Pro Gear Guide
Are you ready to take your YouTube game to the next level?
This episode of the YouTube Success Podcast explores the Pro Gear Guide, a comprehensive resource available at kingofvideo.co.uk, where I shared insights on cameras, lighting, and other essential elements for creating a professional setup. This is aimed to guide you in making strategic investments to enhance your video production.
Highlights:
- Cameras: Discussing the transition from mobile phones to dedicated cameras.
- Microphones: Covering various microphone options, and discussing the importance of quality audio in video production.
- Lighting: Exploring the benefits of Key Light Airs and Key Lights for optimal lighting conditions, with a focus on the flexibility and control they offer.
- Accessories: Touching on the Stream Deck's automation capabilities and the significance of stabilisation through reliable tripods.
- Capture Cards: Discussing the role of capture cards in achieving seamless connectivity between cameras and computers.
Links
Transcript
Okay, so you're getting serious with your YouTube game now, and
Speaker:you're thinking about upgrading the equipment that you've got.
Speaker:Maybe you're just starting, but you want to start with the best
Speaker:equipment that's available to you.
Speaker:So I'm going to give you all of the information I can about
Speaker:what I'd call a Pro Setup.
Speaker:The Pro Gear Guide is where all of information comes from.
Speaker:It's available at kingofvideo.co.uk, and you can go and download that for free.
Speaker:And in this Pro Gear Guide, I'm just going to go through the same
Speaker:as I did in the last episode.
Speaker:So if you listened to the last episode, I was starting with the Starter Gear Guide;
Speaker:and this, with the pro gear guide, I'm going to go through cameras, lighting, all
Speaker:of that kind of jazz and talk about what you can do to upgrade your setup and look
Speaker:I shouldn't do the intro, right?
Speaker:This is the YouTube Success Podcast.
Speaker:Of course, the issue here, you've either on YouTube or you'll find your
Speaker:way to the podcast on Spotify and Apple and all of those good places.
Speaker:This is a free podcast.
Speaker:I'm doing this because I love YouTube I love video, spent some time a few
Speaker:years ago looking at what I really love to do and it's teaching and
Speaker:talking about video based stuff.
Speaker:So if you're in for all of that, you want to improve your video game, you
Speaker:want to improve your YouTube game I'm gonna be interviewing some of
Speaker:the biggest YouTubers in the world.
Speaker:I've already done that if we're on episode 9 here, but we've got a
Speaker:few already done and I've got one coming with Jerry in episode 12.
Speaker:So stick around for all of that stuff.
Speaker:I'm finding the best people and you're going to get all
Speaker:of that from this podcast.
Speaker:So that's intro over and done with.
Speaker:Oh, no, it's not.
Speaker:Don't forget to review this.
Speaker:Share it.
Speaker:Like it.
Speaker:All that kind of good social stuff.
Speaker:All of those little indications that are important to us to let us know that
Speaker:you're actually enjoying this stuff.
Speaker:And thank you so much for those of you already, even by this episode, who
Speaker:have reached out to me on the socials.
Speaker:I am a normal human being.
Speaker:I know when you listen to podcasts and watch YouTube and some of these
Speaker:things, you can think though the people that you listen to or that
Speaker:you're talking to are out of reach.
Speaker:I'm not at all.
Speaker:I'm not in any way an influencer or a celebrity.
Speaker:I'm just a normal person who's trying to make
Speaker:a good living doing this good stuff as well and I absolutely
Speaker:would love to connect with you.
Speaker:So please go and seek me out on the socials, all the links are
Speaker:in the show notes of course.
Speaker:Alright, so let's talk about the Pro Gear Guide, the Pro Gear Guide.
Speaker:This is probably my favourite gear guide.
Speaker:You know I talked about the budget stuff and I always want to help people.
Speaker:where they're at.
Speaker:So some people can't afford to invest in more equipment and I
Speaker:totally understand that and I get it.
Speaker:I've been there.
Speaker:Do what you got to do with the money that you have.
Speaker:But the reason why I love the Pro Gear Guide is because this is where you can
Speaker:make huge leaps and bounds I think, by just investing in a small amount of
Speaker:equipment, but also how you can create an environment where it's good for you just
Speaker:to sit down and record these episodes.
