Lighting an office for video recording

[BrutalGT]

I have done some very minor videos for Youtube in the past, however these never required showing myself as they were just of the computer screen. I have started a new channel where I will be displaying both my webcam showing myself as well as my computer screen.

The problem I am running into is the lighting of the room. I have to turn off Right Light on my webcam (drops to 15 FPS when enabled) and when doing so, the room appears to be extremely yellow in light. The actual overhead light used is an incandescent bulb so that probably contributes to it, but it shows much more yellow in video even after tuning the settings.

Would I benefit from grabbing some type of LED Bar to place in front of my monitor? I am looking for a fairly low cost solution as this is a starter project but I know nothing about lighting, why anything would be of help.

Office:


Right Light On:


Right Light Off:

[smrpix]

The trick with lighting is to actually learn to see what's going on. Cameras show the differences our minds ignore. Kudos for experimenting and observing.

Proportion is everything -- in color and luminance and directionality.

The next trick is to balance those proportions to what you like. You can change the color in the room by using "daylight" bulbs, for instance, or use an incandescent desk lamp, or you can decide you like the contrast.

The lighting in your wide office shot is a little harsh for my taste (and that's the key here, for MY taste, not necessarily yours.) Note the strong shadows. I would soften it up with perhaps a frosted light fixture or adding some frost gel over the fixture, or bouncing a light off the ceiling to use the entire surface as a source.

There's no absolute right and wrong, it's a question of your aesthetic.

[BrutalGT]

Thanks for the great feedback, I definitely agree with everything mentioned. I too feel the color in this room is pretty harsh. This is a fairly new office for us (used to be my bedroom) but I have been working to convert this over recently.

Even before the need to record, I was not a fan of the current lighting situation and bought some "white" lights from Target to try out. If memory serves, they didn't fit inside the glass light cover on the fan, but I use them in my own bedroom and they still look quite yellow.

Personally I like WHITE such as...



Taking into account what I have read and what not, I may try grabbing a cheap clamp light such as http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-150-Watt-Incandescent-Clamp-Light-CE-300PDQ/100354511 and using the whitest (softest too since it will be aimed at my face) LED bulb and attach it to the Microphone stand next to my computer. Will also try out some different bulbs in the overhead fan light and see if I can get the feel I am going for.

[Cornucopia]

You have mixed lighting in that office right now: ~3200ºK in the overheads and ~5600ºK coming off of your monitors. Your camera can only balance to one color temperature at a time. It can either be manually adjusted, or keep readjusting in auto mode (depends on the model). You can decide to include the proportions in your balance, or you could gravitate toward one or the other. If you lock on 3200, your monitors (and items like your face that get shined on by them) will look bluish. If you lock on 5600, areas where the monitor light doesn't reach will look yellowish. If you lock on both in equal proportion (?4500ºK?), ALL areas will have a color cast but to a less noticeable extent.

Or, you can change one of those lights' color temperature.

Monitors usually have a menu setting that allows you to change theirs, so you could change it to 3200ºK to match the overheads and then white balance for 3200 and all would be similar. Or you could swap out the lights for ~5600ºK lights (which should be available at most stores, particularly hardware stores). Don't go by fuzzy marketing descriptions (e.g. "soft white"), actually look for the color temp in Degrees Kelvin. Most packaging does seem to provide that detail now.

Unless you are working in auto-white-balance mode, you should set the white balance at your primary spot (operator's chair?) using a white bounce card, pointed at an angle to catch all the major light sources (e.g. 45º).

This doesn't even get into the aesthetics of your look. For a pro approach, you should deal with this just as if your were trying to light a client in a project. Include your whole environment in your deliberations. What do you want the audience to see?

Scott