In this episode of The PBP.fm Show, we dive into why camera quality is important for your podcast. Join us as we discuss the best options for cameras, from using your smartphone to professional equipment, and how each choice impacts your video content. Learn the key aspects of choosing the right camera for your needs, tips to enhance your video quality, and why consistency is more vital than perfection. 

Tune in to make your podcast stand out with top-notch visuals!

If you record video, then you can also put your content onto YouTube. You can also put your content onto Rumble. You can also put your content onto TikTok, right? So on and so forth, where if you do just audio, you're going to be limited to the audio platforms like Amazon Music, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Which are by no means, small platforms. But when you do the video, you get the benefit of also hitting some of the other largest platforms in the world, like YouTube and, TikTok and whatnot.

Welcome to pbp. fm brought to you by push button podcasts. You go to a resource for grabbing attention, building awareness, and creating authority in your marketplace. I'm Richard Matthews, your host and guide through the wonderful world of podcasting as a driver of business. Here, we teach how to use a multimedia podcast as the cornerstone of your omnipresent content marketing strategy.

Get ready for actionable tips and tangible takeaways on improving your digital presence across the board. With that, let's dive into this week's episode of pbp. fm.

Brandi Spaich: Hello and welcome to the PushButton Podcast. Today, I am here with Richard Matthews. And we're gonna be talking about camera and camera quality when it comes to podcasting. We briefly went over why stuff like that is important in our last episode. But Richard, do you maybe wanna recap?

If your video quality is not good, people will assume, that's an unconscious trust signal, that the other work that you do is also not good. So, I think before we get too far into that, I want to, briefly mention, why are we talking about video with podcasts? Because podcasts traditionally, like it started off as an audio platform like a radio show.

And the term podcasting is grown to encompass almost any sort of serialized or episodic content, which is the kind of content that we're creating for our B2B business. And the reason why we recommend all of our clients use video as opposed to audio only is because you can get more use out of every content piece. Because you can target a wider array of platforms, right?

Brandi Spaich: Makes sense to me. it's Also, I mean, I want to mention, I don't know about a lot of people, but I know people my age, we don't really browse through Spotify or Apple Music or anything like that to find new content to take in. We typically go to more video based platforms like YouTube, TikTok, stuff like that.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that's a really important point. We call that in the marketing world, discoverability. And discoverability is a really important piece of growing your podcast. You want people to be able to discover your content. And particularly, with the short form platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, and even Facebook Reels, those are things that you're regularly getting fed content from new creators.

And that's where like the short content from your podcast can pop into people's feeds and they'll get that first little taste of who you are, right? And what you talk about and if they interact with your video and watch it, or maybe even like it or comment on it, they're going to start seeing more and more of your stuff. And that's where you get people.

So, doing video gives you the opportunity to have that discoverability on top of the audio platforms.

So that's a quick reason why you want to have a video and then why your video quality is important is the same thing that we talked about last week. You don't want your message to be missed because your video quality and your audio quality are not there. Now, I do want to make an important point.

The video quality is not nearly as detrimental to your audience as your audio quality is. So, if your video quality happens to be a bit shoddy, but your audio quality is on point, you will not lose as many people as if your audio quality was terrible.

Brandi Spaich: So, how would someone go about getting a camera that's pretty good? You know, Someone that might have a limited knowledge on camera equipment?

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Just like we talked about last time, almost all of your devices that you have are going to have a built-in camera, right? So, if you're talking about your laptop, right? I'm working off my laptop here, or maybe you're working from your tablet. They'll have the built-in, you know, if you're on a Mac side, they call 'em the FaceTime cameras, right?

On most of your Windows side, they're gonna call 'em the Webcam that's built-in. And the Webcam that's built-in, is going to be just shy of good enough. Where it's probably, it will be passable, but it won't be high quality.

Now, I do want to that a little bit, because when you're talking about devices like your cell phone, you have a couple of camera options on here. You have the front camera, and then these ones have legitimate cameras on the back, right? That are much larger and you can see the difference, right?

I don't know if you can actually see the little holes there. A little itty bitty hole for the camera on the front and then big wide ones on the back, right? So these are more substantial cameras. So, while this camera may not be a great camera, this is that FaceTime camera, like what's on your laptop may not be a good camera for your podcast, the ones on the back can be.