Speaker:When I'm sitting here in my studio now, I just have to press a few
Speaker:buttons and I'm ready to record.
Speaker:Now, one caveat to that is you'll see that I talk about the Sony
Speaker:ZV-1, actually ZV-E10 as well.
Speaker:Now, ZV-1 is what English people would call it.
Speaker:I'll talk about that and I mention it.
Speaker:I'm actually using a Sony A7C, which is a bit more of an expensive
Speaker:equipment and there's a Sony ZV-E10, which is even better.
Speaker:Oh my God, I can't believe I saw that today.
Speaker:I've got so much GAS, which is Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
Speaker:I definitely want to go and buy that, but it's like two and a half grand.
Speaker:So I'm not going to go and do that right now.
Speaker:My wife would definitely kill me when I've got millions of
Speaker:cameras already in this office.
Speaker:I've got to find a way to justify that purchase for sure.
Speaker:Look, so the reason why it's my favorite is because when you buy all of this,
Speaker:a small investment, what I think is a relatively small investment, it's
Speaker:in a long term investment as well.
Speaker:It dramatically increases the likeliness that you're going
Speaker:to create video content, right?
Speaker:And it increases your opportunity to create video content when
Speaker:you're least feeling like it.
Speaker:Right now, this is late in the day and I don't know if, in the podcast, I've
Speaker:already talked about energy — Being in the right energy to film, but i'm
Speaker:definitely not in the right energy.
Speaker:If you go watch me on YouTube, you'll probably find them less
Speaker:excitable as I normally am.
Speaker:Maybe you'll disagree with me.
Speaker:I'm not sure.
Speaker:Let me know in the comments But I'm low energy here, right, but I know
Speaker:I need to get these episodes done.
Speaker:So I've been able to come and sit in my office almost 5PM.
Speaker:Pressed the buttons that I needed to do and I'm ready to record and I'm
Speaker:good like great, because I've got this permanent setup and it's not far away
Speaker:from the setup that I'm going to talk about here today, alright, so I think
Speaker:we've set this episode up well enough.
Speaker:Let's dig into it and talk about cameras then.
Speaker:So in the last episode we talked about the Starter Gear Guide
Speaker:and using your mobile phone.
Speaker:Now, if you move from a mobile phone to a dedicated camera like
Speaker:this and there's Sony ZV-1, which is the first recommendation.
Speaker:Or my previous recommendation, I now tend to say the ZV-E10,
Speaker:which is the next level up.
Speaker:The difference between the two, by the way, is one's a point and shoot with
Speaker:a fixed camera, a fixed lens, sorry.
Speaker:And the other one's a, I don't know if you could call it a point and shoot
Speaker:anymore because it has a detachable lens.
Speaker:All of a sudden, when you've got a detachable lens and it's an APS-C, APS-C
Speaker:camera, all of a sudden you can start to do really clever things with it.
Speaker:So the ZV-1, and the ZV-E10, great, you can purchase them, you can pick them up
Speaker:and you're ready to go straight away.
Speaker:And actually, when we're talking about those cameras, right
Speaker:now they're on super discount.
Speaker:And I know it's Black Friday, but it looks like these
Speaker:discounts are there for a while.
Speaker:So you can pick them up, what I used to say is about £700,
Speaker:but it's about £600 now.
Speaker:It's probably the same in dollars if you're in the US plus tax, right?
Speaker:So You can get these cameras relatively cheap and what it means is if you're
Speaker:using your mobile phone in the previous example You have to stop using your
Speaker:mobile phone or you have to set it up and put it on the tripod or something
Speaker:like that When you've got a dedicated device for filming you can just turn
Speaker:it on or have it permanently set up.
Speaker:So if you're on YouTube, you can see me looking at the camera now as I'm filming
Speaker:this and this camera that I've got here Is here all the time, all the time.
Speaker:I just come in, I turn it on, it's connected with a capture card,
Speaker:we're not going to talk about those in this episode, and I have
Speaker:a button to turn my lighting on.
