How to Improve Your Webcam Lighting for Video Calls
Nov 07, 2022
You can fix your webcam lighting for video calls with what is already in the room. Put daylight or a lamp in front of your face, never behind you. Use a light you can dim so you can soften it. Let a bright monitor fill the shadows. Then set it once and leave it alone.
That is the short answer. Below is the detail, including the Zoom setting that makes a good room look like a bad one, and what to do when the window is behind you.
Chris Schwager, Founder & CEO at Ridge Films, ran through these on a podcast episode in 2022. The audio and full transcript are at the bottom of this page.
Why does your lighting look worse on camera than it does in the room?
Your eyes adjust to a dim room in seconds. A webcam does not. Small sensor, cheap lens, so it needs far more light than you think, and it deals with a window behind you by giving up on your face.
That is where the silhouette comes from. You can see yourself fine. The other person is looking at an outline.
There's nothing worse than having people in silhouette, right? If you can just provide a little bit of light on your face, that can be just enough to keep things going.
How do you improve webcam lighting with what is already in the room?
Four moves, in the order worth trying them.
- Turn to face the window. Daylight is the best light you will ever get for free. Sit facing the blinds so it lands on your face, not the back of your head. The catch is that daylight moves: overcast sky or direct sun will shift on you mid-call, so if it will not sit still, close the blinds and use something you control.
- Use a lamp you can dim. Any lamp in front of you beats no lamp. A dimmable one lets you take the harshness off, rather than living with whatever it does at full power.
- Make it movable, then stop moving it. Put it where it works once. The point of a movable light is that you only have to move it the one time.
- Let your monitor fill in. A large, bright screen throws soft light onto the front of your face. It will not compete with daylight, but soft fill beats nothing.
None of it costs anything, and it is most of the difference between a cupboard and an office.
What is the quickest lighting fix for a Zoom call?
Turn off the automatic low-light adjustment in your video settings.
This is the one people go hunting for as a Zoom lighting hack, and it is usually the whole fix. Zoom has it on by default. It watches your picture and keeps correcting it, so every time you move or a cloud goes over, it brightens and darkens your face while you are talking. Set it to manual, or off, and the picture holds still. On a setup that is already lit properly, leaving it on actively undoes the work.
What do you do if the window is behind you?
Turn the laptop around so the window is in front of you. Chris's word for the difference is chalk and cheese.
If the desk cannot move, close the blinds and cut the window out completely, then light yourself with a lamp or your monitor. A half-blocked window behind you is worse than no window, because the camera is still exposing for it. If the wall itself is the problem rather than the light, that is a different job, and our guide to four budget ways to improve your video calls covers the room, the gear and the connection together.
Can your monitor be your only light source?
Yes, and the advice to never use your screen as a light is wrong when it is the only light you have. A big bright monitor gives you soft fill across the front of your face. It will not do much in a bright room, but in a dim one it is the difference between a face and an outline.
Two things to watch. Do not keep flicking between a white document and a dark browser, because the light on your face changes with it. And a dark desktop at night gives you almost nothing.
How do you stop adjusting your lighting before every call?
By deciding it is finished.
This is the part that actually costs people money, and it has nothing to do with lighting. Every adjustment invites another one. You tweak the lamp, then the blind, then the exposure, then the lamp again, and the recording never gets made.
Set it up how you need it and leave it.
The same rule runs through every studio we install. Equipment is the easy pillar. Knowing what to say, delivering it well, and actually turning up week after week are the three that decide whether any of it was worth doing.
When is it worth buying an actual light?
When the free options have run out, not before. If your room has no usable window, or you are on calls after dark, or you are recording video clients will watch later, a real light earns its place. Four calls a day in a room with a window, and it probably does not.
Buying gear first is the standard mistake, because a light nobody has been taught to position sits in a box. Start with what video equipment you actually need, then read the full guide to setting up professional lighting for your video calls when you are ready to buy.
Already have a Ridge studio and a background light that will not come on? That is a fault, not a technique, and the fix is in troubleshooting a background light that will not turn on.
Webcam lighting questions we get asked
How do I improve the lighting for my video calls?
Get light onto the front of your face and keep it steady. Face a window, or put a dimmable lamp in front of you, and let a bright monitor fill the shadows. Never sit with a window behind you, and leave the setup alone once it works.
What is the best lighting setup for a webcam?
One soft light in front of you, slightly above eye level, bright enough that the camera is not straining. A window, a lamp through a shade, or a proper key light all do it. What matters more is that it stays the same every time you sit down.
Can I use my computer monitor as a webcam light?
Yes. A large bright screen throws soft fill across the front of your face, and when it is your only light source it is much better than nothing. Keep something bright open on screen, and avoid switching between light and dark screens while you talk.
Why does my Zoom video keep getting brighter and darker?
That is the automatic low-light adjustment in your video settings correcting the picture as the light changes. Switch it to manual or turn it off. It is the most common cause of a flickering picture, and it is worse on a setup that is already lit properly.
Do I need to buy a light to look good on video calls?
Usually not. A window, a lamp and your monitor will get you to a good enough picture for free. Buy a light when the room genuinely cannot supply one, or when you are recording video rather than just meeting. Gear bought too early tends to stay in the box.
If you would rather never think about this again
Free is genuinely good enough for most video calls. It stops being enough when you are recording video for clients and you want it identical every time without touching anything.