And so, I want to make a couple of points about that. So the first one is that, if you don't know yet, whether or not you want to commit to doing a video podcast, right? You're not sure you're going to show up every week and do the work and put in the effort and whatnot. It may make sense to use something that you already have instead of investing into more gear.

To see if, you know, as you're testing the waters and getting into that before you commit to spending the chunk of change that it costs to get nicer equipment. And then the other thing that I want to point out is that, I've recorded probably more than 150 episodes off of the camera on this phone, on my podcast.

And so I have, and we'll talk about this in a minute, I have professional camera gear. That I shot with my podcast for many years, and every time a new device came out, one of these new cell phones, I would do a direct comparison.

And see, can I use this in place of my professional video equipment? And I couldn't for many years, right, all the way you know, had the iPhone X, the iPhone 11. And it wasn't until the iPhone 13, when I direct compared them, and I was like, Oh, the quality on this camera is good enough that unless I'm pixel peeping, that's a term that us photographers use when we really zoom into something and to see, well, you know, can I see the individual eyelashes on someone's eyebrows and that kind of stuff?

Unless I'm pixel peeping, I can't tell the difference between the camera that's built-in on my already owned cell phone and the $2,500 camera and lens combo set up that I have here, right? And so that's a big win for people who, cause there's a lot of people who have the iPhone 13, iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and then the Android equivalents, right?

So that's a really big win for people, cause you don't have to invest in a camera if you have one of these. I challenge you, if you want to go look at our other podcasts, The Hero Show that I run, episodes, probably 100 to 250 are all done with a cell phone. The ones before that are done with professional camera, you probably can't tell too much of a difference.

You might even prefer the video out of one of these. So, that's a cool point that you can use a cell phone like this. And we'll talk a little bit more in here in a second on some things that make this work. But what are your thoughts on having a camera like this just available for you already?

Richard Matthews: Yeah, and with a microphone like the ones that we recommended. Either this one or the other ones that we recommended. All the microphones that we recommended on our thing will plug into your phone so you can use your phone as the camera and use a really nice microphone with it. And overcome any of the audio limitations that might come with the passable microphones that are on here and move into the high quality ones. Now, there's a couple of drawbacks to using a device like this, for your camera.

So, one of them is how you connect it to your computer, right? So if you are in the Apple ecosystem and you have a Mac laptop. And your Apple phone and your laptop are all on the newest operating systems. They have a system called Continuity Camera that will automatically connect the two and your camera will show up just as a webcam in any of your devices that you might be recording in like Zoom or SquadCast or Riverside or any place that you might record your podcast.

To improve that, you want to pick up your plug in, right, your actual wired connection and connect it to your computer and it'll still let you access the thing, but you won't have nearly as much of the lag on there.

So, it does turn it into a whole wired sort of setup and you have to plug it in and unplug it. And then the other thing is because it's your phone, your phone is something that you're not going to leave set up in your studio all the time. So you have to have something that you can plug it in and unplug it and use it when you need to use it. You'll also need to get familiar with the iOS side, but the focus modes, right?

So they have the ability to put them on do not disturb or whatever. So that you don't get phone calls or other notifications that interrupt your using it as a camera. And so, you make sure you have those things set up. There's probably something similar on the Android side where you put it in do not disturb mode for your podcast, however long it is, isn't going to be interrupted, you can use camera here.

And that's C A M O Studio, we'll put a link for that in the description. It costs about 5 bucks a month and then it allows you to plug your camera, plug your phone into your computer and use it as a Webcam and it doesn't matter which operating system you're on or which camera or which iPhone you have or which Android device or which Google Pixel you have.

It'll work with all the phones and all the operating systems. You pay that 5 bucks a month for it and it turns it into a Webcam that gives you a lot of control over it. It's just a little extra bit of setup, but then that software shows up in all of your recording platforms to let you use your cell phone as your main camera.

That's cell phones, any other thought on cell phones for the first sort of like, rung of the ladder for doing good video?

Brandi Spaich: I mean, Not too much, but yes, I do want to put out there, like you said, that having consistent content is much more important than always having the best camera. Like I've seen, a lot of the podcasts or YouTubers that I watch, when they take a break, or not take a break, but they have to travel somewhere, they'll use lower quality equipment, but they'll keep that upload schedule the same. I know that's not 100%, what we're talking about here, but I think it is very important to note that consistent uploads are very important to doing well.