Speaker:In fact, if you're on YouTube, I'll press the button here, you'll see
Speaker:my lighting go off and my lighting comes back on and I'm away to go.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:You know, I open Ecamm and a few other bits as well, but I'm ready to go.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:So that's the benefit because it means that for anyone that's
Speaker:ever set up equipment before, it takes you out of the good energy.
Speaker:You start to get frustrated with it.
Speaker:Sometimes things don't work quite as well.
Speaker:If you're setting up a studio environment or a filming environment every single
Speaker:time, in reality, you should test that environment because you've moved it about,
Speaker:you don't know if you've accidentally flipped a switch or something like
Speaker:that and you can easily disable the microphone, I've done that before, you
Speaker:can easily turn it into a different mode, you can turn in a different
Speaker:aperture or ISO, all the settings that these complicated cameras have.
Speaker:You can easily flick some of these switches.
Speaker:So then when you come back to review the footage, it's dead.
Speaker:The worst one is when the microphone doesn't work and you've got no sound
Speaker:because you can't recover from that.
Speaker:So having a dedicated setup means you just know the buttons that you need to press.
Speaker:There's no chance of you pressing these things and away you go.
Speaker:So investing in a camera like this is really good.
Speaker:And you know, the other great thing about it is there's..
Speaker:With Sony cameras specifically, they have a million menu
Speaker:items that can be confusing.
Speaker:It can be daunting when you first get it.
Speaker:There's loads of YouTube videos that help you get started with these things.
Speaker:When you do, you know that it's so flexible, you can do so many
Speaker:things, which means you've got more opportunity to be creative than
Speaker:you could with just a mobile phone.
Speaker:I reckon some TikTok is, will probably argue with that because you've got
Speaker:the device with you all the time,
Speaker:but I would say, strategically creative with your content because dedicated
Speaker:devices, cameras that are built to be cameras have the most amount of
Speaker:flexibility as it currently stands at time of filming this episode, of course.
Speaker:AI is changing some of that as well, by the way, just as a side note.
Speaker:Okay, so that's phones.
Speaker:Again, if you want this guide, go to kingofvideo.co.uk for, uh, co.
Speaker:co.uk and then just click on Start Here and download the Pro Guide.
Speaker:I'm going to talk about microphones now.
Speaker:Microphone is a SmartLav+.
Speaker:So, you know, we talked about that in the last one.
Speaker:That's a great investment.
Speaker:It would still work with some of this stuff.
Speaker:It is built specifically for a phone.
Speaker:So, depending on the camera, it might work or not work.
Speaker:But what I tend to look for is when we move across to these.
Speaker:There's a couple of different types of microphone.
Speaker:You can have...
Speaker:What I recommend there, which is the Rode Wireless GO, I think
Speaker:there's a Version 2 of this now.
Speaker:Rode Wireless GO gives you an opportunity to be wireless when you're filming.
Speaker:So right now, I've got the Yeti Nano in front of me, we'll
Speaker:talk about that in a second.
Speaker:And if I move away, as I move away, and I talk over here, you'll
Speaker:notice the sound is not as good.
Speaker:I'm hoping that's the case.
Speaker:You can hear me move towards and move away from the device.
Speaker:If I had a wireless microphone, or a lapel microphone, the sound
Speaker:would stay with me as I move.
Speaker:So that's one of the benefits of it.
Speaker:And also, as you've probably seen in TikTok, Instagram Reels, Shorts, you've
Speaker:probably seen people interviewing with these Rode Wireless microphones.
Speaker:I talked about it in the last episode.
Speaker:They put a DeadCat on the top, the wind muff, as some people call it, and
Speaker:they talk and pass it back and forward to the person they're interviewing.
Speaker:So, that does happen also.
Speaker:It gives you a great opportunity.
Speaker:It makes it a bit more flexible, perhaps, than just using the onboard stuff.
Speaker:No onboard microphone is good, by the way.
Speaker:ZV, ZV-1 and the E10, they're alright.
Speaker:They're not bad.
Speaker:You know, when you go to things like Descript, software like Descript, you
Speaker:can use Studio Sound and you can use AI to enhance the sound now, which makes
Speaker:the onboard stuff even more valuable.
Speaker:But I would say an external microphone like the ones I'm talking about here
Speaker:is probably where you want to be.
Speaker:Okay, stick into microphones.
