Live Streaming: The Definitive Guide

56 min readJun 9, 2020

After reading this article, you will know all the basics to get started live streaming with great video, audio, lighting, marketing as well as general live streaming best practices.

This article is for musicians, teachers, business owners, artists, creatives, movement educators (dance, somatics, yoga, etc) and anyone with an online audience or anyone who wants to build a larger audience, build their brand, and connect directly with people all over the world.

How to use this Definitive Guide s a resource: There is a lot of information in this article from technical audio & video explanations to paid and organic Facebook advertising, which might be overwhelming to some. However, there is digestible information for people of all skill levels — moreover at the beginning of any lengthy tech sections, I include the quick and dirty information necessary for understanding the basics. You can read this guide in one sitting — or approach it one section at a time, taking notes. Lastly, because the nature of Live Streaming is such a deep learning experience, this guide is written more or less in order of importance . That way you can get started streaming right away, and, over time, move through these sections one at a time as you improve the over-all quality of your stream.

*I offer private consultations to help optimize your technical set-up and marketing strategy.

**All of Joshua McClain’s content on Medium is released to the community for free. If you would like to support Joshua as a working artist and writer, please subscribe to him on Patreon.

More people are online than at any other time in history which means it is now more important than ever to have the skills and tools to effectively communicate with your audience via live streaming. If you’ve already hosted a live stream on Zoom, Facebook Live, Skype, or other platforms, you have likely run into one or more of the many technical problems: poor audio quality, bad internet connection, dark or noisy video feed. Or, maybe you nailed every technical aspect but nobody showed up.

This article will also cover the elusive, burden-some, and often frustrating task of getting people to your online event.

When the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, went into lockdown on March 17th, I had no idea what I was going to do for work. As a performing musician I was no longer able to gig and as a videographer I wasn’t able to go on set and shoot with my clients. And, while I didn’t fully understand the impact this situation would have on the entire world I knew that I had to bring my cello performances online, it had to happen immediately, I had to make it free, and I had to figure out how make my streaming concerts stand out among the millions of other musicians and creatives with the same idea.

So I created a bi-weekly show called “Morning Cello” that streams @ 8:30 am PDT every Tuesday and Thursday for anywhere from 300–600 viewers. The initial intention was to create an ongoing concert series for yoga, meditation, and getting the day started — a safe space to decompress, remember to breathe, and take a moment to pause.

From there the morning concerts evolved into more of an ongoing program with a growing community of people who attend every session. People from different parts of the U.S. and other parts of the world were making connections and forming friendships — I was connecting with fans in a way that felt profound, important, and necessary given the difficult times.

For someone who has an aversion to social media, I had no idea “Morning Cello” would become one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever been part of.

Now, this next short section will cover some of the numbers and analytics associated with the Social Media growth that’s possible from ongoing live streams. To my fans — no, I absolutely don’t think of you as numbers. However, it is necessary for musicians and creatives to understand the business and marketing side of their online presence.

Analytics

As of June 3rd 2020, I’ve live streamed 25+ concerts with a combined 180,000+ views since the start of “Morning Cello,” with a total reach of 1.1M. I’ve grown my Facebook Music Business page by 600%, from 1200 likes to 7600 likes in 11 weeks. While these are impressive numbers, I’m obviously not a famous YouTuber or Facebook/Instagram star. But it was more the scale that I was interested in. If, in the same amount of time, a social media account went from 10k to 60k, or 100k to 600k, or 1M to 6M followers, now we are talking about impressive growth.

At one point in my life I worked as a Campaign Strategist at a large crowdfunding company — and through that lens my mind began to shift into hyperdrive. The numbers were telling me one thing.

Live streaming is an incredibly powerful growth tool.

My business page’s growth from March 17th-May 26th

Literally everything was in place to succeed.

All I had to do was continue to stand-out by improving the quality of my performance, the quality of my live stream and get more and more people to tune in.

One thing is for certain: the learning curve for quality Live Streaming is huge. So, let’s take this one step at a time. I will go over each section in order of importance, starting with you!

***These next few sections are important but if you’re only looking for technical information please skip to “Technical Aspects of Streaming.”

Believe In Yourself

Fear of failure will keep you from doing the things that you love.

I spent most of my life doing jobs that don’t make my soul sing. A lot of that had to do with personal blocks and also the fear of imperfection — the fear of failure.

If you’re going to start streaming, it’s probably because you’re passionate about something: your business, your music, your art, teaching or inspiring students, etc. But, if you’re one of those people who always seems to have something in the way of your success, something that makes you continually fall short, then you need to talk to a therapist or coach and get it figured out. With the right perspective, there are actually very few obstacles in your way. Literally nothing will block your success more than you will.

Once you’ve taken the time to take a good hard look at whatever those block(s) might be — it’s time to throw your work out there, without looking back.

My first streaming concert had terrible video quality and a weird audio hiccup that occurred every 10–20 seconds. So, I talked to some music and video production friends, did a ton of reading and tried to fix it for the next concert. The best way to move forward, without getting overwhelmed, is to fix one thing at a time — one stream at a time. Don’t be afraid — literally nobody’s first stream is flawless.

Video & Lighting Quality: (left) Current (Right) First Live Stream

When a technical issue presents itself, look at it as an opportunity to learn and a challenge to be overcome, refer back to this guide, and then keep believing in yourself.

Be Authentic

Unless your thing is doing comedic impersonations, you don’t have to try to be something that you’re not.

