Content Creation Battleground: Choosing Between Vimeo, YouTube, DailyMotion

Vimeo vs YouTube vs Dailymotion: Which Video Platform is Right for You?

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you are an upcoming entrepreneur who is looking forward to an effective video marketing strategy then you have to come to a decision regarding the portal you want to use for your marketing. As you should know by now YouTube , Dailymotion and Vimeo are the 3 major players in the field of video marketing. In this article, we are going to give you a comparative analysis of all these video sharing platforms so that you can select the one most suited to your needs.

• Part 1: Detailed Comparison of Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion
• Part 2: Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Compare Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion in 4 Aspects

1. Content

Before deciding which video platform to choose, you need to find out about the content in which each of them specializes.

Youtube: If your content is more related to entertainment then YouTube is the platform to go for.

Vimeo: Vimeo is a closed community specializing in videos by artists from various genres and is considered to be a more creative platform than YouTube.

Dailymotion: Dailymotion has a fair share of both but it resembles the YouTube trend.

2. Audience Size and Membership

Youtube: YouTube’s audience is large, with over 1 billion users that watch hundreds of millions of hours of content – each day! Vimeo has a much smaller for their audience, its 170 million viewers, about 42 million are in the United States.

Vimeo: Vimeo comes with 4 membership options – the Basic which is available for free and the paid Plus, ($59.95/ year) Pro ($199.00 a year), and Business membership ($599.00 a year). The storage level and support for each membership option vary. The free membership is limited to just 500 MB/week. YouTube and Dailymotion on the other hand are totally free, and Youtube gives unlimited hosting. However YouTube Red is a $9.99 subscription service that will allow you to watch ad-free videos and download them for watching offline.

Read this Vimeo introduction >>>

Dailymotion: DailyMotion is the world’s second-largest video-sharing website behind YouTube, statistics claimed by both companies show that YouTube has a significant advantage over DailyMotion in terms of unique site visits, totaling one billion visits per month compared with DailyMotion’s 112 million visits per month.

Know more about Dailymotion >>>

3. Limitation of Videos

Youtube: One of the best parts about this platform is that it doesn’t come with any upload limit.

Dailymotion: Regular users can upload 60 minutes videos of 2 GB limit and the quality of upload is limited to 1280 720p.

Vimeo: With a Basic plan, you can upload 500MB/week, with a Plus plan you can upload 5GB/week and with Pro plan you will be able to upload unlimited videos with a per-file limit of 25 GB.

4. User Experience

To begin with, both Vimeo and YouTube had a very similar kind of user interface. This has gradually evolved over the years and these days the user interface of Vimeo is more attractive than YouTube. Vimeo would give the user fewer adverts, offer easy navigation and of course, allow them to watch the videos on a large video player. Though these days YouTube is also offering a ‘theatre mode’ for the full-screen view along with a skip adoption, yet the quality of its user experience is still isn’t at par with Vimeo. YouTube is still trying its best to satisfy its one billion/month users but still, Vimeo is the winner when it comes to unparalleled user experience.

Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Before uploading your video on any one of these above-mentioned platforms the first thing you have to do is get your videos edited. The Wondershare Filmora is a comprehensive video editor that is ideal for use by beginners. With this software, you will be able to nicely edit a video even if you have no prior knowledge about video editing. This easy to use video editing software is loaded with lots of useful features which can be effectively used by the casual and novice editors. This software is packed with all you need to create good quality videos for your audience on YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion. All you need to do is import the video clips and choose a piece of pre-programmed music and theme for your video. The software would then analyze your video clips and automatically create a video for you.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you are an upcoming entrepreneur who is looking forward to an effective video marketing strategy then you have to come to a decision regarding the portal you want to use for your marketing. As you should know by now YouTube , Dailymotion and Vimeo are the 3 major players in the field of video marketing. In this article, we are going to give you a comparative analysis of all these video sharing platforms so that you can select the one most suited to your needs.

• Part 1: Detailed Comparison of Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion
• Part 2: Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Compare Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion in 4 Aspects

1. Content

Before deciding which video platform to choose, you need to find out about the content in which each of them specializes.

Youtube: If your content is more related to entertainment then YouTube is the platform to go for.

Vimeo: Vimeo is a closed community specializing in videos by artists from various genres and is considered to be a more creative platform than YouTube.

Dailymotion: Dailymotion has a fair share of both but it resembles the YouTube trend.

2. Audience Size and Membership

Youtube: YouTube’s audience is large, with over 1 billion users that watch hundreds of millions of hours of content – each day! Vimeo has a much smaller for their audience, its 170 million viewers, about 42 million are in the United States.

