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

• YouTube Community
• TubeFest
• KOV Links

Okay, so you're getting serious with your YouTube game now, and

you're thinking about upgrading the equipment that you've got.

Maybe you're just starting, but you want to start with the best

equipment that's available to you.

So I'm going to give you all of the information I can about

what I'd call a Pro Setup.

The Pro Gear Guide is where all of information comes from.

It's available at kingofvideo.co.uk, and you can go and download that for free.

And in this Pro Gear Guide, I'm just going to go through the same

as I did in the last episode.

So if you listened to the last episode, I was starting with the Starter Gear Guide;

and this, with the pro gear guide, I'm going to go through cameras, lighting, all

of that kind of jazz and talk about what you can do to upgrade your setup and look

I shouldn't do the intro, right?

This is the YouTube Success Podcast.

Of course, the issue here, you've either on YouTube or you'll find your

way to the podcast on Spotify and Apple and all of those good places.

This is a free podcast.

I'm doing this because I love YouTube I love video, spent some time a few

years ago looking at what I really love to do and it's teaching and

talking about video based stuff.

So if you're in for all of that, you want to improve your video game, you

want to improve your YouTube game I'm gonna be interviewing some of

the biggest YouTubers in the world.

I've already done that if we're on episode 9 here, but we've got a

few already done and I've got one coming with Jerry in episode 12.

So stick around for all of that stuff.

I'm finding the best people and you're going to get all

of that from this podcast.

So that's intro over and done with.

Oh, no, it's not.

Don't forget to review this.

Share it.

Like it.

All that kind of good social stuff.

All of those little indications that are important to us to let us know that

you're actually enjoying this stuff.

And thank you so much for those of you already, even by this episode, who

have reached out to me on the socials.

I am a normal human being.

I know when you listen to podcasts and watch YouTube and some of these

things, you can think though the people that you listen to or that

you're talking to are out of reach.

I'm not at all.

I'm not in any way an influencer or a celebrity.

I'm just a normal person who's trying to make

a good living doing this good stuff as well and I absolutely

would love to connect with you.

So please go and seek me out on the socials, all the links are

in the show notes of course.

Alright, so let's talk about the Pro Gear Guide, the Pro Gear Guide.

This is probably my favourite gear guide.

You know I talked about the budget stuff and I always want to help people.

where they're at.

So some people can't afford to invest in more equipment and I

totally understand that and I get it.

I've been there.

Do what you got to do with the money that you have.

But the reason why I love the Pro Gear Guide is because this is where you can

make huge leaps and bounds I think, by just investing in a small amount of

equipment, but also how you can create an environment where it's good for you just

to sit down and record these episodes.

When I'm sitting here in my studio now, I just have to press a few

buttons and I'm ready to record.

Now, one caveat to that is you'll see that I talk about the Sony

ZV-1, actually ZV-E10 as well.

Now, ZV-1 is what English people would call it.

I'll talk about that and I mention it.

I'm actually using a Sony A7C, which is a bit more of an expensive

equipment and there's a Sony ZV-E10, which is even better.

Oh my God, I can't believe I saw that today.

I've got so much GAS, which is Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

I definitely want to go and buy that, but it's like two and a half grand.

So I'm not going to go and do that right now.

My wife would definitely kill me when I've got millions of

cameras already in this office.

I've got to find a way to justify that purchase for sure.

Look, so the reason why it's my favorite is because when you buy all of this,

a small investment, what I think is a relatively small investment, it's

in a long term investment as well.

It dramatically increases the likeliness that you're going

to create video content, right?

And it increases your opportunity to create video content when

you're least feeling like it.

Right now, this is late in the day and I don't know if, in the podcast, I've

already talked about energy — Being in the right energy to film, but i'm

definitely not in the right energy.

If you go watch me on YouTube, you'll probably find them less

excitable as I normally am.

Maybe you'll disagree with me.

I'm not sure.

Let me know in the comments But I'm low energy here, right, but I know

I need to get these episodes done.

So I've been able to come and sit in my office almost 5PM.

Pressed the buttons that I needed to do and I'm ready to record and I'm

good like great, because I've got this permanent setup and it's not far away

from the setup that I'm going to talk about here today, alright, so I think

we've set this episode up well enough.

Let's dig into it and talk about cameras then.

So in the last episode we talked about the Starter Gear Guide

and using your mobile phone.

Now, if you move from a mobile phone to a dedicated camera like

this and there's Sony ZV-1, which is the first recommendation.

Or my previous recommendation, I now tend to say the ZV-E10,

which is the next level up.

The difference between the two, by the way, is one's a point and shoot with

a fixed camera, a fixed lens, sorry.

And the other one's a, I don't know if you could call it a point and shoot

anymore because it has a detachable lens.

