5 Tips for Video Conference Lighting
Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, significantly more people have been communicating with their colleagues via video conference apps such as Zoom, Teams, Google Meet or even Skype. Permanent work at home also makes other demands on the technical equipment of your home office. In addition to a good webcam, the right lighting for video conferences also plays an important role.
The most important in short
- For video conferences you should use multiple light sources and be aware of the position from these light sources, it is better not to sit in front of a window and keep an eye on the light color.
- A smart principle for good lighting is the three point lighting, but you can also use a ringlight like the Dracast Halo LED 180 and get a very good lighting result without too much lighting techniques.
1. The right position
In order to make sure that you are easily recognizable and that your face is not only illuminated selectively, the lighting should ideally be mounted about 30 cm above your eye level. If the light from there blinds you, you can also mount it a little higher. If you notice shadows under your nose and chin, however, the light is a little too high.
2. More Lightsources
The most common principle to avoid shadows on the face is the so-called "three-point lighting". This principle is divided into key light, fill light and back light.
1. The key light is the main light for the illumination. This light is the most important and is a little higher at about 45 degrees away from the camera.
2. The fill light is responsible for the brightening and is primarily intended to reduce the shadows created by the main light.
3. The back light provides a clearer contrast between the foreground and the background. This also creates more depth in the picture.
three-point lightingIf such lighting is not possible in your home office, there are solutions that are significantly less complex and still very effective. Here, slightly wider LED panels or ring lights are usually used.
3. Window light
The light from outside provides an ideal natural light source for video conferences. However, the alignment to the window is very important, because you should never have the window behind you, otherwise you will be barely recognizable and even the best webcam cannot compensate for this. In the best case, the light comes from the side, because if it is behind the screen, it quickly causes headaches because of the different lighting conditions between the screen and the background, which strain your eyes..
4. Light color or light temperature
With a color temperature of 5600 Kelvin you should be easily recognizable and at the same time the light looks very natural. However, the ideal color temperature can differ depending on the skin tone.
Bhutajata, Color temperature black body 800-12200K, CC BY-SA 4.0
5. Soft light
Soft light or indirect light is also a great help for ideal lighting in video conferences. Instead of direct light, soft light is scattered by e.g. a lampshade, but alternatively you can also point a lamp against a white wall and get a similar effect. In this way, indirect light can be generated from a direct light source. The advantage of indirect light is that it casts much softer shadows, making you more visible in your Zoom meeting.
Conclusion
Many factors play a role for the ideal lighting in your video conference, in addition to the lighting from outside, the color temperature and the number of light sources, the positioning of these lamps is also important. For lighting in video conferences, LED ring lights are the simplest solution. The LED 180 Halo ring light from our range is recommended, with this you get a very good complete solution at a fair price and a tripod is included.
