My wife and I are wanting to do more recordings of ourselves and we wanted to see what kind of A/V gear is mostly used. Do y’all just use cell phones and lights or do you use a good digital camera and/or digital video camera and lights?
Cell phones are easy and great for pics, but not always the best for lower light/videos. I am just wanting to see suggestions on what y’all recommend and use to up our quality.
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I’ve done some research into this recently and the consensus is that lighting is more important than anything. The fanciest camera will look like shit with bad light, but even an older iphone will be fine with good lights.
Cameras don’t record reality, they record light - lighting is 100% key.
Even a 30 minute lighting tutorial online could be helpful for the majority of people who aren’t photographers by trade
Yeah, a lot quality picture with good lighting can still look great, a very high res picture with bad light will never look good. The one thing is its much easier to get good light with a more expensive(usually) camera because bigger sensors need less light
I’m no professional by any means and just sorta learning as I go but I have an iPhone 13 and am happy with the picture/vid quality it puts out. I would say tripod and lighting would be a good purchase to start. I first started with a ring light which is decent and affordable. but the lighting can be harsh and can cast shadows. they are usually best for vlogging type sets. I try to use sunlight when I can but I have a RBG LED light that’s very versatile and it creates softer lighting that I really like. Hope this helps!
I’m recording my kids more now that they participate in sports and such. If I need to capture something really quickly I just use my phone. If I’m going to be in the stands or on the field, I use a camera. I’m not a professional by any stretch of the word, I just want the videos of my kids to look better than my parents’ videos of me (VHS in SLP mode).
Camera is a Sony Alpha A6400 with the 16-50mm kit lens. I also have an 18-200mm lens, which is useful if I have to be far from the action. I mount the camera on a DJI Ronin SC gimbal with the Focus Wheel attachment, though I have that set up to zoom instead. I sit a RØDE VideoMic GO II on a small sock mount on the camera’s hot shoe and plug it into the 3.5mm jack on the side. All of my recordings are done at 4k 30fps, as that’s the best the A6400 can do. Also, I always turn off automatic white balance and record in S-Log3 color, since I put everything through DaVinci Resolve. For that purpose I carry a Datacolor SpyderCHECKR 24 color chart, which I hold out in front of the camera (or have someone else do it) so I can adjust the white balance and exposure correctly for each scene change. That chart of supported by Resolve out of the box so I didn’t need the Datacolor software.
I also have a BeastCage frame and a couple of lenses for my iPhone 12, but the A6400 is shorter/narrower and fits on the gimbal better. I hand that to my wife or the child I’m not recording if I want another camera angle. I can’t do log color with that because it’s not the Pro so I do the best I can in post with Resolve and the Datacolor chart.
Went off a bit there, but I hope that helps!
Alot of people have said lighting is the most important so I wanted to chime in and say that we have those led light strips in the bedroom, all around the edges of the ceiling, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever bought. Not just for taking pictures but also setting the general ambience. You cam adjust the color and brightness, and there’s modes that will switch automatically or like pulse along with music. They’re so fucking great and I can’t recommend it enough. Sexy pics with red ambient lighting hit pretty hard too.