Watch BEFORE buying a light for video & filmmaking

to shoot professional content lighting is everything but what light should you buy you could get a single point light source you could get an LED panel light you could get a tube light like this or you could get a ring light oh wait no no no no don't get a ring light but what about modifiers you could get a traditional softbox you could get a lantern you could get a diffusion panel or you can get a silk sheet so in this video we're going to make very specific recommendations on exactly what type of light you

should buy but before we do that we need to touch on some of the core elements that actually make up good lighting and the first one that you absolutely need to know before making a purchase is the difference between hard light and soft light so this is what hard light looks like and believe it or not if you were to go online and buy a light right now odds are when you take it out of the box and you turn it on it's going to look like this it's not going to be flattering we really

want to avoid hard light when it comes to lighting our subjects now to contrast to the hard light you just saw this is what soft light looks like it's super flattering it's not going to show off the wrinkles on my face or any other imperfections and the gradual fallof between the highlights and the Shadows is just much nicer now like I said a minute ago almost all lights are going to be hard straight out of the box we turn them into soft lights by doing two things the first is passing that light source through another

medium like a soft box and then on top of that we can increase the softness of a light by making the overall light source larger now we just talked about soft boxes and how we pass light through that Medium but look at what also happens to the size of the light source when it's going through the soft box the entire size increases a ton which also contributes to the softness so we just talked about how increasing the size of your light source is going to add additional softness to it this is where the size of

your soft box also comes into play ideally you want to get a huge soft box it's just going to make for a much softer light but you obviously have to consider the fact that larger soft boxes cost more money and you also have to have enough room to fit the soft box so what you're seeing right now is a 65 cm soft box from newer with a grid on it that makes the light even more directional now on the other hand this is a 120 CM soft box it is freaking massive and it's giving off

a much softer light than the smaller one we had before not that this was bad but comparing and contrasting you can see big is better so size matters but distance also matters a ton because you can have a huge soft box like I have right now up close it's going to give you an amazing light but watch what happens as Luke begins to move that soft box back so before it was about an arms length away now it's probably 3 to Four Arms lengths away it's obviously gotten dimmer because we're not anywhere near as close

but the light's also getting harder because in proximity to me that light source is now smaller so to summarize all this in a perfect world you want the biggest soft box possible as close to your subject as possible and if you have to move your softbox further away you want to make that light source bigger and bigger this is why in Hollywood movies and huge commercial sets they have massive diffusion sources causing their light sources to be huge it's also why the Sun the largest light in our solar system is actually a hard light because

it's just so freaking far away so that's the difference between hard and soft light and how we use diffusion forces like soft boxes to achieve the soft look but soft boxes aren't the only way to get light to be soft and this brings us to the next core element of lighting which is what's the best modifier for you so we touched on it but up first you have soft boxes these are like the All American diffusion kit they come in tons of different shapes and styles from octabox to parabolic to rectangular and strip for the

most part all you need to know is that these make your light soft and you want to get the biggest one that's going to fit in your filming space the other thing on top of that is the grid system that you can see on the softbox this is actually an attachment and all it does is it focuses the light you can see in some of the examples we're showing right now with the grid attached we control the light spill and we focus it way more on the subject without the grid you're going to see that

light spilling onto the walls the background it is just a less focused scene which isn't always bad in fact sometimes people opt for that and that's when they would get something like a lantern soft box this is very different it's covered in diffusion mat material all around what that's going to do is cast light in all different directions it's going to light an entire scene it's great for multiple people that all need to be lit when you only have one light source and on top of that due to the size and shape of this thing

you are going to get an incredibly soft light and it really does look good but you need to be aware it's going to spill everywhere and then last but not least a traditional style of diffusing light is using a diffusion panel like this usually it's silk nylon tons of different material IAL this is from a 5 in1 reflector kit you can get it for like $20 on Amazon all you need to do is place this in between your subject and your light you're going to get really nice diffusion it's helpful because it's really thin and

