Peter's Fly Fishing Vlog: My Studio Setup for Producing Fly Tying Videos

[@hooked4lifeca]

The key for me setting up this studio was to be creatively cheap. Most of the stuff was either bought used or on sale. My local hardware store has saved me a lot of money. The LED lights were bought there; just buy the same brand and wattage to ensure consistency plus buy the 5500K daylight bulbs. I also had a lot of this stuff from my still photography so I just repurposed it. Old manual macro lenses can be had for $200 or less and their quality is superb. Old two ring zooms are even cheaper. Used digital cameras lose a lot of value after they are one or two model versions behind and a lot of the fancy AF features on the latest cameras are pointless for this sort of use. If you want to buy an old camera but are unsure about it, go to dpreview.com and check out the reviews on it as their write-ups usually answer most questions, e.g. does it have clean HDMI out.

[@SavageFlies]

Peter, this was amazing. Thanks so much for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at how you work. One question regarding the Atomos recorders-- do you have to have one for each camera? These are a bit pricey for me and where I am with my channel right now. Maybe someday. :-) Thanks again for sharing your setup. I'm going to have to watch this one several times to take in all the great info!

[@hooked4lifeca]

Yes we need a unit for each camera. The nice thing, they will also take audio inputs along with the HDMI and synch the two. If you don't want 4K, buy the old units off of EBay. Way cheaper. Just be aware that Atomos sells units that are just monitors and monitors+recorders, so make sure to get the right one. Also go to their website to see if the unit supports your camera. It'll still work with unsupported cameras, but we sometimes have to fiddle with frame rates or resolution to get everything working. For example, with two of these cameras the HDMI loop out to the monitors would only work if I set the frame rate to 60i. So if you buy used units and your camera is unsupported, you may have to try a few resolution/frame rate choices to find one that works 100%.

[@SavageFlies]

@@hooked4lifeca Thank you! I'll start my research now (and see if an older unit on Ebay might work). And thanks for all you do helping the fly tying community!

[@tiedbyblake]

Thank you for sharing what you use and why you use it! I have thought about producing tying videos but these are the details that I need. I do have a DSLR camera but not much for lighting or background. I will look into getting the manual cameras and getting lenses. Thank you again!!

[@hooked4lifeca]

Your DSLR is probably capable of being set to 100% manual, plus it would probably accept old film lenses of the same brand. Pentax DSLRs are especially good at this. As for lighting, a good window on ones side and some white poster board on the other can do wonders.

[@FlyTyer1948]

Chicken & egg question: There is obviously a lot of equipment (& $), knowledge, & technical skill required to make these videos. Were you a fly tyer who decided to share his tying skills & had to acquire the videography skills or were you already doing videos? Lighting: I use a full spectrum bulb in my tying table extension light & have wondered about switching to a full spectrum LED panel light to save electricity when the bulb finally burns out. Do you think the LEDs really provide true sunlight quality? Thank you.

[@hooked4lifeca]

In 2011 after I retired, I decided I'd get into video. I am a still photographer, but my video knowledge was rudimentary so I had to teach myself from more or less scratch. Already being a photographer did save some steps, nevertheless there were a lot of stumbling blocks along the way, especially with audio, which was a completely new ballgame. I'm totally happy with LEDs and they're definitely better than CFLs when it comes to the breadth of the spectrum that they cover.

[@gregb8824]

Wowsers...how much $$$ invested???

[@hooked4lifeca]

All of the major components were bought used. The old zoom lenses were only $30 to $40 each. It's not as bad as it seems.