How To Use Proper Lighting for YouTube Videos

As with still photography, lighting is going to be your biggest challenge. Poor lighting can make an expensive video camera look bad, and great lighting can make a cheap video camera look fantastic. It’s all about the lighting and you have to think ahead and plan for it: the time of day, the weather, etc.

Learn More with this YouTube Lighting Lesson

Learn more tips about lighting From YouTube

The goal of lighting is to create flat, diffused light and eliminate shadows. We’re trying to mimic an overcast day, which are the best circumstances to shoot video or still photography. To do this indoors, use two lights, pointing towards the subject from a height just above the person’s eye line. A good rule of thumb is to place the lights about three feet away from the subject. The lights should be located on either side of the camera, right in front of the lens.

Soften the light with diffusion material in front of the light source, or bouncing the light off another surface suitable for diffusing and reflecting it back on the subject.

Tip: A technique photographers use is to bounce the light off a wall or ceiling. Conditions have to be right, but this works more often than not.

Keep the subject off the background (wall) at least four feet to create separation between the subject and the background and eliminate shadows. A good trick is to bring in a third light and place it right behind the subject, low and pointing up to the back wall.