actually low contrast a little bit. And now you can see you know the the real colors come out.

[17:50] the lights behind me. And then within OBS studio, I decided to punch it maybe a little too much. when I'm switching out my setup because I have a another YouTube

[18:03] I usually come in here and I play around a lot with it. It's constantly a balance between how bright do I want the softbox

[18:15] those, highlights in OBS to actually get an image that I want so that I don't have to go and mess with the image after I'm done recording.

[18:27] And I believe I said everything. I should show you the products and gives you an estimation of the price. We're going to say free at this point. Boom. Flash bang.

[18:40] I live in West Asia, so I bought some of those from there. It comes with this big old light bulb, a remote control, which is white. And you can see you can control the white balance or, like, the color temperature.

[18:55] I usually go the lowest possible because 150W is way too much. okay, that's fine, but they're manual, so I'm not going to play around with that.

[19:08] And there is a switch on the cable which is also nice, which I also never use. I used to have those, CFL light bulbs and, they deteriorate over time.

[19:21] I don't know, the, the weird ceramic here, basically, like, crumbles over time. I like the fact that there's multiple LEDs because I am specifically going for a soft ish look.

[19:34] Having multiple sources kind of helps that, but on top of that, it's a soft box. Might take a little bit of space, but it's in a corner

[19:46] behind my desk and honestly, like it doesn't take that much space. It is behind my monitor, so it's actually not in the optimal space I'll put some links in the description for USA and also UK

[19:59] because a lot of this is just generic stuff. Basically the softbox was about $38. And even then, back in the day, I would not spend that money.

[20:14] All right. My two RGB eyes are right there. I said Wi-Fi earlier, I was wrong. The govee light is the only one I think I have that is Bluetooth.

[20:27] this is also technically an outdoor light, which is why they're like 50W. But I believe I read somewhere but it doesn't flicker on camera. Cheaper lights usually don't have, and this one is a little bit

[20:43] It is, weatherproof, even though it says waterproof. Yeah, So, yeah, you either buy video lights or,

[20:55] no matter what color, no matter how much we deem it. So this one was 365 dirhams. Way more expensive than the softbox.

[21:10] Worth it. Totally worth it. so approximately 5 or $6, something like that. Super cheap. Very small bunch of options.

[21:24] Then we have a three govee glide, which is probably the most expensive. If you want to get more, it's like 200 something Govee sometimes gets super cheap

[21:36] But, do note that this one was sent to me for free. Okay, I'm not saying that I would never spend 100 bucks on lighting. But, you know, they're they're doing more heavy lifting than the glide.

[21:51] If you have a small room and you just want to illuminate it Yeah. The glide is what you see in the middle here. The govee rope light is what you're seeing on the outside, which, I have them,

[22:03] So, yeah, in my opinion, for what it is slightly worth it It's reliable. Never had any problems, any connectivity problem or anything like that.

[22:16] The LEDs, the light themselves, they look just as good. You can change the speed. And then finally, when it comes to the floodlight.

[22:30] Review on it, I believe. Remember if those are not meant to be on camera or it doesn't explicitly say doesn't flicker on camera,

[22:43] Switch colors or do a bunch of color color combinations right. Forget that you're going to have banding.

[22:55] To be fair, but for me, I make YouTube videos. I do not buy those that say 200 light, 200W, 400W.

[23:07] Those are like the eye piercing ones. From 10 to 50 is absolutely sufficient for your room. Also, I'm saying all of this for educational purposes only,

[23:21] They're not meant to be indoors. So, use at your own risk. And that's, About $30, approximately.

[23:34] Again, there will be equivalent in the description. Because I doubt that I'll find the exact same, products in your country. and I've accumulated most of those lights, like, over year.

[23:48] Full time for eight years now. Probably. and buy everything and think, yes, I'm going to I'm going to get good lighting. How well you know how to adjust it, if it's even adjustable,

[24:03] you're going to be very limited, very fast. ISO low so that my professional cameras can look professional.

[24:15] They don't look cheap because I'm blasting enough lights at them. if you buy all of your lighting just to realize So proceed with caution.

[24:29] face light and then go from there. my time, my time. Like.