All of a sudden, when you've got a detachable lens and it's an APS-C, APS-C

camera, all of a sudden you can start to do really clever things with it.

So the ZV-1, and the ZV-E10, great, you can purchase them, you can pick them up

and you're ready to go straight away.

And actually, when we're talking about those cameras, right

now they're on super discount.

And I know it's Black Friday, but it looks like these

discounts are there for a while.

So you can pick them up, what I used to say is about £700,

but it's about £600 now.

It's probably the same in dollars if you're in the US plus tax, right?

So You can get these cameras relatively cheap and what it means is if you're

using your mobile phone in the previous example You have to stop using your

mobile phone or you have to set it up and put it on the tripod or something

like that When you've got a dedicated device for filming you can just turn

it on or have it permanently set up.

So if you're on YouTube, you can see me looking at the camera now as I'm filming

this and this camera that I've got here Is here all the time, all the time.

I just come in, I turn it on, it's connected with a capture card,

we're not going to talk about those in this episode, and I have

a button to turn my lighting on.

In fact, if you're on YouTube, I'll press the button here, you'll see

my lighting go off and my lighting comes back on and I'm away to go.

That's it.

You know, I open Ecamm and a few other bits as well, but I'm ready to go.

That's it.

So that's the benefit because it means that for anyone that's

ever set up equipment before, it takes you out of the good energy.

You start to get frustrated with it.

Sometimes things don't work quite as well.

If you're setting up a studio environment or a filming environment every single

time, in reality, you should test that environment because you've moved it about,

you don't know if you've accidentally flipped a switch or something like

that and you can easily disable the microphone, I've done that before, you

can easily turn it into a different mode, you can turn in a different

aperture or ISO, all the settings that these complicated cameras have.

You can easily flick some of these switches.

So then when you come back to review the footage, it's dead.

The worst one is when the microphone doesn't work and you've got no sound

because you can't recover from that.

So having a dedicated setup means you just know the buttons that you need to press.

There's no chance of you pressing these things and away you go.

So investing in a camera like this is really good.

And you know, the other great thing about it is there's..

With Sony cameras specifically, they have a million menu

items that can be confusing.

It can be daunting when you first get it.

There's loads of YouTube videos that help you get started with these things.

When you do, you know that it's so flexible, you can do so many

things, which means you've got more opportunity to be creative than

you could with just a mobile phone.

I reckon some TikTok is, will probably argue with that because you've got

the device with you all the time,

but I would say, strategically creative with your content because dedicated

devices, cameras that are built to be cameras have the most amount of

flexibility as it currently stands at time of filming this episode, of course.

AI is changing some of that as well, by the way, just as a side note.

Okay, so that's phones.

Again, if you want this guide, go to kingofvideo.co.uk for, uh, co.

co.uk and then just click on Start Here and download the Pro Guide.

I'm going to talk about microphones now.

Microphone is a SmartLav+.

So, you know, we talked about that in the last one.

That's a great investment.

It would still work with some of this stuff.

It is built specifically for a phone.

So, depending on the camera, it might work or not work.

But what I tend to look for is when we move across to these.

There's a couple of different types of microphone.

You can have...

What I recommend there, which is the Rode Wireless GO, I think

there's a Version 2 of this now.

Rode Wireless GO gives you an opportunity to be wireless when you're filming.

So right now, I've got the Yeti Nano in front of me, we'll

talk about that in a second.

And if I move away, as I move away, and I talk over here, you'll

notice the sound is not as good.

I'm hoping that's the case.

You can hear me move towards and move away from the device.

If I had a wireless microphone, or a lapel microphone, the sound

would stay with me as I move.

So that's one of the benefits of it.

And also, as you've probably seen in TikTok, Instagram Reels, Shorts, you've

probably seen people interviewing with these Rode Wireless microphones.

I talked about it in the last episode.

They put a DeadCat on the top, the wind muff, as some people call it, and

they talk and pass it back and forward to the person they're interviewing.

So, that does happen also.

It gives you a great opportunity.

It makes it a bit more flexible, perhaps, than just using the onboard stuff.

No onboard microphone is good, by the way.

ZV, ZV-1 and the E10, they're alright.

They're not bad.

You know, when you go to things like Descript, software like Descript, you

can use Studio Sound and you can use AI to enhance the sound now, which makes

the onboard stuff even more valuable.

But I would say an external microphone like the ones I'm talking about here

is probably where you want to be.

Okay, stick into microphones.

There's also shotgun microphones so if you're not sure about these and you're

listening on the audio, a shotgun microphone is a directional one.

If you're on YouTube you can see me just pulling this one.

It's on down in front of me.

This is a NTG4 actually, I think.

It sits above me.

It's not the one I'm using for the sound here, but the shotgun mics, what

they'll do is they'll avoid the sound around them, and just, they get the

sound direct, directly in front of them.