What I’ve found in feedback and comments from my own live streams is that people crave authenticity. This is what makes well-done live streams so attractive. If a viewer wanted perfection and a scripted story they could turn on a great movie or browse Netflix. Streaming puts the power of storytelling back into the hands of individuals and working artists.

So, be a storyteller. I mean this literally: give people glimpses into experiences that you’ve had, which give context to how you became the person that you are.

During my early live streams I would apologize for talking so much and say something like “Ok, I’m going to shut-up now and play the cello.” One fan actually wrote to me to ask if I’d stop saying the word “shut-up” because it was such a negative contrast to the stories, which she felt were moving. I stopped saying “shut-up” and felt less self-conscious about getting a little side-tracked from time to time.

In addition to snapshots of your life, tell the story of your offering. Give it context, give it meaning.

I have always dreamed of community building. It’s been my dream since 2008 when I spent 6 months as a librarian at a school in Nigeria. There, I witnessed violence and oppression, political upheaval, and poverty on a level that most cannot imagine. From then, it’s been my long-term goal to 1) build a school and 2) build community.

But, if you’re living in the future like I have — it’s difficult to realize the importance and potential of now. It’s impossible to get to the dreams of your future without building them in the present moment, one step at a time.

With Morning Cello, I made a decision to build the story of our collective community, which is what these sessions have become. It has been an absolutely amazing and humbling experience.

Bottom line, you decide what you want build.

Master Your Craft

You don’t need to have your craft mastered right this second and in fact, great masters are the ones who believe there’s something new to learn every day — that there is no end to what you can learn and do. But, if you want to stand out, you had better be practicing and shaping your offering. This article will help with the technical side of getting a beautiful image and good audio, but I can’t make you play scales if you’re a musician, or stay limber if you’re a yoga/fitness instructor, or practice a powerpoint presentation if you’re a lecturer.

With so much digital content out there, you must to stand out. A good way to manage that is to always be studying, always be practicing, always finding ways to refine your craft.

Customer service? Yes.

Just imagine, you’ve started live streaming and it’s been a huge success! People are really into it and want to tell you all about it. If you want to build relationships with your fans then you’ll need to engage with them regularly.

Make It Easier On Yourself. If you notice a general trend of common questions that you’re being asked regularly, create a document with answers to these questions. Instead of re-typing a message over and over, simply copy/paste. That said, it’s absolutely essential to have meaningful connections with your fans. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because you now have this amazing opportunity to meet new people all over the world and form meaningful relationships. Don’t ever take your fans for granted.

Follow-Up. In an effort to make sure that messages don’t build up and overwhelm you (and your inbox), I recommend responding to any new messages immediately after your live stream ends. Just budget the time into your day/schedule. Right now, responding to messages, comments, and follow-up takes me about 1–2 hours per live stream, depending on the attendance and what announcements I made that require follow-up.

Communicate & Connect. I find it’s beneficial to go through all of the comments from your stream (the videos are recorded and saved to your page in the Video tab). If you’re still working to build your audience it might be that you can respond to every single comment, but if you’re successful enough, there will be so many comments that it’s not sustainable to write a response to hundreds or thousands of comments (unless you have an intern). I go through and at the least “like” every comment and respond to any comments that are asking specific questions, or if I want to connect with one of my regular attendees.

Deliver Merchandise Quickly. If part of your gig is merchandising, make sure you mail out merch as quickly as possible. I usually do a trip to the post office once/week to mail out CDs.

Show Gratitude. The fans in your livestream could literally be 10 billion other places on the internet but they’ve decided to spend their time with you. That’s the kind of support that will really keep you strong in strange times like these.

Lastly, Be Polite. If someone gives you feedback say, “Thanks for the feedback.” Your fans are your biggest supporters and are likely to have invaluable insights. A lot of the time their feedback is spot-on and will help refine your set-up and performance. But also, you can’t please everyone!

Which Social Media Platform?

The answer really depends on where your audience is. If you have 10,000 Youtube followers and not much of a following anywhere else, then of course you would live stream on Youtube.

But, as most of my live streaming experience has been with Facebook Live, not to mention Facebook is quite possibly the most powerful marketing engine on Earth, we will cover Facebook specifically. A lot of this strategy can be applied to other social media platforms and strategies, especially Instagram (since Facebook owns it and you can create paid Instagram ads within the Facebook Ad Center of your Business Page).

Facebook Events. For me, the main reason Facebook comes out on top is because of the Facebook Events feature which creates a central landing page, within a platform your fans already know, it has built-in tools for creating an event description, adding an image, adding a date and time, inviting friends and fans, and you further have the ability to create targeted paid marketing to drive more people to your live stream. Additionally, when people mark that they are “interested” or “going” to your event, not only will you have a better idea of how successful the event might be — Facebook will automatically send reminders to these people about your concert. With FB Events you’ll even have the ability to post additional information (updates) and media content, directly on the Event Page, which sends a notification to all of your guests.

The more times someone returns to your event page, the more likely they are to attend. This extra traffic will also help to make your event more visible organically.

Marketing

Ok. Finally the section that everyone wanted me to get to.

Rule #1: Don’t. Go. Live. Without. Telling. People.

I get it, I like to be spontaneous as well. But, in the last two months I’ve seen a lot of people streaming for 3 or less people. Having only 15 people show up to a 300 person room isn’t going to feel very good — so why would you stream a concert for only a few people when there are 1.5 billion people with Facebook accounts?

You should not be streaming for any less than 25 people (with 50 people being your first big goal to shoot for)

Recommended attendance goals to incrementally work toward: 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000.