And yeah, if you, see this, you'll actually probably see this, if you go through any channel that you like on YouTube, just go back to their very first video, and then their newest videos. And you can probably watch over the course of time, their video quality get better as they get better and better, equipment or work on things.

So my point is, you can absolutely start with your cell phone, get the content, out, get your the message out, figure out if you like doing this. All those kind of things, and get yourself right on the go.

And then there's a couple other things that happened along the same time, right? The 5G started coming out. So a lot of people had access to higher bandwidth internet. Which you know, allows for higher quality video transfers and higher quality audio. So there's just a lot of technology things that happened over the last 3 or 4 years that have made the market shift for higher quality Webcams.

So with that in mind, there's several really good Webcam manufacturers out there that are making high quality, really good Webcams right now. Logitech has a really good 4K web camera. Opal, I believe they have a really cool one, I think it's called the C1, that's a good 4K camera.

There's one, I can't remember the name of it. I think it's the Insta360 has like a gimbal one, that's really nice, that's a cool camera. And of course the ones that we recommend, and again, we only recommend a gear that we've actually used. The ones that we recommend are the Elgato FaceCam Pros.

And someone like, you do a little bit of video editing. I do a little bit of video editing. Our video editors on our team do lots of video editing. But what it does is it gives you a bit more latitude I guess, in the editing room to say, Hey, you know what?

So you can have a little bit more leverage in the editing room when you have a higher quality video feed to make the production on what comes out the other side. Look really good and not have any degradation of quality when you do zoom ins or zoom outs or jump cuts and stuff like that.

For the kind of video work that we're doing, you're not going to output a 4k video cause we're not watching these on 4k TVs. And you know, if you've ever been into Best Buy and you see, their, fancy like birds and frogs and whatnot, like that's not what we're looking to create.

But the 4k video can give you a little bit more leverage in there. With a couple of caveats. Again, you're going to have dramatically larger file sizes, which is going to make your moving files back and forth more difficult. It's going to take more time and a more powerful computer to do editing.

Richard Matthews: That could pushing a lot of data.

Brandi Spaich: Yeah, it could be because I built this computer a while ago, or more so that it's more meant for gaming rather than recording. But just make sure that you definitely research into what the computer requirements are for the camera you're looking into and make sure that your computer is of high enough quality to match that.

or else

Richard Matthews: That's a really good point, actually. And if you've ever played in the iPad space, the iPads are really interesting there. So, Apple switched from their Intel chips to their Apple silicon chips and the iPads a couple of years ago. I was like 2 or 3 years ago. And I had one of the previous ones and then we also got one of the newer ones with the M1 chips in it that my son has now. And it was interesting to me to see, because 4k is fairly new.

Because the processor didn't, just didn't have the capabilities of doing that because they weren't. It wasn't a thing they had for when they were building the processors or building the GPUs, which is probably where you're at, right?

You have a really nice high end computer, but if you built it like 3 years ago or before? So there, it wasn't even something they could optimize for 'cause it didn't exist yet. But when they switched over the Apple silicon ones, like the M1 chips, they built 4K processing capabilities into the chips.

And so like now, my son's iPad, for instance, which is running, I think it's got like an M2 chip in it. It can handle like 4, 8k feeds at once in the editing software, right? Whereas previous generation couldn't even handle one. But it's just because it's on the cusp of like, Oh, this technology didn't exist last year, and it does this year.

And again, the only reason I would even bring that up is if you are looking to push the limits or you, you know, you're like me and you like to have the best quality stuff all the time, just because, you might be interested in the 4k footage.

Brandi Spaich: I mean, If you have a computer that's like the big tower, you can kind of break it down and just replace your graphics card and add some RAM to it and you should be good to go. But, other computers you might just have to upgrade the whole thing.

And that's what we use for our podcasts. And then the biggest benefit of stepping up from an iPhone to a Webcam for me. And this is probably kind of something the kind of thing you you've noticed as well is I don't have to worry about setup every time. Like, already here, it's sitting where I need it to be sitting.

So when I want to record, I just have to sit in the recording room and click on, right? I don't have to set up a tripod, I don't have to make sure to plug in my camera. I don't have to turn on the right software. I don't have to plug in the phone and put it on do not disturb. I don't have to do any of those things.

