Guest Post: Do I Need Studio Lights?

Firstly, thank you so much to the amazing team at etailPR for giving me the opportunity to write this guest post for you all. It’s a really great network, and if you don’t use it already, I’d recommend that you do! Onto the post...

If you’ve ever contemplated the idea of starting a YouTube channel, or a blog, chances are that you’ve thought about lighting and cameras. When I started my blog almost three years ago, I took all my photographs on my phone (iPhone 4S at the time). I didn’t invest in my Canon EOS 600D (the typical ‘blogger’ camera) until I was sure that blogging, and making videos, was something I was serious about. 

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no expert when it comes to YouTube, but I have learnt so much over the last few months, and I hope it might help some of you out. 

Computers and Software. I don’t have final cut pro. It’s on my wish list, but for now, iMovie does everything I need it to do. You don’t need to go out and buy loads of equipment when you’re starting off, if you decide it’s not for you, you’ll be annoyed that you’ve wasted your money. 

So then, do I need studio lights? For me, yes. Again, this is something I didn’t buy until I was sure. They’re expensive, and an investment. I live at home, and our house is quite dark, so for me, without lights makes it difficult for me to get the results that I want. 

The following pictures are taken with:

 two soft box studio lights

 one light

natural light in my bedroom

As you can probably see, they make a huge difference. I use at least one light every time I film, and for most of my blog photos. What you don’t know is, that I have around 5 old videos privated on my channel that didn’t use lighting, and they don’t look horrendous. (I’ve privated them because they’re old, and they’re too cringe!) If you want to see my old blog photos, they’re all still in my blog archives. I know a few Youtubers who are blessed with good natural lighting, and really don’t need lights. I do feel that I need them. 

I’d suggest just playing around with it, try different setups, different backgrounds, filming near a window. If you can’t get it to look how you want it then think about lights. Mine are the Photosel SoftBox studio lights, and I got them from Amazon. 

Now you know my camera and lighting setup and opinions, please come over to my YouTube channel and my blog to see what I actually use them for! The pictures were taken during filming of my new Makeup tutorial video, so be sure to watch it so that you can see the effect better! 

I hope that this post has been useful to some of you, and if you have any more questions, just tweet me at @nellyandnoopy and I’ll be happy to help you out! 

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/nellyandnoopy

Blog: www.nellyandnoopy.wordpress.com 

x

Words and Photographs by Elizabeth Ann 

*None of the photos have been edited, so that you can see the true effects of the lighting.