so I know a lot of people out there making the Joe cuz they present on camera if they’re wearing pants because they’re in their own house but I think the real question that you should be asking yourself about me is am I just wearing this shirt welcome back deep review TV viewers Chris Nichols here we’ve been getting a lot of requests for tips tricks and advice on how to make better videos at home given that we’re all stuck in our houses right now and we thought that was a great idea so I really think it’s important to put yourself into two categories are you pre recording videos on a camera you’re gonna edit those videos afterwards and then send them out or do you think that you’re finding yourself having to do live conferences whether it may be your teaching you know like I’ve had to teach my photo classes now online or you know maybe you’ve got a work conference or maybe just want to talk to friends and family and you want a better looking shots how can we do that now our first tip is audio you really need good idea because right now the camera is recording its internal microphones and it sounds terrible unless you’re recording in a professional music recording studio your house is gonna have a lot of echo you know you’re going up other family members and pets running around and all that sounds gonna get picked up now a lot of you out there have these small shotgun microphones but putting these on camera is only going to be a marginal improvement what you really want is a lav mic I’m gonna plug this in right now and get rid of this terrible audio so doesn’t that sound way better and I know what you’re thinking you know a wireless microphone is too expensive and they can be but this is not a wireless this is plugged in with an 8 foot cable you don’t need wireless inside the house these things are very affordable I mean you get them online for almost nothing there’s a diety version now which is about $50 aus I think everybody can grab that so it sounds way better and of course it gets really the echo and we’re not gonna hear other family members running around see the other thing I want to talk about is coverage and this is really basically record video that you can put over your talking points or cover your edit to your transitions between frames on your video it just looks a lot more professional because we see two issues first off you know someone’s going to be talking but then they make a mistake or the train of thought ends and then they just jump cut to themselves in a different position talking about something else and it looks very jarring even if you’re the greatest order on the planet though and you’re able to one take your entire video without mistakes it’s still way more interesting for people to see video coverage and you know it just breaks up the whole scene and it makes it faster now Jordan and I did make a video on coverage back when you’re working for TCS TV so check out that link in the description below and next-best want to show you a short clip where we are using coverage with actually a very old camera nikon d750 nothing specifically made for video and you can see the results of that here I’d like to introduce you to the Yashica Elektra 35 GT now this is a true rangefinder with a proper rangefinder focusing system now one of the main standouts on this camera seeing is how it came out in the mid 60’s until the mid 70s was it’s 45 millimeter 1.7 lens which was color corrected a big deal as color film became more and more popular now this camera is designed to be easy to use and in that regard you could not choose shutter speeds it had a fully metered auto exposure system based on aperture priority only and the asuka electro 35 had this adorable assist system now if your shutter speed had to go very slow down to one thirtieth of a second or slower this yellow slow indicator would light up as well as it would also let up in the viewfinder and if you had very bright conditions and the camera had to go above its 500th of a second fast shutter speed it would then line up the over indicator with red it was very easy to use a beautiful-looking rangefinder an adorable piece of camera history so it’s great if you’ve got a nice camera nice equipment and you’re ready to pre record videos edit them polish them up and put them out on the net but a lot of us are now finding ourselves in a position where we want to stay in touch with friends and family or we have to do video conference calls for work purposes or teach classes online for example then you’re forced to go through a webcam or your laptop’s camera and that has its own challenges they’re not very good visually and they don’t give you a lot of creative control so let’s talk about some tips that’ll help you get better results when you’re going through your computer so first off let’s deal with the audio issue so you don’t have to listen to this terrible audio for too long now right now you’re listening to me on the internal microphones of the laptop and although some are better than others from brand to brand you’re still going to get a lot of noise in the room a lot of echo from the room and you know let’s say that we are doing a work call and I have to take notes or type something on the computer well listen to this because those keys are so close to the microphone it’s abrasive okay this is all about human decency while we’re on the topic of human decency if you are forced using internal microphones but your conference calling with other people other people are talking that sound comes through your laptop speakers and then you’re either gonna get a feedback loop which is just gonna be really horrible or more likely your computer’s gonna automatically then detect that and cut off your microphone the problem is it sounds really annoying and really strange so if you are talking to people you do have to have an earbud in into the headphone jack that way the internal microphone internal speakers are not gonna have those problems with each other but let’s do a hard jump cut sorry Jordan and let’s get back to a proper microphone okay so now we’re on a better microphone here plug straight into the computer and now you can I think automatically hear that we’re not getting that hollow echo noise if I type here you still hear it but it’s not as abrasive and this does not have to be an expensive microphone like just a basic USB microphone or if you have a mic jack just something that plugs straight into that even the microphone that might be on your headphones for your smartphone is gonna be much better than using the internal microphone next issue we have every time that people use laptops to do these recordings they always have them on a table or on their lap and it’s a low perspective looking up into the person it’s not very flattering for their face you’re seeing up my nose a lot you can see my ceiling there probably not somebody really need to look at and this is a super easy fix just simply raise the laptop higher I’ve got a box of instant ramen noodles here fantastic training this crisis not only for eating but also for getting your laptop higher so there you go now you’re looking at me straight on we don’t get that weird perspective it’s just you know you don’t have that ceiling in the shot anymore super easy fix now the last thing you want to talk about is lighting it is very important where you position your computer you certainly don’t want any windows behind you that’s gonna make you a black silhouette I do have light coming in the window I guess right over here you can see it and it’s going on my face here but it’s creating quite a bit of contrast there’s a hot spot on my face here this side of my face is quite dark so I’m just going to use a very simple LED light again doesn’t have to be expensive if you don’t have some of this try to find a place where you are gonna get more even light on both sides of your face this is also important because laptop cameras and webcams aren’t great in low light and if they have to boost a very low exposure you’re gonna have a lot of noise and it’s not gonna be very good quality so I’m gonna turn this light on here just dial it up and there we go right much nicer even light the camera doesn’t have to boost things as hard it just evens out that hard contrast so these are all some very quick easy tips hopefully this will help you guys out thank you so much for joining us on this short video and remember that this was because of viewers suggestions we love hearing your comments if there’s anything you’d like us to make a video on anything you’re wondering about let us know we read those we try to accommodate them please check out our Instagram and our Twitter feeds as well subscribe to the channel we really appreciate that go to DP over comm you can find tons of information there thanks so much for joining us we’ll see you soon
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