Speaker:There's also shotgun microphones so if you're not sure about these and you're
Speaker:listening on the audio, a shotgun microphone is a directional one.
Speaker:If you're on YouTube you can see me just pulling this one.
Speaker:It's on down in front of me.
Speaker:This is a NTG4 actually, I think.
Speaker:It sits above me.
Speaker:It's not the one I'm using for the sound here, but the shotgun mics, what
Speaker:they'll do is they'll avoid the sound around them, and just, they get the
Speaker:sound direct, directly in front of them.
Speaker:So it means that when you're filming, you've got a better chance of getting
Speaker:the audio from the thing in front of you.
Speaker:Of course that doesn't work if it's two way, if someone's behind it,
Speaker:but for certain situations, that would be really, really useful.
Speaker:And then of course you've got lapel mics, which we've talked about before.
Speaker:Okay, so they're some good examples.
Speaker:Investment wise, £100 maybe for the Wireless GO, £150 maybe.
Speaker:I've actually got a really nice set of microphones, which is the DJI, uh, DJI,
Speaker:DJI, it's the, it's the version of DJI's Rode Wireless GO and the reason why I
Speaker:like it is it comes in a little case.
Speaker:It's a chargeable case and it's got two microphones built in and one receiver.
Speaker:So you put the receiver on the camera and then you got these two transmitters.
Speaker:So if you want to do on-the-road interviews, like podcasts, that kind
Speaker:of thing, you can give one microphone to your guest, one to you, and it
Speaker:sends them both to the receiver.
Speaker:I think it also record, you can also press record on those devices and it'll
Speaker:record to the device itself as well.
Speaker:It's so valuable, you know, like, this gear is a dream from when I
Speaker:started the video company in 2013,
Speaker:this stuff that we're talking about here just didn't exist or was so expensive.
Speaker:So to have it available for £100 or a couple of £100 is just a dream.
Speaker:Let's talk about lighting then.
Speaker:So the lighting I have in here, if you're on the YouTube channel,
Speaker:you saw me turn it off earlier.
Speaker:In the guide, I talk about Key Light Airs and Key Lights.
Speaker:So the difference between the two, the Key Light has a..
Speaker:like an attachment that you attach to a desk.
Speaker:It's like a screw on attachment.
Speaker:And the Key Light Airs have a desktop stand, which is the ones I've got.
Speaker:I've got two of them and they stand either side of me.
Speaker:Actually, if you're on YouTube now, you'll see that's turning one off and that's
Speaker:turning the other one off and then turning one back on and the other one back on.
Speaker:So you'll see the difference it makes.
Speaker:And that, so their individual controls on my Stream Deck, we'll talk about
Speaker:that in a minute, and then I've got a dual control, which turns them both on.
Speaker:When I'm recording like this, I want them both on.
Speaker:And the reason why that works in that way is because the
Speaker:key Lights are wireless, so they connect to your wireless network, they connect
Speaker:to the computer that you're working with, or your mobile phone, and then
Speaker:you've got a remote control to turn them on and off, and that's part of
Speaker:this setup that I was talking about where I say, ' You want to go in and
Speaker:press a few buttons and you're ready.'
Speaker:That's part of what makes that all happen.
Speaker:And so these key lights are just fantastic.
Speaker:Now the price of these is a couple of hundred quid.
Speaker:I think the key light airs were about £120 each.
Speaker:The Key Lights, the original Key Lights were about £180 I think.
Speaker:The super powerful, the very strong and just, you know, with it, Elgato stuff,
Speaker:I just love the build quality of those lights.
Speaker:You know, when you're looking at NEEWER, I talked about the ring
Speaker:light that's behind me in the Starter Gear Guide, like, yes, they're good.
Speaker:And I like the NEEWER stuff.
Speaker:I think it's good build quality there as well.
Speaker:Also Aputure.
Speaker:We used to use these Aputure lights, which again are more expensive, but
Speaker:oh my God, we traveled the world with those Aputure LED panels, tens of maybe
Speaker:even a hundred thousand plus miles in a suitcase with these led panels.
Speaker:And they just never let us down for seven years we use them, and then never let
Speaker:us down, but they were more expensive than the other ones I mentioned here.
