- One of the questions, that I get asked the most here on Think Media, is Sean, what camera should I start with for creating content on
YouTube and live streaming? And my answer is start
with your smart phone, but there are a few accessories
that can really help you level up the video
quality on your smartphone, including some tripod mounts and they don't have to break the bank. So in this video, I'm
going to be talking about some simple setups like
this one right here or even some more dynamic setups that are still super
affordable, coming up. (upbeat music) Hey what's up, Sean here with Think Media, bringing you the best tips and tools for building your influence
with online video. And if you're new here,
we do a lot of tips videos on this channel to help you grow your influence faster with social media as well as tech gear
reviews like this one. So if you're new here,
consider subscribing. But let's dive straight into the content with my first recommendation
and it's this smartphone mount right here that I think is
great if you don't have one. It's from Vastar and it's just $8. And the reason I love it,
is because it can hold your smartphone both
vertically and horizontally really easy. If you look at some of the mounts online, some of them are just vertical, not realizing that you would
use these for stories, right? You use them for vertical content, IGTV, and not just widescreen content. Now in this case, I've
put the smartphone mount right on top of a Jobi 3K, but you could use any kind of tabletop tripod. Now, we actually cover
some of those in depth. I'll put a link to that
video on the YouTube card and in the description below. But I love this setup because
I use it exactly here, in my home office, and I use
the window as my light source. And so, I will go on
Instagram Live typically, or Facebook Live, or even YouTube Live if I'm using my phone right here. I can go vertical and
I can just sit in front and create content, or if
I'm on Facebook Live maybe, and I want to do a horizontal stream, I'll flip it horizontal and
I'll just record the content. This would also be a really
great setup for actually shooting proper YouTube videos
using lighting like this, and you could plug in a microphone or accessorize this as well. So for $8, if you don't
have a mount like this yet, I highly recommend this simple Vastar. For the second recommendation,
we're talking about the Arkon all-in-one
tripod and phone mount. And this thing comes in for
around $20 here in the U.S., and you can check out
links to all of the various accessories in the
YouTube description below. But I love this one, it's
a good budget solution. It is not as tall as I
would necessarily prefer, but still good, I mean that's
probably the biggest thing, is you can easily also go vertical or just loosen it in the
back and do horizontal. It has a generally solid
build, I mean you do get what you pay for, it's
all plastic, it's nothing really aluminum, I mean
that's the case here too. So it definitely solves your problem, and so if you want just
a simple all-in-one kit, I highly recommend this,
and then typically, if I'm just doing quick
content right here, I just run right off the phone. I use this lighting and I
don't accessorize at all, but if I do want a little
bit of better audio for me, I love to plug in the MV88 from Shure, that can go into my
lightning port right there. And I also love this
ring light from Arkon, this is around $20, it's
bicolor so you can switch to a mixed kind of day light
and amber or just amber only. Go through the various color temperatures and then you can crank
up the power on there, internal battery
chargeable, and you put it right on front of your phone. There's the camera right there,
so you get this ring light. So now, you've kind of got a
great content creation setup whether you are using
it right here like this, or with a more robust
setup with the Vastar and some other kind of
tabletop tripod like this. So really simple solutions, that don't have to break the bank. All right, so far we've
covered two of my favorite smartphone mounts and actually
if you've been getting value out of this video, do you
mind smashing the like button and let me know in the comments,
what's one of your favorite smartphone accessories
that's an essential for you. But now, we're going to get into a setup for shooting a proper YouTube video. Now sure, you could create
some YouTube videos with those other kits, but those are a
little bit more for social use. This right here is a Ulanzi
mount and it comes in at under $20, so it's not
going to break the bank. But it gives you more
mounting space for lighting, microphones, and so right
now, let's set this up to actually shoot a proper
sit down YouTube video and I'll show you all of
our settings and our setup. Okay, so here's our goal, I'm going to use this as my background and my set and we're going to use just my iPhone 8. Now, the accessories
we're using is the Ulanzi, which is perfect as a base to mount our phone inside of there. It has a very cool kind of
spring loaded mount right here, so if you're phone's larger you can fit whatever phone in there. We put our phone in there and there's a couple setting that are important to us. Number one we made sure it was
set to 4K 30 frames a second. Now, this doesn't mean the
final video has to be in 4K, but the reason we did that is
because even if we shrink it down to 1080, the quality's
going to look a lot better. Next, is audio and for that we just have this simple Takstar mic. This shotgun mount comes in
at around $25 here in the U.S. and I'll link that up in
the description below. But there's a couple critical pieces, because this is just a
TRS cable meant for DSLR's and mirror-less cameras, we
have this little convertor. RODE makes one, BOYA makes one, around ten or fifteen dollars, that takes your two
rings up to three rings so it works with your smartphone. And then, I've got the dongle
included with your phone, or I always lose these so I order extra. And we can go straight
into our lightning port. If you have a headphone jack, mic input, then you can skip past
all of those convertors and you should be able
to plug in any TRRS cable right into your smartphone. And then lastly, we've got
this Neewer light here. So we'll turn these
lights off so you can see how we can use this to make a
great looking YouTube video, all built around this mount,
and then it should be noted that you can put this on any tripod. This is one of our favorite
K&F travel tripods, it's $80, you don't need a nice tripod for just some basic home
YouTube setup like this, but having one like this is nice because we use it for everything, for travel and everything else. So that covers the kit. Let's get it setup and
see how the footage looks. Okay, so we turned all the lights off and right now we just
have the Neewer running, just the Takstar shotgun mic
plugged into an iPhone 8, and this is the results. This particularly phone goes to 4K, I mean this phone's a
couple years old now, so a lot of the new Samsungs
and Androids shoot 4K, but guess what, if your
phone only does 1080p, that is great as well. And one quick tip for whenever
you're shooting video, is try and pull yourself off the wall. It's never the best when
you're sitting on a couch that's pushed up against
the wall or a chair. So what I've done is, even
though there's a couch behind me, I'm just sitting on a stool
with probably about 10 ft. between me and the wall behind me, and then I'm then
thoughtful with the decor on the left and the right and
kind of setting up this shot, but I think when you are
considerate of the lighting and the audio and you use what you have, you'll be amazed with the kind of content that you can create as
you keep leveling up, posting videos, and getting
better at your skills. So we've covered some awesome accessories for your smartphone in this video, but one of the biggest things to actually look a little bit deeper into is audio. This Takstar is a great
microphone to start with, but because it's a shotgun mic, I wouldn't recommend using it if you get too far away from the microphone, you might want a much
longer corded microphone that's like a lavaliere or something. So if you actually want to see our best smartphone microphone series, we have an entire playlist. I'll link that up on the
YouTube card, check that out. I'll also put it in the description below and I'll see you in the next video. Peace. (electronic lounge music)