That is what we build: the studio installed and set once, and the coaching around it covering the harder three, what to say, how to deliver it, and how to keep going after week one. For an honest read on whether that is worth it for you, book a call with us and we will tell you either way.
Full episode transcript
From the episode published 6 November 2022, verbatim, including the product names in use at the time.
Chris Schwager 00:00:01
Read the full transcript
Welcome to the Video Made Simple podcast where we refashion your perception of video by presenting new ideas with tangible outcomes that will change the direction of your business. I am your host, Chris Schwager, and one of the key qualities of a video that really easily grabs the attention of viewers is proper lighting.
[00:00:23] If you're on YouTube channel, you'll see right now there's some proper lighting going on here. You know when done right, it can make a statement for your brand the way you want it. So let me give you, in this episode some free webcam lighting ideas to upgrade your video calls.
[00:00:41] Now, if people can't see you on camera, then it's a pain, and you might have experienced this if you've gone on a video call to only find that the recipient is in silhouette. It's not very interesting, is it? Lighting allows you to set the mood of the video. In films, it's how you set the atmosphere in the sense of meaning for the audience. It's mostly the same with setting up your video call. When you're sitting in the dark. What does that say about you?
[00:01:13] When your lighting is crap, people can't see anything clearly, you know, and you really do run the risk of losing attention. But if you are well lit, you can leverage the capacity of the video to keep them interested and it's one less distraction for both of you. And those nuances of body language are definitely going to be seen.
[00:01:35] I'm gonna show you how to achieve better lighting, most likely with. You've got now.
[00:01:41] Number one, you can use daylight coming through blinds. The caveat to all of this is that if it's coming over overcast or the sun's piercing through, you do not want to compete with that. It will slow you down because it changes all the time and those variables can be quite distracting for the recipient. Okay? But daylight coming through, if it's your only source of lighting, then open up the blinds, get some light through as long as it's not from behind and creating a big silhouette of you.
[00:02:13] Now, two, if you don't want to use the blinds or you prefer to shut those and use artificial lighting something in your room, for instance, um, try and get them dimmable so you can adjust them a little bit and that'll make it a bit easier. So you can kind of remove the harshness or just play with it so that you can set a mood or a scene that makes life very easy for you when you do a video call. So you can just go over, switch it, set it to three, sit back down and get on with your video call.
[00:02:43] Number three, if it can be movable, then that's really great. The premise of having things moveable is to try and just move it once, set and forget. Leave it alone. The more adjusting and continually making modifications to it, the more you run the risk of spending all your time on those technical variables, making adjustments, trying to get the improvement, trying to better it, and less time on the things that are really important to you in your business, and that is doing your job, doing what you are paid to do.
[00:03:15] Look, number four. Make it consistent. Whatever you do with your lighting, just do it once and you don't have to adjust it all the time. This is so important in our DIY Video Program, which is something that we really focus on for our clients. We don't want them to do anything more than they need to, right? So get a setting. And stick with it. I'm keep pressing, uh, the importance of this, but it's so interesting that people can get bogged down with these variables and it really does get away from 'em, and all of a sudden, the day blows out or their meeting blows out because they're constantly doing these adjustments and they're never able to get it right.
[00:03:54] Number five, people. Number five. If you only have your computer monitor, you can actually get a bit of bounce, uh, particularly if you've got a large monitor, you know, like a super bright Mac or something like that. You can get a lot of bounce from that, right. So people telling you, Oh, don't use your monitor as a light source. Well, if it's your only light source, then yeah, do it. Because it actually can create a little bit of soft fill on your face, which is better than nothing, right? It's not gonna compete with daylight or it's a low light source, right? So it's not gonna be great, but it may just give you a little bit of soft feel on the front of your face.
[00:04:30] There's nothing worse than having people in silhouette, right? If you can just provide a little bit of light on your face, that can be just enough to keep things going. Now, the problem with having your screen as the light source, you don't wanna be flicking around and changing screens all the time because obviously that will change the light source on your face.
[00:04:47] Um. Also, if you're on a Zoom call or something like that, deselect that auto exposure setting, you know, it's can be very annoying. It's constantly fluctuating, um, in, uh, situations where there's, uh, you know, amateur lighting, it can always be fluctuating. It gets quite, uh, exhausting. So you can actually go in there and, and switch that off. I think by default, Zoom actually has that selected. So deselect that. Um. Particularly if you're on a pro set up like the DIY Desktop Studio, it's gotta be deselected, you know, Otherwise it'll just make a good system look shit, because you know, those, those adjustments already been made continually. So that can be annoying. Switch it off, but um, also have your consistent lighting from your display.
[00:05:27] Number six and final point, if you have a light behind you like that harsh sunlight that I'm talking about, are you able to turn your laptop around so that that light is facing the front of you? Okay. Um, and if you are, it'll just be chalk and cheese as to the image that you'll get from your webcam. If not, use the blinds. Cut it out completely. And as I said, use those other light sources or try and use those other light sources to help better your look.
[00:06:01] Even with our DIY Desktop Studio with professional gear, we follow these same principles. Set it up how you need it and leave it. If you want more information on the DIY Desktop Studio, go to ridgefilms.com.au/diy and check it out.
[00:06:19] With proper lighting, you will keep things far more interesting and you also make sure people remember you. If you want more lighting information, then be sure to subscribe to this channel where you'll get weekly Video Made Simple ideas to present your videos like a pro. That's all for this episode.
[00:06:37] Thanks for listening and see you next week.