Speaker:I discount them off this list as the Pro Gear Guide.
Speaker:I would say that they're kind of expert level.
Speaker:That's where I would put those things completely.
Speaker:Also in the lighting section, you'll see that the NEEWER Two
Speaker:Pack LED Video Lighting Kit.
Speaker:This has a soft box included.
Speaker:I don't know if they changed this, we bought these, the softbox
Speaker:build quality wasn't great, as softbox tend not to be, you know,
Speaker:they're a bit hit and miss really.
Speaker:A softbox is something where, if you've got a really strong light, a softbox
Speaker:or diffuser it's sometimes called, will just spread the light a little bit
Speaker:more, so you don't get the hot spot.
Speaker:So if I turn my lighting up, again, you'll only see this if you're on YouTube, if I
Speaker:turn my lighting up more than it is now, I mean, you can still see some hotspots
Speaker:straight away, but if I turn it right up, you can start to see it on my forehead.
Speaker:You see those two bands of light in the middle, just here, the bands of
Speaker:lights there, and these Key Light Airs, they have some diffuser.
Speaker:They have like a diffuser on the front of them, so the lighting is not bad.
Speaker:But it could definitely be better in my office.
Speaker:I'm, you know, I'm a recovering, recovering perfectionist.
Speaker:So this would have done my head in a long time ago.
Speaker:But actually I'm okay with this little bit of additional lighting.
Speaker:I could set this office up better.
Speaker:It's the tiniest office ever.
Speaker:It's not like Americans.
Speaker:Like Americans have like nice stuff coming from the ceiling and they
Speaker:have a bit more space behind them.
Speaker:When you've got these small box rooms in the UK, it's definitely
Speaker:harder to get everything together.
Speaker:I would probably say, if you're looking at my stuff on YouTube,
Speaker:the room probably looks bigger than it is, because it's not at all.
Speaker:Okay, so anyway, so lighting, so that's good.
Speaker:would always suggest two LED lights so you can have a left and right.
Speaker:You don't want them straight in front of you, that's what the ring light will do.
Speaker:Having them left and right really helps.
Speaker:And then there's just an optional thing here, which is the Stream Deck.
Speaker:Stream Deck is a little device, the one I've got is three by five.
Speaker:So I've got 15 buttons on it.
Speaker:This is a smaller one.
Speaker:And there's an Excel one that has more..
Speaker:the Stream Deck allows me to press those buttons and for things to happen.
Speaker:Nick Nimmin, who's a YouTuber, who's a fantastic guy
Speaker:explaining a lot of this stuff.
Speaker:He showed recently, I watched one of his videos where he showed
Speaker:you can press a button and a whole bunch of actions happen.
Speaker:It's like automation off the back of the button.
Speaker:It's a sequence of events.
Speaker:So he presses a button, it opens a bunch of programs.
Speaker:It turns it light lighting on, it hits record, all of those things
Speaker:in one click of a button just by setting up all those actions.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Stream Deck is just so powerful for that.
Speaker:It's it feels gimmicky.
Speaker:I'll be honest with you, for something like that, where it's just a bunch
Speaker:of buttons, it feels gimmicky.
Speaker:But when you start programming those buttons to do the actions that you
Speaker:need, all of a sudden the gimmick goes and you just know it's a time saver.
Speaker:Really helps you out.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So next I've got the stabilisation.
Speaker:So this is a tripod and I love Manfrotto.
Speaker:If I could choose tripods, any time of the day, it would always be
Speaker:Manfrotto, or Manfrotto as Americans say it, I've had these Manfrotto legs,
Speaker:professionals call them legs, the tripods.
Speaker:I had them just the whole time with the video company and
Speaker:they can travel the world.
Speaker:I think we replaced one of them because we bashed it around a
Speaker:little bit, but so good, you know.
Speaker:A lot of them are carbon fiber.
Speaker:They're just so strong.
Speaker:They really feel good, build quality wise.
Speaker:You get cheaper versions of tripods on Amazon, eBay and stuff.
Speaker:You can just feel the plasticness of them.
Speaker:And you just feel like they're going to break.
Speaker:They don't have weight inside them that really, you know, stabilise them well.
