Finding the PERFECT Key Light Angle!

Hey guys, Caleb here with DSLR video shooter. And today I'm going to show you how to fix this terrible lighting using a really simple tip, especially when you're by yourself. So, if you're like me, you light yourself as a YouTuber or if you're doing a live stream. I'm setting something up here at my desk. So, I've turned all the other lights off so we can just focus on the main key light and how to get that thing dialed in because I can't go over there, adjust the light, and look back at myself and see how the light is falling on me. So, I'm going to show you how I've been doing this for the last goodness, I have no idea how long, but a long time. First, a quick disclaimer. Here's what the setup is going to look like, and we'll talk about that here in a little bit. You can see how things end up here. But first, I want to say this video is not sponsored by anyone, but it is supported by those of you who purchase camera gear that I invent, like Cineback, which is available at camerafoundry. com. If you don't need a rig, but need a ton of power, check out the Caleb Pike and Small Rig 212 battery. That thing can power just about anything for an insane amount of time. So, check the links in the description to learn more. And thank you guys so much for the support. So, step one in getting your light set in a place where you like the way it looks is to go ahead and position yourself in your camera wherever you're going to be filming. So, right now, I'm facing the camera. I want to have a shot just like this, and I want to be able to move my light around to a better spot. So, that's step one. Get it yourself in position and the camera in position. Next is to pay attention. and look at a monitor or the screen on your camera. I have a computer monitor off to the side and I'll show you the setup here in just a second. But I'm looking at myself here and I can see I've got a little bit of shadow on this side of my face, but I'd like for there to be a lot more shadow on the opposite of my key side. So, that means I'm going to have to move the light. I also think the light is a little too low and I don't like how the shadows are kind of going directly across my face. I'd like there to be a little more shadow on the lower side of my face. um which will help you know with jaw lines and all that fun stuff. So at this point what I'm going to be doing is focusing just on my face and I'm actually going to move my head. And this is going to be really interesting. I've never talked about this before, but I essentially am going to put my face in a position where I like the lighting. Then we're going to move my face back to the proper position, but I'm going to use my hand as a key light so I know where to put my light. So hopefully that makes sense. I'll show you here in a second what that looks like. And just for context, here's the setup. Yes, my desk is very messy. I'm just making this video on the fly. I've got QuickTime up here and I'm just recording this um on my computer. So, there's the light. It's just above the computer monitor and kind of centered. So, I'm going to be moving it probably somewhere over here. But now that you have some context, let's get into how we do this. So, I'm actually going to just look right over here and pay attention to all the shadows and everything on my face. So, I'm going to start moving around. And you can see as I move, I can very quickly start to see what's happening with shadows here. Uh, as well as if I face the light, it's just so much light. It feels just terrible. So, I'm going to move away. So, we get some nice shadow on this side. Sorry, it's reversed on this side of my face. And then the other thing I'm going to do is tilt my head down and see what happens there. We get more shadows here under my eye on the lower part of my face. So, I like that more. We're getting more of that Rembrandt triangle. And you can see as I move right about there is pretty nice. And I can even get more extreme. But see the difference between this and this. So don't just think left to right. Think up to and down when it comes to your light. Um so we've got this and we've got this. So I'm going to say something like this is what I would like for my lighting. So now what I'm going to do is freeze my body in the position where I like the lighting on just my face. Again, this is all I care about right now. And what I'm going to do is put my hand in between my face and the light. So my hand is where the direction of the light is coming from. And now I'm going to move my hand and my face at the exact same time back to our starting position where we want our face to be. And then that hand is going to tell me where my light needs to go. And for another perspective again, I'm going to move my face back to that position. I'm going to put my hand just like this. See that? So, we got my face where I like the lighting, my hand where the light source is coming from. And I'll point my camera here. And then I'm just going to move my face and my hand at the exact same time. That's where I need to move my light. it up and over to the side to get that lighting that I liked earlier. Okay, I've got the light moved and I think this looks so much better. Yes, it's very dark on this side of my face, but I can fix that with a little bit of fill or kicker light. Again, I'm just mainly focusing on the key light and how the light wraps around the face. So, again, to recap how this works, we have our camera and my face or body set where I want to end up. Next, we can move around and find a spot where, let's say, I'm happy with this lighting on my face. I'm going to move my head down, around, find a good spot. Then, I'm going to put my hand where the light is coming from. And I've got another camera angle to show you a little better what that looks like. Currently, it's coming from right there from my eyes to the light. Again, find your position. Now lock your arm, hand

and face together. So they move around and they stay locked in place. Now move your face and your body to where you want to end up. Look at your hand. That's where you need to move your light. So if I like this position right here and I move back to where I want to end up, my light needs to move over to the left. It's that simple. And it's a great way to figure out where you want your lights to end up to give you the look you want completely by yourself. There's no one standing here for me while I move the light around. And there's also no guessing. You can just look and see that lighting is good. I want that. Now I can go ahead and make the adjustments I need to. With that done, now I'm going to play around some of the lighting in here and we'll wrap this thing up. And now I've got several different lights. And I also just realized this whole time I've been recording at 30 frames per second, which is super sad. But here we are. I've just added different lights in the background. And I've talked about these lights here on the channel. and I want to get back into doing more lighting. Uh, it's really fun stuff. So, the last thing I'm going to do is, oh my goodness, add a glimmer glass filter. And I've talked about these in a separate video as well. And that's just going to spice things up and get me a little closer to that Star Wars/bladeunner aesthetic that I'm kind of going for here in the studio. So, hopefully this video helped you out figuring out where to put your lights. If you want to support the channel and see more videos like this, check out camera gear I sell over at camerafoundry. com. I'm selling a bunch of used equipment there along with Cineback like this one for the Canon C50. So check that out over at camera foundry. com. Also, you can check out the Caleb Pike and Small Rig 212 battery over at Small Rig if you need some all day power. That's going to wrap up this video. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. We'll see you in the next