this can fit in some areas where maybe one of these two just wouldn't be an option just keep in mind if you use this or any other type of nylon sheet you're going to need another human being to hold it or you're going to need another stand with this actually clipped onto [Music] it now the third thing you need to be aware of when buying a high quality light is the right color mode for you now generally speaking there are three types of color modes that you want to be aware of the first one is

daylight balanced now this light is capable of doing all three modes but we're going to walk through each one individually so if you buy a daylight balance light this is all you're going to get 5600 Kelvin it's called daylight balance it's the same color temperature as the sun and even though you're limited in flexibility this is going to be a budget friendly color temperature to buy in most of the talking head videos you see on the internet especially on YouTube they're all filmed at this color temperature now the second type of color mode is by

color and what this allows you to do is shift the color temperature between cool white and very warm white you can see I have a little dial on the back here and I can switch the color temperature and now we have a much warmer light outside of being able to create different styles in looks with the more flexible color temperatures this is really key when you're filming in an area that has different temperature lights and when we're filming in my kitchen we can show exactly how this works normally I'm using a 5600 Kelvin light but

we have these orange pendant lights in the background and because these two colors just clash with each other makes the entire background look crazy orange with a by color light as my key light I'm able to turn the color temperature down to match the warmer color temperature of those background lights now both the background and the foreground look orange but this is where we can change the white balance setting on our camera to match that same color temperature 2700 Kelvin essentially telling our camera to interpret that as natural white which balances out the entire scene

so now hopefully you can see the benefit of by color is the ability to match other lights in your scene and have greater control the only drawbacks of bolor Lights is that a they're usually more expensive and B you're actually going to miss out on some of the output or light intensity compared to a daylight only balanced light and this is actually really easy to see with this led panel when you you look at this array we have all these individual LEDs when I change the color temperature you can actually see certain LEDs turning off

and others turning on and that is because half of the LEDs are warm and half of them are cool so at any given point you're only using half of the actual LEDs on this light if you put it exactly in the middle you can see most of the LEDs are on we can kind of get it to a point where there's more LEDs than not but overall you're going to have to sacrifice a little bit on the output when buying a bolor light then finally the third color mode when buying a light is full color

RGB I can hit the mode button on the back here with full color RGB lights you have the ability to essentially change the actual color to be anything that you want red green blue and everything in between this is super cool because it gives you a lot of creative control you can use this in the background of your scenes to evoke different emotions and overall it's just a ton of flexibility the only negative of a light like this is they're usually going to be much more expensive than daylight only and by color lights all right

now we can finally talk about core element number four when buying a high quality light and that's the actual type of Light which one is right for you now I know I joked about it earlier in this video but we should talk about why ring lights aren't really on this list generally speaking they're just not made of highquality Lights these can kind of cast awkward color tones on your skin which don't make you look good they're also small and hard light sources that are hard to diffuse because they don't have Universal mounting options on them

you can't just attach a soft box to a ring light and then finally they're also designed to have a smartphone mounted right in the center of the Ring meaning the light is going to blast you right in the face this is called broad lighting which traditionally in film isn't a cinematic look instead you want to light off to the side like I have now creating a bright side and a dark side of your face this creates more depth which is a more cinematic look the first is a single point light this is probably the most

purchased light amongst the YouTuber and kind of professional freelance videographer Community they are extremely versatile you can get them on a great budget and my favorite thing about them is the fact that they have the universal Bowen mount on the front these are a really simple design but they essentially allow you to buy any softbox or light modifier on the internet and attach it to your light without having to worry about brand compatibility this means you get a ton of power out of these lights and a lot of flexibility as to what you're capable of

doing with it now after single point lights I would say the next most popular is something like this right here this is an LED panel now the way I look at comparing these two comes down to a few simple things the first is that straight out of the box this is a much larger light source compared to this one and remember back to the beginning of this video larger light sources are typically softer so straight out of the box when you turn this guy on it's going to be slightly softer than this light but I

don't want you to think that this is just going to be like amazing soft and super flattering you're still going to need to add more diffusion to it now this brings me to one of my major Cons with LED panels is that they don't have that Universal bow mount so adding diffusion to this although very easy and still possible it is a little bit more difficult you either need to get a custom softbox that's made specifically for the LED panel or you need to get some sort of separate modifier like a diffusion panel a silk