Speaker:And the other thing about the Manfrotto ones that the one I've
Speaker:listed, there's a Beefree, but I used to use the X Pod ones is
Speaker:they often have an in, a middle , like a shaft, if you want to
Speaker:call it that, that pops out and then you can turn it sideways.
Speaker:So you can film sort of dead on or you can film from the top down.
Speaker:And that's one of those, one of those strange requirements that you don't
Speaker:know you want until you've got it and then you don't ever want to go back.
Speaker:Okay, last couple of things then, well last thing really is capture cards.
Speaker:I think I said I wasn't going to talk about it, I didn't realise
Speaker:it was in this Gear Guide.
Speaker:Capture cards are one of those things that are kind of, in some
Speaker:ways, redundant now for some people.
Speaker:I still like to use a capture card, and just to understand what it does.
Speaker:A capture card will take the output of a camera.
Speaker:It will feed it like HDMI output of a camera and it will feed it into your
Speaker:computer to the USB port, which is fantastic because it means you get a
Speaker:full feed from your camera into your computer and it feels like a webcam.
Speaker:If you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing my camera output
Speaker:via a capture card into my Mac mini, which is brilliant, right?
Speaker:The reason why this is kind of redundant is because a lot of the camera makers,
Speaker:Sony, Canon, they've all done this now.
Speaker:You can output via USB straight into a computer.
Speaker:What I find is there's a bit of latency that happens when that happens.
Speaker:A little bit of a lag with the camera.
Speaker:So you sometimes get problems with the audio not being in sync and it's a bit of
Speaker:a faff to try and get all that working.
Speaker:So the reason why I like Capture Card still is because they offer that simple
Speaker:plug and play away you go, and you know, it sees it as a good device that
Speaker:you can use, a camera that you can use straight away and you're good to go.
Speaker:I like stuff that's plug and play.
Speaker:I like stuff that's easy to use.
Speaker:I don't want to have to faff around with it — download drivers, download
Speaker:extra things just to get stuff working.
Speaker:The Capture Cards give you that.
Speaker:I've included a couple of there.
Speaker:I will say the more expensive Capture Cards generally are the better ones
Speaker:if you find your plug in stuff and it doesn't work really pretty much
Speaker:straight out the box, it's either a dodgy one, well, I've had a few dodgy
Speaker:ones where they just didn't work very well at all or they were jumpy, you
Speaker:know, the picture was a bit dodgy or you do need a driver or something for it.
Speaker:It might be a non compatible one.
Speaker:So you really want things like the Elgato ones.
Speaker:I talk about the 4K60 Pro, which is actually internal to, it's not a
Speaker:USB one, it's an internal card for a Windows machine, things like that.
Speaker:They're just solid, you know.
Speaker:Again, talking about the Elgato brand.
Speaker:I've mentioned that before.
Speaker:A Stream Deck is now an Elgato brand I think.
Speaker:They're just solid devices, you know, more expensive, but solid, reliable, all
Speaker:that kind of stuff that you need when you're doing all of this good stuff.
Speaker:All right, and that's it.
Speaker:There's a summary in there.
Speaker:It tells you what to do next, all those kind of things.
Speaker:So, that's the Pro Gear Guide.
Speaker:Go and grab the freebie.
Speaker:This link is in the show notes.
Speaker:It's available just kingofvideo.co.uk like all of my stuff is and it really gives
Speaker:you a starting point and to get going.
Speaker:And look, I'd really appreciate it if you've listened this far and you
Speaker:enjoyed this episode and you like the gear that I'm recommending.
Speaker:Let me know, leave a comment, leave a review, like the post, go on to
Speaker:YouTube or maybe, like, or share the video or something like that.
Speaker:Anything that's good to get me a bit more social proof.
Speaker:You know, I asked for this every time.
Speaker:Maybe I'll stop asking at some point in the future, but we're episode nine, right?
Speaker:So we are just growing and we need your support to keep growing.
Speaker:We need the social shares and all that kind of stuff to grow this podcast.
Speaker:I really appreciate your time and attention.
Speaker:Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in next week's episode.
Speaker:My name is Matt Hughes, King of Video.
Speaker:Bye.
Speaker:Bye.