50 to 100 attendees is an amazing number for anyone to have on the regular.

So, how do we get there?

Give Yourself Time To Promote. In order to properly market a Facebook Live event or concert you’re going to need at least a couple of days lead time to build some hype around the concert. The lead time you need really depends on your approach, how engaged your fan base is, and how willing you are to put in some manual work. I would say start with 6–10 days of lead time for your first streaming event.

Be Aware Of Conflicting Events. Take a look at your calendar to see if there are any international, national, or local holidays, events that may detract from your event. If you have friends in your field or colleagues who are streaming and you share similar audiences, plan to alternate days.

Marketing Before the Event

The first thing you should do is create a Facebook Event Page for your Live Stream.

You can absolutely create events and stream from your personal Facebook page but I highly recommend creating a Facebook Business Page — namely because the functionality is geared towards effective targeted marketing, the insights and analytics are better, and you’ll have more options for inviting people to like or follow your page.

Invite friends directly from your Facebook Event Page

Facebook events are the best way to begin inviting your fans. If this is your first event or first time in a while hosting an event, congrats! You’ll be able to invite about 500 of your friends. Because of this limit, make sure to go through the list carefully and only invite the people who you know are fans of what you do. However, if you host events regularly, Facebook has probably limited the number of people that can be invited to something like 50 people. Why? Facebook says the limit is partly to restrict spammy events but my guess is that Facebook mostly wants you to pay for visibility, even with people who have already “liked” your page.

The event image and title are two of the most important pieces of your event page.

Event Image. Pick a hi-resolution, attention grabbing image — these will do better if you decide to do paid marketing. If you don’t have any photos of yourself or your business/offering, it might be time to hire a pro photographer or ask a skilled friend to capture some images of you. With the whole world moving online, it’s essential to have quality marketing assets.

****Photo shoots: it’s always good to change into at least a couple different outfits and shoot in different locations (even just different rooms of the same house, but with a new outfit).

Event Title. Your event title needs to be simple and extremely to-the-point about what your live stream is. I chose “Free Live Cello to Start Your Day.” It’s free. It’s cello. It’s at the beginning of the day. Great marketing is just extremely efficient language paired with some kind of media (photo, video, animation). I chose the word “Free” because my intention is to reach as many people as I can — the word FREE combined with an attention grabbing professional photo can really draw people in. I’ll likely try out a few shorter titles in the future to see if I can increase duration.

***(Aug. 4th) I’ve since changed the title to “Free Live Cello & Mindfulness,” which seems to have made the targeting easier and the cost/event response has gone down considerably.

How the event will appear to the general public. **Notice how the event image and title appear.**

When Creating the Event, Put Your City As The Location. Even though it’s an online streaming event, I enter Oakland, CA in the location field. This way Facebook will know to tell people which time zone the event is adhering to. It took me about 10 streams to figure this out. Now I don’t have a ton of people writing to ask when the concert starts or ask about the time zone.

Event Description. Like your title, the description should be short and sweet. This isn’t the place to have a 3 paragraph description of who you are as an artist and then bury the most important event information at the bottom. People need to know exactly what they they’re going to experience. Followed by the date/time and a link to where they can find the stream. You could even use a Facebook Event to market your Zoom call, just make sure to have the meeting URL and log-in credentials in the event description. For my Facebook Live Streams, I press the “Live,” button:

Which brings up the following screen, where you can find a URL to provide:

Limit Posts To Admins. For my first dozen live streams I allowed anyone to post in my events. I wanted to create a dialogue. But once my regular attendance grew to a few hundred, scammers would show and post about “reduced price tickets” to my free event. I instead created a public Facebook Group where people can post public comments, images, stories, etc

Share Your Event. As mentioned above you can use the Facebook Event page’s share tools to invite your friends, but you will also want to post the event to both your personal Facebook page and your Business Page. Next you will want to share the event to other channels of social media: Instagram, Twitter, etc. If you have an email list (and I hope that you do — fans who have seen you and liked you enough to give up their email address have a really high conversion rate AND you don’t have to use paid ads or rely on the good graces of Facebook to reach this audience segment…big win).

I also highly recommend sending direct messages to friends, family, and fans on Facebook to personally invite them. If you send too many, or too many at once, Facebook will block your messaging for 24 hours. If you give yourself enough days of lead time, you can max out each day for optimal reach.

Post To Your Timeline. Make sure to share this event to both your personal and business page and also ask your friends biggest fans to share with their own communities.

Create Paid Ads. My bread and butter is mainly creating effective event and ad copy (the actual text that appears in your ad, event title and description) and matching that with a hi-resolution, attention grabbing image. Paid targeting on the other hand, is something that I’m still working to figure out. I found this article helpful in outlining some of the basics of creating targeted ads through Facebook. Also take advantage of Skillshare’s 2 free months of premium access, where you can take excellent classes on Facebook targeted marketing, videography, photography, lighting, sound recording, the Adobe Creative Suite, and more.

For me, I create an ad for my event.

The window that populates when you click, “Create Ad”

Ads that are boosting events are trying to get people to react (say they’re “interested” or “going”). This gives me a good idea of how many people to expect and what other measures I should take if it looks like attendance isn’t going to reach my goal. Basically, I want as many people to respond as possible. Even if someone says they’re only “interested,” Facebook will send a reminder of the event, which increases the likelihood. And, anyone that responds will get notifications of any posts I make to the event.