or a nylon sheet have that mounted on another stand and then you have a diffuse light so all that aside the major benefit of LED panels compared to single point light sources is this right here look at how thin this one is compared to this and I think most people should buy a single point light unless you're in an area where space is very restricted and you can't fit something like a single point light with a soft ball then you could get whoa ho ho what do we got going on here turn that guy off

then you could get one of these maybe mount a very slim diffusion panel in front of it and you have a better space- saving lighting kit and then finally we have the tube lights like this TL 120c is that what it is I forget the actual name we'll have it linked below tube lights are extremely versatile they're usually pretty large and have a relatively soft light I'd say softer than both of these Straight Out of the Box depending on how big the tube light is I love tube lights I don't think they should be your

first light you should probably get one of these but if you're looking for your second or or maybe your third light and you want something that you can use as a practical light in the scene you can use to light your background or as a corner light just something that's going to fit in all of these different weird places that traditional lights wouldn't be able to tube lights are great and they're definitely gaining popularity and I highly recommend this model from newer okay those are the core four elements that you should be aware of right

now we're going to Rapid Fire some secondary things to consider before finally bringing this home with some Ultra specific recommendations based on the type of content you're trying to film okay rapid fire starting now while you're searching for lights you will see two specs called the CRI and the tlci these stand for color rendering index and television lighting consistency index it's basically a measurement of the color accuracy of your light both are measured on a scale of 0 to 100 and ideally you want the light that you purchase to be at 95 and up for

both specs thankfully nowadays most lights are at or above these requirements after that we have the wattage in light output wattage is a measurement of the total amount of power that the light will draw as it runs and typically speaking the higher the wattage the more output in light intensity that the light will have output is measured in Lux at a certain distance usually 1 M so for an example 4,000 Lux at 1 meter it's going to be more than enough for YouTube videos like this or talking head interviews 30,000 Lux at 1 meter is

very bright enough to fully illuminate a very big space and then 90,000 Lux at 1 meter is enough to wake pick up a demon from the underworld this is what you'd use to essentially mimic the sun in an outdoor shoot where the natural light from the sun had already faded now speaking of power draw the next thing we need to talk about is the ability to work off of a battery if you're always filming indoors next to an outlet it's not really a huge concern for you but if you're ever going to be in a

situation where you're away from power outlets it would make sense to have a light that can work off of a battery some lights have internal batteries built in that'll work for a couple hours other have the ability to work off of Industry standard batteries like Sony NP or vmount batteries this is nice cuz you can stack up a ton of them and make sure that the light will work for hours up next you're going to want to consider if you need special lighting effects modes a lot of modern lights nowadays have these different modes built

into them that mirror unique lighting scenarios in real life like cop cars candl light or fires Paparazzi taking a picture dance parties that sort of thing these definitely aren't essential but if you're filming more narrative style stuff they are very helpful up next we have to talk about an app interface a lot of lights nowadays actually have these apps that will allow you to control the light without having to touch the light not essential but definitely helpful if you're like me where you're constantly filming Yourself by yourself this way I can sit down I can

pull up the app I can change the light intensity the color temperature any of that stuff while seeing how it looks on camera instead of having to go behind the light change the settings record a test clip review it and so on and so forth and that officially covers all of the primary and all of the secondary things that you need to be aware of prior to making an informed purchase now we can finally dive into those specific light recommendations but first if you found this style of in-depth training valuable hit that like And subscribe

button and on top of that if you like this I definitely think you should check out our full online course for Content creators 14-day filmmaker it contains over 150 streamlined video tutorials walking through every single aspect of the content creation process from the technical side of what's the best gear to use the right camera settings how to light like a pro capture cinematic movements record and edit high quality audio how to tell captivating stories and an insane amount of editing training that will take you from a beginner to an absolute ninja included in this course

are individual bonus courses that talk about mastering the process of shooting and editing on your smartphone a deep dive course on professional cameras and an entire curriculum on mastering YouTube covering how to get tons of views and build an amazing subscriber base lifetime access to all of that and the weekly Q&A calls that I personally host the bonus sound effects the editing cheat sheets all of that is just $48 if you're interested and you want to learn more and maybe enroll the link to do so is in the description of this video which I think