Vimeo: Vimeo comes with 4 membership options – the Basic which is available for free and the paid Plus, ($59.95/ year) Pro ($199.00 a year), and Business membership ($599.00 a year). The storage level and support for each membership option vary. The free membership is limited to just 500 MB/week. YouTube and Dailymotion on the other hand are totally free, and Youtube gives unlimited hosting. However YouTube Red is a $9.99 subscription service that will allow you to watch ad-free videos and download them for watching offline.

Read this Vimeo introduction >>>

Dailymotion: DailyMotion is the world’s second-largest video-sharing website behind YouTube, statistics claimed by both companies show that YouTube has a significant advantage over DailyMotion in terms of unique site visits, totaling one billion visits per month compared with DailyMotion’s 112 million visits per month.

Know more about Dailymotion >>>

3. Limitation of Videos

Youtube: One of the best parts about this platform is that it doesn’t come with any upload limit.

Dailymotion: Regular users can upload 60 minutes videos of 2 GB limit and the quality of upload is limited to 1280 720p.

Vimeo: With a Basic plan, you can upload 500MB/week, with a Plus plan you can upload 5GB/week and with Pro plan you will be able to upload unlimited videos with a per-file limit of 25 GB.

4. User Experience

To begin with, both Vimeo and YouTube had a very similar kind of user interface. This has gradually evolved over the years and these days the user interface of Vimeo is more attractive than YouTube. Vimeo would give the user fewer adverts, offer easy navigation and of course, allow them to watch the videos on a large video player. Though these days YouTube is also offering a ‘theatre mode’ for the full-screen view along with a skip adoption, yet the quality of its user experience is still isn’t at par with Vimeo. YouTube is still trying its best to satisfy its one billion/month users but still, Vimeo is the winner when it comes to unparalleled user experience.

Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Before uploading your video on any one of these above-mentioned platforms the first thing you have to do is get your videos edited. The Wondershare Filmora is a comprehensive video editor that is ideal for use by beginners. With this software, you will be able to nicely edit a video even if you have no prior knowledge about video editing. This easy to use video editing software is loaded with lots of useful features which can be effectively used by the casual and novice editors. This software is packed with all you need to create good quality videos for your audience on YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion. All you need to do is import the video clips and choose a piece of pre-programmed music and theme for your video. The software would then analyze your video clips and automatically create a video for you.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you are an upcoming entrepreneur who is looking forward to an effective video marketing strategy then you have to come to a decision regarding the portal you want to use for your marketing. As you should know by now YouTube , Dailymotion and Vimeo are the 3 major players in the field of video marketing. In this article, we are going to give you a comparative analysis of all these video sharing platforms so that you can select the one most suited to your needs.

• Part 1: Detailed Comparison of Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion
• Part 2: Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Compare Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion in 4 Aspects

1. Content

Before deciding which video platform to choose, you need to find out about the content in which each of them specializes.

Youtube: If your content is more related to entertainment then YouTube is the platform to go for.

Vimeo: Vimeo is a closed community specializing in videos by artists from various genres and is considered to be a more creative platform than YouTube.

Dailymotion: Dailymotion has a fair share of both but it resembles the YouTube trend.

2. Audience Size and Membership

Youtube: YouTube’s audience is large, with over 1 billion users that watch hundreds of millions of hours of content – each day! Vimeo has a much smaller for their audience, its 170 million viewers, about 42 million are in the United States.

Vimeo: Vimeo comes with 4 membership options – the Basic which is available for free and the paid Plus, ($59.95/ year) Pro ($199.00 a year), and Business membership ($599.00 a year). The storage level and support for each membership option vary. The free membership is limited to just 500 MB/week. YouTube and Dailymotion on the other hand are totally free, and Youtube gives unlimited hosting. However YouTube Red is a $9.99 subscription service that will allow you to watch ad-free videos and download them for watching offline.

Read this Vimeo introduction >>>

Dailymotion: DailyMotion is the world’s second-largest video-sharing website behind YouTube, statistics claimed by both companies show that YouTube has a significant advantage over DailyMotion in terms of unique site visits, totaling one billion visits per month compared with DailyMotion’s 112 million visits per month.

Know more about Dailymotion >>>

3. Limitation of Videos

Youtube: One of the best parts about this platform is that it doesn’t come with any upload limit.

Dailymotion: Regular users can upload 60 minutes videos of 2 GB limit and the quality of upload is limited to 1280 720p.

Vimeo: With a Basic plan, you can upload 500MB/week, with a Plus plan you can upload 5GB/week and with Pro plan you will be able to upload unlimited videos with a per-file limit of 25 GB.