PRO TIP: You can also create ads to “Promote Your Page” with the goal of getting more “likes,” BUT, I found out you can get people to your event AND increase your “Likes” with the same ad! (head explodes)

When you boost an event and someone responds that they “like” the advertisement, without even responding as “Interested” or “Going,” you now have the ability to invite them to “Like” your page. Sure, not everyone will accept the invitation, but some will, and that’s mainly how I increased my Facebook Business Page likes by 600%, without running a paid ad for “Likes.”

Some people will “Like” your page and then attend the event. Others will “Like” your page and not attend, which means you’re now connected to them in a way that makes it easier to target them for future events.

The same goes for people who respond to your actual video stream with a “like.”

Some of the people who attend your event will be from your paid ad, but others might come from attendees sharing the event or spreading the even via word of mouth. I go back periodically to old posts to see if there are any new “Likes” that can be invited.

Set A Budget For Paid Ads. If you’re a struggling artist — don’t spend your $1000 savings on ads. I started with $50 (but you could pick $10, or $25), and worked my way up. I use both Venmo and PayPal (make sure to create a Paypal.me link) as tip jar for my performances. I created a rule that #1) I wouldn’t spend anymore on ads than what I made from the most recent performance and #2) While I wouldn’t send more, I would spend everything from the last performance. That way if I was doing well, my audience would grow at some level of exponential growth (I’m like a C- math student).

This strategy kept working until I spent $700 on ads (550+ people attended that live stream ) but only made $300 on the performance. So I had to dial it back on that theory. My next move now is figuring out how to fine tune and optimize my ad copy and the audience that I’m targeting.

Pro tip: Start a Patreon page. Instead of asking for single contributions through PayPal or Venmo to support me as an artist, I began focusing on Patreon which is a subscription-based crowd funding model. Now, any new Patron’s subscription can be counted 12x for your expected yearly earnings. My goal is to have Patreon become my monthly advertising budget. That way I have regular income I can count on to continue to grow both my audience and the reach of “Morning Cello.”

Post In The Event Page The Day/Night Before The Event. This is the 2nd to last thing I do before I hit “Go Live.” My events are in the morning so sometime the night before, I make a post about how excited I am to perform, I remind people of the URL where they can find the stream, I share links to my website and some video content for anyone who may be a first-timer and I ask people to invite their friends and share the event on their own timeline.

Post In The Event 30–60 Minutes Before It Starts. The last thing I do is make a post about 30–45 minutes before the Live Stream starts, reminding everyone of the start time and that I’ll begin rolling my camera 5 minutes early — I’ll give everyone the URL again, and lastly ask one more time for excited fans to share this event with their communities. If you’ve made it this far, you deserve to stream for a good audience and you deserve some last-minute-organic promotion .

Bottom Line: Your event page is your marketing engine.

Marketing During the Event

If people came to hear you give a speech, or teach a seminar, or play the cello I do not recommend spending your entire live stream making sales pitches. However, you now have a great audience, and there’s no harm in pointing people towards your other social media links, a tip jar, a link to purchase your merchandise, or anything else that may help you survive as a streaming content creator.

***Note: don’t ever be afraid to make money from your craft.

Things That I Market

My Tip Jar
I ask people to like my Facebook page
Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Spotify
Purchase my CD
Articles that I’m writing (like this one)
Fellow musicians’ live streams (cross promoting)
When the quarantine ends, I’ll market upcoming concerts and my tour

My wife teaches a Somatic Expressive Art workshop on the weekend which I market (she additionally cross-promotes my morning music sessions). We will also be teaching a workshop together and have been collecting emails for that.

These are just a few examples.

**As an exercise, create a list of offerings you could market during your own live stream. Then, take a moment to think about who you can cross-promote with.

Marketing After the Event

Once the event has ended. I make one final post on the Event Page thanking everyone for their attendance. Then I add links to my website where they can purchase digital music and physical merch. I include links to my Patreon page and talk about the importance of supporting the arts (this isn’t talk — it’s something that I’m fiercely passionate about). I include links to my tip jar and Venmo account and remind everyone again of where they can follow me on Social Media.

After your live stream, you may have people reach out to you about opportunities. If you’re interested, make sure to follow-up right away. I like to keep all of these contacts in a separate spreadsheet in my Google Drive.

Technical Aspects of Streaming

There are give-or-take something like 1 billion-trillion things that can go wrong when you start adding more tech to your live stream. Can you stream using your cellphone or laptop’s camera and microphone? Absolutely. In fact if you’re finding that you’re able to produce a great live stream with a low tech set-up, and connect with people, and grow your audience, don’t complicate it anymore than you need to.

But some folks, particularly musicians and other creatives, do not want to be limited by the quality of their phone or laptop’s audio and video feed.

Below are images of my gear what my current set-up looks like. Please keep in mind I work professionally as both a performing musician and on video production crews so I’ve accumulated a lot of this over the years through the nature of my work. Please do not blow your kid’s college fund on gear.

Every piece of gear and every cable that I use for my live stream.

Internet.

If you had to ask me, “This is a lot of stuff to consider, what if I could only improve one thing?” I would blurt out “Internet!” before you finished your sentence.

You’ll need to make sure you have a secure and fast internet connection.

Even if you have a fast wi-fi connection — wifi can sometimes go in and out, depending on the quality of the signal, your specific router and its location in your home/office.

I recommend that you hardwire your computer to your router with a CAT5E or CAT6 ethernet cable. CAT5E was made to support 1000Mbs “gigabit” speeds and CAT6 is even faster.