So it means that when you're filming, you've got a better chance of getting

the audio from the thing in front of you.

Of course that doesn't work if it's two way, if someone's behind it,

but for certain situations, that would be really, really useful.

And then of course you've got lapel mics, which we've talked about before.

Okay, so they're some good examples.

Investment wise, £100 maybe for the Wireless GO, £150 maybe.

I've actually got a really nice set of microphones, which is the DJI, uh, DJI,

DJI, it's the, it's the version of DJI's Rode Wireless GO and the reason why I

like it is it comes in a little case.

It's a chargeable case and it's got two microphones built in and one receiver.

So you put the receiver on the camera and then you got these two transmitters.

So if you want to do on-the-road interviews, like podcasts, that kind

of thing, you can give one microphone to your guest, one to you, and it

sends them both to the receiver.

I think it also record, you can also press record on those devices and it'll

record to the device itself as well.

It's so valuable, you know, like, this gear is a dream from when I

started the video company in 2013,

this stuff that we're talking about here just didn't exist or was so expensive.

So to have it available for £100 or a couple of £100 is just a dream.

Let's talk about lighting then.

So the lighting I have in here, if you're on the YouTube channel,

you saw me turn it off earlier.

In the guide, I talk about Key Light Airs and Key Lights.

So the difference between the two, the Key Light has a..

like an attachment that you attach to a desk.

It's like a screw on attachment.

And the Key Light Airs have a desktop stand, which is the ones I've got.

I've got two of them and they stand either side of me.

Actually, if you're on YouTube now, you'll see that's turning one off and that's

turning the other one off and then turning one back on and the other one back on.

So you'll see the difference it makes.

And that, so their individual controls on my Stream Deck, we'll talk about

that in a minute, and then I've got a dual control, which turns them both on.

When I'm recording like this, I want them both on.

And the reason why that works in that way is because the

key Lights are wireless, so they connect to your wireless network, they connect

to the computer that you're working with, or your mobile phone, and then

you've got a remote control to turn them on and off, and that's part of

this setup that I was talking about where I say, ' You want to go in and

press a few buttons and you're ready.'

That's part of what makes that all happen.

And so these key lights are just fantastic.

Now the price of these is a couple of hundred quid.

I think the key light airs were about £120 each.

The Key Lights, the original Key Lights were about £180 I think.

The super powerful, the very strong and just, you know, with it, Elgato stuff,

I just love the build quality of those lights.

You know, when you're looking at NEEWER, I talked about the ring

light that's behind me in the Starter Gear Guide, like, yes, they're good.

And I like the NEEWER stuff.

I think it's good build quality there as well.

Also Aputure.

We used to use these Aputure lights, which again are more expensive, but

oh my God, we traveled the world with those Aputure LED panels, tens of maybe

even a hundred thousand plus miles in a suitcase with these led panels.

And they just never let us down for seven years we use them, and then never let

us down, but they were more expensive than the other ones I mentioned here.

I discount them off this list as the Pro Gear Guide.

I would say that they're kind of expert level.

That's where I would put those things completely.

Also in the lighting section, you'll see that the NEEWER Two

Pack LED Video Lighting Kit.

This has a soft box included.

I don't know if they changed this, we bought these, the softbox

build quality wasn't great, as softbox tend not to be, you know,

they're a bit hit and miss really.

A softbox is something where, if you've got a really strong light, a softbox

or diffuser it's sometimes called, will just spread the light a little bit

more, so you don't get the hot spot.

So if I turn my lighting up, again, you'll only see this if you're on YouTube, if I

turn my lighting up more than it is now, I mean, you can still see some hotspots

straight away, but if I turn it right up, you can start to see it on my forehead.

You see those two bands of light in the middle, just here, the bands of

lights there, and these Key Light Airs, they have some diffuser.

They have like a diffuser on the front of them, so the lighting is not bad.

But it could definitely be better in my office.

I'm, you know, I'm a recovering, recovering perfectionist.

So this would have done my head in a long time ago.

But actually I'm okay with this little bit of additional lighting.

I could set this office up better.

It's the tiniest office ever.

It's not like Americans.

Like Americans have like nice stuff coming from the ceiling and they

have a bit more space behind them.

When you've got these small box rooms in the UK, it's definitely

harder to get everything together.

I would probably say, if you're looking at my stuff on YouTube,

the room probably looks bigger than it is, because it's not at all.

Okay, so anyway, so lighting, so that's good.

would always suggest two LED lights so you can have a left and right.

You don't want them straight in front of you, that's what the ring light will do.

Having them left and right really helps.

And then there's just an optional thing here, which is the Stream Deck.

Stream Deck is a little device, the one I've got is three by five.

So I've got 15 buttons on it.

