As a video creator, a lot of my videos are done with me sitting in front of my window in my bedroom while I talk to my camera….by myself ha! And on typical merry-weather LA days, no additional lighting is required since my camera picks up a ton of light, and natural lighting is awesome! But for days when it’s gloomy out, the light changes, or a bird flies by, I have to bring in the big guns so today I wanted to share with you my go-to lighting set up!
Below are two photos taken (untouched), one with no fill light, using only my Ring Light
. The second photo features the ring light that I use in front (as in photo 1), but also features the additional fill light you see behind me.
No fill light used above, just my circle light was used. If you’re happy with this kind of look than you’ll be fine just using the circle light.
Here in this second photo, you can see the fill light behind me, from my Flo Light
and what a difference it makes. The ‘fill’ light brightens up the space behind me, gives me a nice shoulder glow from the additional light, brightens up my hair, and evens out the light overall on my face. It even appears that it’s made my face look slimmer with the even lighting all around me.
Below are the lights and the placement of them to achieve this kind of look:
My circle light is placed pretty close to my face while I film, I can reach out and adjust the brightness it’s that close. I love that it has an adjustment dial so that you can control how much light you want. It also has a place to attach your camera directly to the body of the circle light for the convenience of sticking to one rig.
The light that you see on the left side of the photo is my flo light. It is placed behind me, and just off to the side so that it spills light into the room and covers the space behind me. This light allows not only the space behind me to be brightened up, but again – gives me that hair light and shoulder pop, and really does add to the even tone of the overall lighting set up. I love that you can adjust the height with this light, and how much light you want with the flaps on the flo light. From a dim look to a bright look, this light has you covered.
I’ve linked you to the set up that I have, I use a tripod instead of the attachment that the circle light comes with just because I love having stability beneath my rig. And below is just me being silly with the lighting, right before I started filming…beacause you can’t take selfies too seriously!
I hope this post was helpful for those of you asking about my lighting equipment and what kind of set up I have. For an even easier set up, if you’re looking for something more user-friendly when it comes to working with lighting systems and being new to it all, here is the first Soft Box Lighting Kit
system that I used when I started doing video for YouTube. It’s super easy to set up and figure out!
Let me know in the comments what lighting set up you have, or if you have nay other questions, or if you use something different – I love trying out new set ups, playing with techy things, and giving my reviews of them, so share away!
Hugs,
Jess xoxo