The ethernet cable will run from your router to your computer.

Most laptops these days don’t come with an ethernet port so you’ll need to use an adapter to run the cable into your computer. Something like an Ethernet to USB 3.0, 2.0, thunderbolt or USB-C (depending on what kind of ports your computer has).

Here are recommendations for how fast your internet should be for live streaming at various resolutions (note, virtually all streaming on social media platforms these days is at 720p, or standard definition). You can also use this free Speed Test to find out how fast or slow your connection is. If your internet seems slow, call your provider and find out how they can help get you a faster and more secure connection. They may also recommend a newer, faster router. If there are other internet providers in your area that offer fast fiber optic internet, consider switching. The Bay Area has a company called Sonic with unbelievably fast upload and download speeds.

After my first 2 or 3 live streams I decided my next investment would be to switch to Sonic which is about 10x faster and actually 40% cheaper than my previous provider.

There are just so many variables that can ruin your stream. This way you’ll know that if you’re hardwired to fast internet, at least you’ll never lose your connection — and you will know if there are any connectivity issues, they’re not on your end.

Streaming SoftwareSoftware: OBS & Ecamm Live

This is going to be A LOT of probably intimidating and confusing information but my goal is to outline each step, in detail, with links to helpful articles.

Note: It is not required to use streaming software — you can simply stream straight from Facebook Live. But, once you start adding external cameras and mics it, streaming software will ensure you have quality audio and video.

Now that you’ve created your Facebook Business Page, you have the option of “Going Live” to your fans and followers. There are several places to find the “Go Live” button but I do it directly from my page:

When you press Go Live, you will be directed to Facebook Live Producer which looks like this:

Select “Use Stream Key” — Make sure to copy and save your Stream Key, as you’ll need it later.

There’s a previous version of Live Producer that may pop up instead — but I recommend switching to the version shown in the image above:

Facebook has very specific requirements for the audio and video that you’re sending for your live stream:

-Video Format-

Facebook accepts video in maximum 1080p (1920x1080) resolution at 30 frames per second, with 1 key frame every 2 seconds.
You must send an I-frame (keyframe) at least once every two seconds throughout the stream.
Recommended max bit rate is 4 Mbps(4000 Kbps).
Facebook accepts H264 encoded video and AAC encoded audio only

-Video Length-

4 hour maximum length for live stream.

-Advanced Audio Settings-

Audio Sample Rate: 48 KHz
Audio Bitrate: 128 Kbps mono

The Facebook Live Producer feature doesn’t have the functionality to dial in these specifications so you’ll need to use broadcast software.

But let’s check in to see where you’re at….if you’re saying to yourself, “Uh, I literally have no idea what any of this means,” you’re not alone! Just stay with me, I’m going to show you the exact steps to get things sorted out. Basically, if you’re not sending Facebook Live these specifications, you’re going to run into issues with your video and/or audio feed.

Early on, I was still using the camera from my MacBook so the video quality was also poor, but at least the video feed was consistent. For my audio I was using an external USB audio interface and mixer which was problematic (as a general rule you can have poor video if your audio is great, but you cannot have great video with poor audio).

Before I started using streaming software, my earliest concerts had some really distracting audio “hiccups.” These hiccups almost sounded like the distortion you might hear from audio peaking. I had heard about streaming software that might resolve the issue, but at the time it all seemed too complicated to figure out (remember, streaming tech issues can feel overwhelming and it helps to solve one issue at a time). I also thought the inconsistencies with my audio might have been caused by my internet connection. But the problem persisted even after I switched to a super-fast internet provider and hardwired my computer to my router.

The next logical step for trouble-shooting was to broadcast my stream using streaming broadcast software. This ensured I was sending Facebook Live the correct audio bitrate. I chose first to work with the FREE broadcast software OBS — or, Open Broadcast Software.

The first thing to do is download OBS and install it on your system. You can download OBS here.

OBS is a really powerful tool and even better, it’s free. But, the program is fairly technical and a bit confusing. So, let’s take it one step at a time.

After you’ve installed OBS — you’ll need to find your Facebook Page’s “stream key.” Remember when I said to copy your Stream Key earlier? Please refer to the previous sections to find your stream key.

Open “settings” in OBS:

Click on “Stream” and paste your Stream Key into the field:

Now you need to configure your audio and video settings so that they are optimized for Facebook Live. This awesome article outlines the exact steps.

Awesome! You have your audio and video settings optimized, your stream key is in place, now you’re ready to start streaming.

Click “Start Streaming” in OBS.

This will not make you “Live” on Facebook, but you are now sending your audio and video to Facebook Live (via the stream key). It will take a few seconds, but your video feed will appear in Facebook Live Producer:

Holy heck, you did it! Just give your stream a title, add a description (both found on left side Live Producer) and Go Live!

Whew! A lot of steps, but all the info you need is there.

Pro Tip: Do a test run before your scheduled event! You may even want to do the test run a few days before the event to give yourself time to trouble-shoot and order/borrow any additional gear that might help resolve/fine-tune any issues.

Let’s say however, that streaming with OBS feels terrifying and you don’t mind spending a little money for easier software. ECAMM Live is a very easy very intuitive piece of software with a ton of amazing functionality and starts at $15/month. If Live Streaming is going to become a major part of your business growth (which it absolutely can), you may want to consider building in a technology budget and using something like Ecamm Live.