YouTube if you're on a desktop just moved it to the right hand side of your screen either way back to the recommendations let's start from the bottom and talk about the most affordable lighting kit that's actually worth the money for under $50 you can get the mount dog light and softbox kit if you're just getting started shooting videos for maybe a YouTube channel your social media or you're shooting interviews with local businesses this is going to get you moving in the right direction the softbox is big enough to really give off a flattering soft light

it's got enough power to light up a subject assuming you've got it relatively close to the person and it's also byy color which really is what sets this apart from most other lights in the same price range most other lights are daylight only not to mention the light also comes with a light stand these are usually sold separately and its own carrying case now for those of you looking to get a more professional setup the next light I'd point you towards is the newer CB 60b coming in at around $130 this is still a super

affordable light All Things Considered but compared to the Mount dog kit we've really cranked up the power and features quite a bit with 70 W power draw this light can produce 34,000 Lux at 1 meter which is extremely bright for a light of this size and price and it's also a bicolor light due to the fact that it's a single point light source it's going to have that Universal Bowen Mount so you can attach practically any softbox or modifier it's going to be compatible with the newer app which means you can control it from your

smartphone and it has 12 built-in lighting effect modes like lightning Paparazzi Candle Light TV screen and more now do keep in mind with this light it doesn't include a softbox so that's something you're going to need to purchase separately speaking of which though what type of softbox should you buy well I think if you're a YouTuber a traditional 90 CM octagon softbox is perfect now if you want to splurge a little bit more and you have a big bigger space to film in you could use the 120 CM option that I use it's going to

give you a softer light source but you definitely want to consider just how big this thing is make sure it's going to fit in your space and you're also going to need a heavier duty light stand like a SE stand to keep it from tipping over now if you're anything like me and you actually hate light stands because they clutter up your filming area you can get these newer wall mounts I have two of them in my office and I absolutely love them now if you still need even more power than that maybe you're in

a huge room and you just need a lot of light the newer CB 100c is actually one of the lights that I use and it is incredible it gives you all the same features as the previous light we covered but it's more powerful and it's also full color RGB now changing Dynamic here if you're in a tight space and size is really going to be an issue this is where a highquality LED panel will serve you nicely on the budget friendly side you've got the newer NL 288 LED panel this actually has diffusion built right

into the LED panel which is nice I will say though don't expect it to it as soft as the earlier options with larger soft boxes but as a compromise with the smaller form factor it's definitely a great option and it's also byy color which is great now if you have a little bit more money to spend on an LED panel my personal favorite and the one that I use is the amaran p6c Aman is definitely a slightly more expensive brand but they're going to give you super high quality build quality the light output is really

powerful for something of this size at 5,900 Lux it has tons of built-in special effects modes and it's full RGB giving you total control of whatever color you want to create but overall my favorite aspect of this led panel is that it's one of the only LED panels that comes with a dedicated softbox and grid system this means you're going to have a much much softer light source compared to all the other LED panels with built in diffusion or none whatsoever okay moving on let's say you're in a scenario where you've got multiple people that

you need to light and you've only got one light this is where a lantern softbox would come into play just keep in mind you're going to want to get a single point light source with a Bowen Mount to use the lantern lanterns are also really good for Real Estate shoots where you want to light up an entire room with a nice soft light they're also really great for talking head looks they're just a different style than the soft box and grid system we talked about earlier the scene you're watching right now is actually me using

a lantern and it's Ultra Soft I love how it looks but you know it does really light up the whole room then finally I know we talked about tube lights earlier and I already covered how it's probably not the best light if you're in the market for your first light but if you want something that's super super cool and versatile that you can use in tons of different scenes as both key lights fill lights even practical lights within the background they're just a ton of fun and I do think as a second or third light

tube lights are crazy good options to look into that does it though as always links to all of this gear can be found in the description of the YouTube video other than that thanks so much for watching don't forget to check out 14-day filmmaker and I'll see you in the next one he's