Brandi Spaich: That's perfect. I mean, I don't have any, other thoughts on that. You were talking about we had 3 different levels, so what's that last level if someone really wants to go above and beyond with it?

Are you ready to amplify your influence and stand out from the noise? Join Richard Matthews on pbp. fm as he explores the power of podcasting, social media, and strategic content to boost your reach. You'll discover the latest trends in video, audio, and influencer marketing. Plus, unlock insider tips to create binge worthy content spotlighting you as a leader.

Richard Matthews: So the last level is for your super nerds that are like me or the people who are just getting to the point where you have a large enough audience where you might have a professional studio in place or you're, getting to that point where you're like, Hey, I really to edge out all of my competition in a particular niche or something like that.

And you want to next level what you're doing and you're beyond the point where, you know, consistency is important. You've got a good schedule in place. You know, You're showing up all the time. You've got audience coming in, you've got money coming in either from your partnerships or from other things.

And you're like, okay, it's time to take that 80/20 and start adding on that 20%. That's where you might start stepping up into professional video gear. And the professional video gear is the same thing, right? We're still recording on our computer, so we need a Webcam. And so, there's a couple of pieces of equipment that you'll need.

And you know, I don't want to date our video too much. But, every year, Sony comes out with new cameras. Canon comes out with new cameras. Nikon comes out with new cameras. Our recommendation, generally speaking, is going to be whatever they have generally 3 levels of cameras.

They have their Consumer level cameras, their Prosumer level cameras, and their Professional cameras. And you can generally tell which ones they are by their price points. Under a thousand dollars as Consumer cameras, probably won't work for what we want to do here. Then your Prosumer cameras generally start off in the $1,000 to $2,500 range, and then the Professional cameras tend to be up in the $2,500 to $6,000 range for the cameras.

And it's a fantastic piece of equipment that I will probably continue to use for several more years. I probably get a decade or more out of a camera like this, for use for that. And the other part of it is this is a little more complicated, because it's not just a camera, it's a camera and a lens combo, right?

This glass gives you that cool professional look. And so, if you'd like that professional look and you want to set it up like that, this is really your only option to get that and make it look really good. So this is a great way to do that, but the caveats, this is a lot more complex, right?

You have to know how to set aperture, you have to know how to set shutter speeds, you have to know how to set ISO, you have to know how to put it in the correct modes. There's a whole lot of learning that goes into using a professional camera, right? A real camera to do that kind of work.

And so you either have to put in the work to learn that stuff or hire someone who knows how to do it. And again, depending on where you're at with your podcast and what you're doing with it, you might be at that point already. That's the first one. You need a piece of gear like this and you need a way to turn this into something that will record on your computer.

That's where a little device like this comes in. This is called a Cam Link 4K. This is also from Elgato, You know, you've heard a lot of us, talking a lot about Elgato. They make the stream decks, they make the lights that we're using, they make the Webcams that we're using, and they make these capture cards.

You plug it in, and now your camera has been turned into a Webcam, right? Just like the Elgato cameras that we're talking about. I now have a Webcam version of my very fancy professional setup because of this little box here. This little box runs about 180 bucks. So, to run a professional setup like this, you're looking at $2,500 in camera lens gear, 180 bucks for one of these, plus a tripod to put it up. And then the know how to make it all work, but the quality difference is going to be in that Bokeh.

But to me, the time that it takes to set this up, this takes me about 20 minutes every time I want to record to get it set up in the right spot and to do all the things that I want to do with it. I don't have the luxury of being able to leave it in place, like some larger studios might have, right? Cause we're in the back bedroom of an RV. And so I have to take all this stuff down when I'm, done. So this has to be taken down and the stuff has to be taken off of it and I have to reset the settings and whatnot every time. It's the benefits for the quality are not worth it to me.

Despite the fact that I own it all and I've paid for it all and I do like it and I know how to use it. I don't exactly know where to go with that other than to say, it is viable. And there's a lot of people who create content, who use this type of gear, and there's nothing wrong with it. right. It's in fact really, really good and it will set you apart from your competition. But it's not required and we continue to have great success with our podcasts, just using the mid level gear that we talked about with the Webcams and the microphones and whatnot. So, that's professional equipment.