Benefits of Ecamm Live:

Ease of use
Connects directly with your social media accounts so you don’t need to bother with a stream key
Automatically sends the preferred audio and video specifications
Has direct integration with Stream.io which allows you to stream simultaneously to as many as 30+ other platforms
Fan/followers real-time comments can be viewed in Ecamm live. If you are streaming to multiple platforms, Ecamm will actually aggregate all comments from all platforms into a single comments window which you can manage and reply to in real-time
Additional options for easily adding over-lays, logos, texts, links, PDFs, power point presentations, and more. It’s literally as easy as drag and drop into Ecamm
Has a “virtual cam” feature so you can use Ecamm with platforms like Zoom
Ecamm has very thorough and easy-to-understand help videos.

There are a number of other company’s that offer broadcast software but I have personal experience with both OBS and Ecamm Live. I’m currently streaming with Ecamm Live.

Camera: Quick and Dirty

If you want professional look for your live stream but are worried about budget, B&H Photo Video (the only place I’d ever buy video equipment) offers a 6, 12, and 24 month 0% financing credit card
If you’re streaming with a newer smartphone, the camera will have fine-enough to good image quality to satisfy most fans
Your laptop camera will “get the job done,” but nobody’s going to write about how awesome your picture quality is
If you want to upgrade your image quality while using a desktop/laptop, but don’t want to mess with a lot of tech, use a webcam. Just plug it into your computer via USB and then select the camera in your settings (how to do on Mac — how to do on PC)
If you want a more professional look for your live stream, use a camcorder or DSLR/Mirrorless. Camcorders are designed more for point and shoot, DSLRs are more complicated, but can achieve incredibly sharp images with blurred out background. DSLRS/Mirrorless cameras also require knowledge of how to use the camera’s manual settings (I will go into this in depth later in this section)
If you choose to use a Camcorder or DSLR you will need a Capture Card and an HDMI cable
Set your camera to stream at 1080p resolution and 30 (frames per second).
Set your camera’s shutter speed to twice your frame rate. If you are streaming at 30 fps your shutter speed needs to be set to 1/60.
Your chosen camcorder or DSLR/mirrorless must have clean HDMI out
If you have specific questions about gear, B&H Photo Video has an amazing team of customer service and sales reps who can live chat/answer questions for you

Ok, now I’ll move on to the more in-depth part of this section.

Camera: In-Depth

Upgrading your image quality is one of those areas where you could really drop some cash. But, you can actually get a beautiful, professional-looking image from affordable DSLR & Mirrorless cameras — if you know how to use them correctly. We will go over the specific settings required to understand your camera and get a great image.

As there are many camera options out there for a wide variety of budgets and needs, let’s start by taking a brief look at resolution, what it is and what you need, and then jump to the various categories of cameras.

A side note — you may want to do some research on your own for more detail on what camera makes the most sense for your streaming setup. There are already a lot of “Best Cameras for Streaming in 2020,” articles out there.

Resolution: 4k Resolution Vs. 1080p Vs. 720p

Resolution refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. Generally speaking, the more pixels you have, the sharper your image be will.

720p: 1280 x 720 (HD)

1080p: 1920 x 1080 (Full HD)

4k: 3840 × 2160 (4K UHD)

If your only intention is to live stream with your camera, you absolutely do not need to buy something that shoots in 4k. First, most cameras, even ones that shoot in 4k will not output 4k via HDMI to your computer. Second, platforms like Facebook or Instagram (and many others) only display video content at max 720p. Of course, footage shot at 1080p or 4k downscaled to 720p will look sharper, but we also have to take into consideration your internet speed, and your audience’s internet speed. Higher resolution means you’re sending larger amounts of information that can choke a bad connection — and again most of the cameras you’ll be considering do not output a 4k HDMI signal.

Virtually all cameras these days shoot in at least 1080p Full HD — which is what you should be shooting in and outputting for streaming content.

If you plan to do some additional video work outside of live streaming, the majority of modern camcorders and DSLR/Mirrorless cameras will shoot in 4k and it’s a nice feature to have for content creation (music videos, pre-recorded videos for Youtube, etc).

Now, let’s look at different types of cameras.

Smartphone or Laptop Camera

Your computer and phone already have a camera. Some of the latest smartphones, like the iPhone 11 or the Pro Max, have amazing image quality already.

If you don’t have budget to spend on a camera, or you feel it’s just not necessary then by all means use the tech you already have. However, some Smartphones and almost all laptop cameras are usually terrible in low light so I would recommend picking up one ore more cheap photo/video lights to dramatically increase the quality of your footage (please refer to the section on lighting later on in this article).

Web Cam

If cameras feel a bit intimidating but you want something better than your laptop camera and something that just works when you plug it in, you may want to consider a 1080 Full HD webcam.

Webcams connect easily via USB and can be put on a tripod/stand or simply attached to the top of your Laptop’s screen. While the image will lack the artsy and professional shallow depth of field (things not in focus are blurry to bring attention to the subject and create) that is achieved with a DSLR/Mirrorless camera, the picture will definitely be a step-up — you’ll have a nice clean image.

Web cams cost anywhere from $50–200+ and will be a good upgrade from your laptop camera.

Logitech C922x Pro Stream Webcam $99

Logitech C930e Webcam $129

Razer Kiyo $99

*Note: Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many webcams, and other streaming products are back-ordered. With the supply chain interruption in China and the huge demand for streaming tech gear, you may need to wait for delivery or find a similar alternative.

**Note: If something you’re looking for is out of stock and/or you need a recommendation please contact the customer service at B&H Photo for more information— they even have a live chat during working hours.

