The $50 lighting panel that fixed my video quality overnight

Last month I was getting ready to film a review and my overhead kitchen light was casting these awful shadows on my face, so I grabbed a cheap photography panel on Amazon and set it up on my desk. Now I point it at the ceiling instead of directly at me and the soft bounce light makes everything look ten times better. Any other creators here using bounce lighting tricks that worked better than you expected?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancyj1117d ago

Read somewhere that pointing lights at the ceiling is WAY better than direct lighting, makes everything look soft and pro. Bounce light is a cheat code for sure.

ryan_shah3817d ago

82 inch TV in my living room and I point two cheap LED floor lamps at the ceiling behind it. @nancyj11 you are totally right the difference is night and day. The whole room gets this even warm glow with no harsh shadows or glare on the screen. I used to have a fancy overhead light and it cast such a weird spotlight right over the couch the bounce is way more relaxing to watch movies under.

violaramirez17d ago

My buddy from film school actually told me about this trick years ago and I totally forgot about it until I saw ryan_shah38 mentioning those floor lamps. He pointed his at the ceiling for his TV setup and I tried the same thing with a cheap clamp light from the hardware store, just bouncing it off a white wall. I swear the light is so much more even than any ring light I've ever used. I read somewhere that the diffusion from a big surface like a ceiling or wall basically acts like a giant softbox for free. It's wild how something so simple can make your video or room look like a million bucks.