4. User Experience

To begin with, both Vimeo and YouTube had a very similar kind of user interface. This has gradually evolved over the years and these days the user interface of Vimeo is more attractive than YouTube. Vimeo would give the user fewer adverts, offer easy navigation and of course, allow them to watch the videos on a large video player. Though these days YouTube is also offering a ‘theatre mode’ for the full-screen view along with a skip adoption, yet the quality of its user experience is still isn’t at par with Vimeo. YouTube is still trying its best to satisfy its one billion/month users but still, Vimeo is the winner when it comes to unparalleled user experience.

Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Before uploading your video on any one of these above-mentioned platforms the first thing you have to do is get your videos edited. The Wondershare Filmora is a comprehensive video editor that is ideal for use by beginners. With this software, you will be able to nicely edit a video even if you have no prior knowledge about video editing. This easy to use video editing software is loaded with lots of useful features which can be effectively used by the casual and novice editors. This software is packed with all you need to create good quality videos for your audience on YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion. All you need to do is import the video clips and choose a piece of pre-programmed music and theme for your video. The software would then analyze your video clips and automatically create a video for you.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you are an upcoming entrepreneur who is looking forward to an effective video marketing strategy then you have to come to a decision regarding the portal you want to use for your marketing. As you should know by now YouTube , Dailymotion and Vimeo are the 3 major players in the field of video marketing. In this article, we are going to give you a comparative analysis of all these video sharing platforms so that you can select the one most suited to your needs.

• Part 1: Detailed Comparison of Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion
• Part 2: Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Compare Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion in 4 Aspects

1. Content

Before deciding which video platform to choose, you need to find out about the content in which each of them specializes.

Youtube: If your content is more related to entertainment then YouTube is the platform to go for.

Vimeo: Vimeo is a closed community specializing in videos by artists from various genres and is considered to be a more creative platform than YouTube.

Dailymotion: Dailymotion has a fair share of both but it resembles the YouTube trend.

2. Audience Size and Membership

Youtube: YouTube’s audience is large, with over 1 billion users that watch hundreds of millions of hours of content – each day! Vimeo has a much smaller for their audience, its 170 million viewers, about 42 million are in the United States.

Vimeo: Vimeo comes with 4 membership options – the Basic which is available for free and the paid Plus, ($59.95/ year) Pro ($199.00 a year), and Business membership ($599.00 a year). The storage level and support for each membership option vary. The free membership is limited to just 500 MB/week. YouTube and Dailymotion on the other hand are totally free, and Youtube gives unlimited hosting. However YouTube Red is a $9.99 subscription service that will allow you to watch ad-free videos and download them for watching offline.

Read this Vimeo introduction >>>

Dailymotion: DailyMotion is the world’s second-largest video-sharing website behind YouTube, statistics claimed by both companies show that YouTube has a significant advantage over DailyMotion in terms of unique site visits, totaling one billion visits per month compared with DailyMotion’s 112 million visits per month.

Know more about Dailymotion >>>

3. Limitation of Videos

Youtube: One of the best parts about this platform is that it doesn’t come with any upload limit.

Dailymotion: Regular users can upload 60 minutes videos of 2 GB limit and the quality of upload is limited to 1280 720p.

Vimeo: With a Basic plan, you can upload 500MB/week, with a Plus plan you can upload 5GB/week and with Pro plan you will be able to upload unlimited videos with a per-file limit of 25 GB.

4. User Experience

To begin with, both Vimeo and YouTube had a very similar kind of user interface. This has gradually evolved over the years and these days the user interface of Vimeo is more attractive than YouTube. Vimeo would give the user fewer adverts, offer easy navigation and of course, allow them to watch the videos on a large video player. Though these days YouTube is also offering a ‘theatre mode’ for the full-screen view along with a skip adoption, yet the quality of its user experience is still isn’t at par with Vimeo. YouTube is still trying its best to satisfy its one billion/month users but still, Vimeo is the winner when it comes to unparalleled user experience.

Tips for Editing Videos on YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo

Before uploading your video on any one of these above-mentioned platforms the first thing you have to do is get your videos edited. The Wondershare Filmora is a comprehensive video editor that is ideal for use by beginners. With this software, you will be able to nicely edit a video even if you have no prior knowledge about video editing. This easy to use video editing software is loaded with lots of useful features which can be effectively used by the casual and novice editors. This software is packed with all you need to create good quality videos for your audience on YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion. All you need to do is import the video clips and choose a piece of pre-programmed music and theme for your video. The software would then analyze your video clips and automatically create a video for you.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Ollie Mattison

Expert Advice on Lighting Your YouTube Content Perfectly

How To Light Your YouTube Video

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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