Action Cam

Many of you may already have a GoPro, or a similar “action camera,” lying around the house somewhere. With the right light, these cameras actually have a really sharp image. The only drawback (or maybe you really like this style) is that they have a super wide-angle built-in lens. This means you’ll need to get it fairly close to your face, you’ll capture a large portion of the peripheral room you’re in, and there will be some visual distortion.

But hey, if you already own the camera, just try it out and see how it looks and feels.

In order to live stream with your GoPro you will need an HDMI to micro HDMI cable and you will need to invest in a capture card like the Elgato Camlink, Pengo Technology 4K HDMI to USB 3.0 Video Grabber or the Black Magic Design Mini Recorder (Mac only).

Here’s an article with more information on which model GoPros have streaming functionality.

Camcorders

I’ll admit this is a section I’m not that familiar with. The main benefit of streaming with a camcorder is that you’re achieving a very high image quality combined with a relative ease of use. Additionally, because a camcorder has a built-in, non-interchangeable lens, you won’t have the complication of extra parts or the need to mess with a lot of manual settings.

Consumer and hobbyist-level camcorders are also quite affordable — something like the Panasonic HC-V770K Full HD Camcorder is a good example of an affordable, quality camcorder, with a small form factor.

DSLR/Mirrorless Cameras

These are the cameras you think of when you imagine a photographer — and while this category of camera is great for taking photographs, nearly all modern DSLR/Mirrorless cameras also shoot 1080p Full HD video with stunning clarity. Outside of investing in an expensive cinema camera, this category of camera will get you the highest quality image, especially when paired with a quality lens.

Again, you don’t have to buy the most expensive camera to get a great image, you just need to know how to use it — and B&H photo offers financing options.

Two of the most popular DSLR/Mirrorless brands for video are Canon and Sony, both of which I’ve shot on. Both brands have great cameras — Canon typically has the most simple and intuitive menu while Sony’s menus are substantially more complex.

There are other amazing brands out there like Nikon, Panasonic, Lumix, Fujifilm whom all have their own flagship models, which I’m sure produce stunning footage and will be great for streaming. However, as I’m not familiar with those brands and many of their features are intended for more professional video work (10 bit 4:2:2: color, 4k 60fps internal recording, etc) outside of the Panasonic Lumix G7, I won’t be covering them in this article. Remember, for our streaming needs, we simply need a beautiful image, a camera that outputs clean HDMI, and shoots and outputs 1080p at 30fps. Below are a list of recommendations with the necessary specs.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7: $450 (with lens) Clean HDMI. I haven’t shot on this camera or any other Panasonic Lumix cameras, which use the smaller Micro Four Thirds Sensor, but it showed up on multiple “Best Cameras for Live Streaming 2019/2020” lists so I figured I would include it. What can I say, it’s very affordable, has an articulating screen so you can monitor the image while it’s pointed at you, has amazing picture quality, and outputs clean HDMI. Sounds like a win-win but I also recommend checking in with an expert at B&H Photo Video.

Canon Rebel EOS SL3: $499 (body only). Clean HDMI. (This is the only DSLR I’ll be listing). Canon has always had the best color science and are usually tough enough that you could hammer nails with them. You turn a Canon on and it just works. Even though the SL3 is the cheapest DSLR body on this list, with the right lens and settings that are dialed in, you could achieve an incredibly beautiful, very sharp image, with a pleasing blurred-out background. If you plan to do any other video content outside of streaming, the SL3 also shoots 4k video up to 30 fps, Full HD 1080p at 60fps (for smooth slo motion), and can also output 4:2:2 10 bit video to an external recorder (which is insane for a camera this cheap). The best part is the EF-S mount which gives you access to virtually every modern Canon lens.

Canon M6 MK II: $799 (body only). Clean HDMI. This is Canon’s top contender for their APS-C sized mirrorless cameras. Amazing auto-focus, beautiful picture, 180 degree articulating LCD screen (flips around so you can see yourself), 4k up to 30 fps, Full HD 1080p up to 120 fps, digital picture stabilization.

Sony a6400: $900 (body only). Clean HDMI.This is one of Sony’s newest line-up of crop-sensor cameras. The capabilities of this camera, at this price point, are simply amazing. If had a $900 budget for a camera body specifically for streaming, this would be it. The camera has many of the qualities of Sony’s top Mirrorless cameras like the Sony a7iii ($1999), Sony A7RIV ($3200), and the Sony A9II ($4500). The a6400 will have the same color profiles, amazing auto-focus, and same/similar sharp picture as the cameras listed above, only with a smaller body, smaller sensor (not quite as good in low light) and lack of in-body stabilization. If your main intent is only to stream you don’t need in-body stabilization and many Sony lenses will have their own optical steady shot.

Sony a6600: $1400 (body only). Clean HDMI. Everything the a6400 has, plus in-body stabilization and a larger, longer-lasting battery (when streaming you should be using the camera’s power-adapter anyway so battery-life doesn’t necessarily matter as much). The a6600 is virtually the exact same camera as the Sony A7iii (2019’s most popular camera) only with a smaller body and sensor, and from what I hear even better auto-focus than the A7iii (which was already very good).

The only reason you would want to get the a6600 over the a6400 is if you plan to produce hand-held video content (in body stabilization) and want a (substantially) longer battery life.