This is a smaller one.

And there's an Excel one that has more..

the Stream Deck allows me to press those buttons and for things to happen.

Nick Nimmin, who's a YouTuber, who's a fantastic guy

explaining a lot of this stuff.

He showed recently, I watched one of his videos where he showed

you can press a button and a whole bunch of actions happen.

It's like automation off the back of the button.

It's a sequence of events.

So he presses a button, it opens a bunch of programs.

It turns it light lighting on, it hits record, all of those things

in one click of a button just by setting up all those actions.

So.

Stream Deck is just so powerful for that.

It's it feels gimmicky.

I'll be honest with you, for something like that, where it's just a bunch

of buttons, it feels gimmicky.

But when you start programming those buttons to do the actions that you

need, all of a sudden the gimmick goes and you just know it's a time saver.

Really helps you out.

Okay.

So next I've got the stabilisation.

So this is a tripod and I love Manfrotto.

If I could choose tripods, any time of the day, it would always be

Manfrotto, or Manfrotto as Americans say it, I've had these Manfrotto legs,

professionals call them legs, the tripods.

I had them just the whole time with the video company and

they can travel the world.

I think we replaced one of them because we bashed it around a

little bit, but so good, you know.

A lot of them are carbon fiber.

They're just so strong.

They really feel good, build quality wise.

You get cheaper versions of tripods on Amazon, eBay and stuff.

You can just feel the plasticness of them.

And you just feel like they're going to break.

They don't have weight inside them that really, you know, stabilise them well.

And the other thing about the Manfrotto ones that the one I've

listed, there's a Beefree, but I used to use the X Pod ones is

they often have an in, a middle , like a shaft, if you want to

call it that, that pops out and then you can turn it sideways.

So you can film sort of dead on or you can film from the top down.

And that's one of those, one of those strange requirements that you don't

know you want until you've got it and then you don't ever want to go back.

Okay, last couple of things then, well last thing really is capture cards.

I think I said I wasn't going to talk about it, I didn't realise

it was in this Gear Guide.

Capture cards are one of those things that are kind of, in some

ways, redundant now for some people.

I still like to use a capture card, and just to understand what it does.

A capture card will take the output of a camera.

It will feed it like HDMI output of a camera and it will feed it into your

computer to the USB port, which is fantastic because it means you get a

full feed from your camera into your computer and it feels like a webcam.

If you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing my camera output

via a capture card into my Mac mini, which is brilliant, right?

The reason why this is kind of redundant is because a lot of the camera makers,

Sony, Canon, they've all done this now.

You can output via USB straight into a computer.

What I find is there's a bit of latency that happens when that happens.

A little bit of a lag with the camera.

So you sometimes get problems with the audio not being in sync and it's a bit of

a faff to try and get all that working.

So the reason why I like Capture Card still is because they offer that simple

plug and play away you go, and you know, it sees it as a good device that

you can use, a camera that you can use straight away and you're good to go.

I like stuff that's plug and play.

I like stuff that's easy to use.

I don't want to have to faff around with it — download drivers, download

extra things just to get stuff working.

The Capture Cards give you that.

I've included a couple of there.

I will say the more expensive Capture Cards generally are the better ones

if you find your plug in stuff and it doesn't work really pretty much

straight out the box, it's either a dodgy one, well, I've had a few dodgy

ones where they just didn't work very well at all or they were jumpy, you

know, the picture was a bit dodgy or you do need a driver or something for it.

It might be a non compatible one.

So you really want things like the Elgato ones.

I talk about the 4K60 Pro, which is actually internal to, it's not a

USB one, it's an internal card for a Windows machine, things like that.

They're just solid, you know.

Again, talking about the Elgato brand.

I've mentioned that before.

A Stream Deck is now an Elgato brand I think.

They're just solid devices, you know, more expensive, but solid, reliable, all

that kind of stuff that you need when you're doing all of this good stuff.

All right, and that's it.

There's a summary in there.

It tells you what to do next, all those kind of things.

So, that's the Pro Gear Guide.

Go and grab the freebie.

This link is in the show notes.

It's available just kingofvideo.co.uk like all of my stuff is and it really gives

you a starting point and to get going.

And look, I'd really appreciate it if you've listened this far and you

enjoyed this episode and you like the gear that I'm recommending.

Let me know, leave a comment, leave a review, like the post, go on to

YouTube or maybe, like, or share the video or something like that.

Anything that's good to get me a bit more social proof.

You know, I asked for this every time.

Maybe I'll stop asking at some point in the future, but we're episode nine, right?

So we are just growing and we need your support to keep growing.

We need the social shares and all that kind of stuff to grow this podcast.

I really appreciate your time and attention.

Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in next week's episode.

My name is Matt Hughes, King of Video.

Bye.

Bye.