Brandi Spaich: Yeah, not too much, just like you said, it definitely is a very prime example of, how much time are you willing to put in every time you want to record the setup and those kind of psychological blocks to recording. If you're already dragging yourself to record and then you have to set up for 20 minutes before you even start. It can definitely deter you away from wanting to record as much rather than a setup like what I have, where I just pretty much sit down, pull my microphone out, and hit go. Haha. So. Mm hmm.

Richard Matthews: I'm a huge fan of the sit down, pull

And so, for me, because we're talking B2B, we're talking businesses, and we're talking using podcasts as a way to create content for your business and to create attention and awareness for your business and thought leadership for your business. What matters to me is how do I get the content out. And the difference in quality from this one to this one is not noticeable enough for the type of content that we're doing for it to be worth the extra work.

So that's where that is. And like I said, I'm not that I'm going to deter you. If you're one of those people, we got at least one of our clients who's really into all the gear. And he wants to purchase it all and settle up and use it and learn how to use it. Nothing wrong with that, and they have the revenue and everything to support all of that, and they're trying to build a really big brand with their stuff.

And if that's where you're at and what you want to do? It's a perfectly viable option. It is going to be more work. You're going to have a bit more setup that goes into it. You will get the benefits of the extra quality that come with the higher end things, particularly that Bokeh that comes with those really nice lenses and that fall off.

That wouldn't happen with a professional camera would focus on just my hand or just my face. But if I move back here, you'll see it's out of focus. I mean, It'll try and focus on a little bit because I can confuse the digital stuff, right? But you can't

confuse the optical one. It'll focus on your face and that's what it'll focus on.

And you'll have that beautiful blur, professional looking stuff. And those of us who are camera nerds will be able to tell, whether or not you're using a high end camera or not but the rest of the world won't. I think it's important to note there. I think that does a pretty good job of covering basically your 3 levels of cameras, right? The ones you have in your pocket already will work. And you can get away with that, especially if you're just getting started and you're like, I need to get some content out and get going.

Brandi Spaich: You got anything else for them?

Richard Matthews: I think that's probably it. Probably the only other thing I'd want to point out is just that, we've used all of these internally, right? So we've used the cell phones, we've used the Webcams, we've used the Professional camera gear. And the point that I would want to make for people is that they all work, right?

like Even the built-in web camera on your laptop will work. And so what we're looking to optimize for, is we're looking to optimize for the cost for the gear that you're putting in, right? We don't want to spend a whole ton of money on gear that, gear that doesn't get used does not add to your bottom line, right?

Gear that's overkill for what you're doing doesn't add to your bottom line. So what we're looking at is what's the sort of minimum viable product? going to make sure that it's easy for you to record, you're not by the setup? So that you can get that most important bit, which is sit down and record every week.

Brandi Spaich: Alright, if that's all I have, then next time, we're going to be talking about the actual lighting and how that works and what we'll go into recommendations for that.

Richard Matthews: like, see, I got my fancy button. I can push the button, turn my lights off, turn my lights on. Makes me very happy. We'll talk about how you can set up lights like that. Oh, there we go. She disappeared. So the on and off lights, and so we'll talk about a few different options for lights.

We got some smaller lights and some bigger lights and what you're actually looking for. We'll talk about, I believe, the term in the photo and video world is called Three Point Lighting. So we'll talk a little bit about what that is and how to set it up? So that when you actually have your studio in place you can have the kind of look that we have, right?

So that's where the lighting is going to come in. It's going to help light up your face. It's going to help give you depth. And so we'll show you how to set that up so that you look good on camera. And then, side part of that is when you know, you look good on camera. It's one of those psychological barriers, right?

You're like, I'm more likely to actually sit down and record when I know, Hey, I look good, and if I look good, I'm more likely to want to record. So looking good on camera, that's where the lighting is going to come in. And you can see how big of a difference that make when either of us turn our, lights off, we go from, looking good to looking well, you look like a ghost.

Brandi Spaich: Yeah.

Richard Matthews: Almost black and white. So the looking good on camera is going to come from your lights. You don't have to have fancy lights like we have here. You can even just use incandescent bulbs. We'll show you how to use those kinds of things and set them up really nicely. But your lighting is going to be a huge part of that.

And that's what our next episode is going to be about. So look forward to having you in on that. And again, thanks so much for coming on and doing these, Brandi, appreciate it.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. We'll be back soon.

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