Welcome!

Hello Builders,

Today, we got:

• a quick 101 on good picture

• a breakdown of a clip with bad lighting

• popular tools

Let’s begin…

Breakdown

Bad picture makes you look shady, broke & unprofessional.

Good clear picture makes your videos easier to watch, makes you stand out & positions you as a market authority.

Let’s break down picture quality to it’s simplest components: Cameras & Lighting

Cameras

The camera itself matters less than you think.

Lots of camera bodies can look good, especially when it’s crunched to the quality of a phone. Again, if you want to start with your phone, go ahead.

The key with any camera purchase is to get a good lens with it.

Most lenses that comes with cameras, called kit lenses, are variable zoom general purposes lenses that aren’t amazing at anything.

2 things to think about with lenses: Depth of Field & Focal Length

To get that nice blurry background, you need a “f stop” of less than 4.

For example, if you have a Panasonic G series camera, this 25mm 1.7f lens will get you an image very close to the one on the left.

To keep it simple: lower number, more blur.

Now the next angle is focal length.

Longer focal lengths (i.e. 85mm+) capture a longer but subsequently tighter shot that retains proportions.

Shorter focal lengths (i.e 50mm & less) capture more space in the frame while making up close objects feel slightly warped.

You want to pick a focal length that’s contextual to your setup. If you have a small office space, a 200mm telephoto lens will be a disaster.

Last key point: you need to know if you have a crop sensor or full frame camera.

Crop sensor is a smaller sensor. It has a crop factor to fit the same data on a smaller sensor. So, lenses that would be wide on a full frame will feel much more “cropped in”.

My recommendations?

For most setups, get something from 20 → 50mm lens with a sub 3 f stop and between 16-35mm for a crop sensor camera.

Lighting

Lighting can be a pain in the ass for someone new to video, but let me make it as simple as possible.

At bare minimum, you want good clear sunlight on your face.

If you want a more controlled setup, a single, strong light that brightens your face without washing you out can work.

But this isn’t ideal as it removes depth & shape from your face.

My favorite lighting setup is called 3 Point Lighting.

To make it simple:

Your camera is directly facing you.

You have 1 light angled 45 degrees from your face. This is called the key light. This will be the main source of luminance on your face.

Next you have a fill light at 50% intensity on the opposite 45 degrees from your face. This will add brightness but also depth to the shot.

Finally, you can get a backlight. This is the most optional, but also the most fun as you can play with colors here to add some creative depth to your shot.

My recommendation for lights?

If on a budget, use daylight as much as possible.

If looking to spend, get these Neweer Panel Lights. These things have great build quality, can get super bright & are come in with a built in diffuser so the light doesn’t burn your eyes out.

For a back light, you don’t always need one. you have a lot more flexibility. You can try a sunset lamp like this or get some LED lights like these.

Analysis

Bad lighting (and what not to do).

Here’s a perfect example of bad lighting.

Why?

His “key” light is way, way too dark. It makes the picture look shady & hard to grab his face.

This guy probably spent thousands on his setup, too. Just shows that it doesn’t matter how much money you have → the principles of good lighting will still screw you over if you neglect them.

Want to make better videos for your business?

Need help selecting the right gear?

Want to turn lurkers into followers & buyers?

Book a 1:1 with Tiger HERE!

Popular Tools

Capcut: the most versatile editor for short content. Useful on both phone & desktop

Captions: the easiest way to put high quality captions on your video

HeyGen: Create full AI videos from text. No shooting or editing required. NEW: automatic translation from English to other languages.

Opus Pro: Handsfree AI video content clipping. Automatic captions, cuts & titles.

envato elements: Get royalty free stock footage, music, sounds, graphics, templates and more under 1 subscription

Cinema P3: Turn your iPhone into a cinema camera

Canva: The easiest to use graphic design tool around. All our thumbnails & logos have been spawned from Canva. You can now make videos on it, too!

eleven labs: scary good AI voiceovers

That’s a wrap

If you have anything interesting to share, send us a DM on Twitter: @tigerjvideo & @videobuildersio

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