***I’ve heard the a6400 and a6600 fixed the overheating issue while shooting in 4k. You could theoretically set your camera to 4k, output 1080p HDMI and get a much sharper image. I tried this once with my A7iii and it overheated during the middle of a live stream after about 45 minutes — the image however was noticeably sharper.

Sony A7 III: $1999 (body only). Clean HDMI. The A7III is currently my main camera for video production. This was the most popular camera in 2019, and for good reason. This is basically the a6600 with a larger body and a full frame sensor, which means it performs much better in low-light situations and can achieve a more blurred out background than the smaller APS-C sensor of the a6600. The camera shoots 4k up to 30 fps and Full HD 1080p at up to 120fps for incredibly smooth slow motion. The A7 III’s 6k sensor, downsampled to 4k, is one of the sharpest on the market.

This camera is getting into the “professional” level of streaming/photography/filmmaking. If your plan is simply to stream video, I would go with one of the APS-C cameras mentioned above (Canon SL3, Canon M6 II, Sony a6400, Sony a6500, Sony a6600).

Note: Lenses for full frame cameras are considerably more expensive than APS-C sensor cameras. You can use a full frame lens on an APS-C camera but you cannot you an APS-C lens on a full frame camera. If you put a full frame lens on an APS-C camera body, the image will be enlarged. For example, a 50mm full frame lens turns into 75mm on a APS-C body.

Sony A7 II: $900 (body only). Clean HDMI. This is the predecessor to the A7 III. If you really want to go full-frame, but don’t want to spend $2k+, the A7 II was and still is an amazing camera. It does not shoot in 4k (again we don’t need 4k for streaming) but it does have in-body stabilization for creating hand-held video content and capturing photos at slower shutter speeds. The a7 II could absolutely be used as the main camera for a professional photographer and at $900 is maybe the most affordable full frame camera on the market.

Note: the Canon EOS RP is a new full frame camera that sells for $1000. Another very affordable full-frame option.

Sony SV-1: $800–900 (body & built-in lens). Clean HDMI. I read about this camera just as I was about to publish this article. This new release is a point and shoot camera with a great lens and apparently a very intuitive set-up for folks who don’t know how/don’t want to know how use manual settings. With a fully articulating screen, it’s geared towards content creators. The SV-1 is set-up so that you can turn it on, shoot, and get similar picture quality and shallow-depth of field you would see in a DSLR/Mirrorless camera with a detachable lens. Only drawback I see with this camera is that it has a much smaller sensor than both full-frame and APS-C cameras. As such, you would need to insure you have enough light to avoid getting too much noise in your image.

Again, the two most important things to ask when purchasing a camera in this category for live streaming are #1) “Does it have clean HDMI out?” and #2) does it output 1080p video at 30 via HDMI.

Clean HDMI (High Definition Multi-Media Interface) just means the camera will output video without all of the information usually displayed on a camera’s built-in LCD monitor.

Sensor Size. I won’t go too far into this, and you don’t really need to absorb all of this information, but cameras are usually broken down into the size of their image sensor. The standard size for most professional-grade cameras is called Full Frame, prosumer cameras/hobbyist cameras will have a smaller APS-C sensor, or the even smaller Micro Four Thirds (MFT 4/3) sensor. Point and shoot cameras with a built-in lens will likely have a 1" or smaller sensor.

Ok, so what does that mean? Basically, the larger the sensor, the bigger your field of view and the more light that you can capture. This means better low-light performance (less “noise” even when shooting in darker settings). The size of the sensor will also determine the amount and quality of bokeh that you can achieve (the blurring of things that are not the center of focus). Beautiful bokeh is a good thing.

With all of that said — people who are skilled with a camera can produce amazing video footage, even without using an expensive camera.

Power Supply. Some cameras being released right now have batteries big enough to stream for an hour or two but many do not and I am not going to take the chances. You’ll want to make sure the camera is getting AC Power, usually provided by USB-C or a dummy batter like the ANDYCINE NP-FW50 Dummy Battery Adapter. Either way, it’s a good idea to make sure all of your batteries are fully charged as a back-up.

Tripod. You will need to get a tripod to hold either your iPhone, or the new camera you just picked up for streaming. Make sure to get a video tripod. Video tripods have a handle to move the tripod head with and will have smooth motion when panning and tilting. Tripods range from $25-$5000. If you’re not carrying it in and out of vehicles for production work it doesn’t need to be indestructible or made with expensive light-weight materials like carbon fiber. Magnus has a sturdy, reliable video tripod for $80 — that’s the tripod I used and beat up for 5 years before upgrading. You could even get small, affordable tripod like the Joby GorillaPod and set that on top of a table or your computer desk.

Camera: Using Manual Settings — Quick & Dirty

Frame Rate — 30fps
Shutter Speed — 1/60
Aspect Ratio — 16:9
Resolution — 1920x1080 (Full HD — Do not stream in 4k, your camera will likely over heat and most cameras do not oupit a 4k HDMI signal)
Aperture — Set your aperture to the lowest number possible. If your lens has a constant minimum aperture of 2.8, set it to 2.8. Some Zoom lenses will have a variable minimum aperture like the Canon 18–135mm 3.5–5.6 depending on where you are in the zoom.
Auto-Focus — ON. If you have a newer Sony or Canon just keep the auot-focus on and set to “continuous” auto-focus on (this may be called a different name depending on your Camera’s brand like “Ai Servo”).
White Balance — For many people this is the most difficult aspect to nail. When you’re starting out, just select Auto White Balance. If you’re using video lights, you can simply custom set your white balance to the temperature of the light. “Daylight” balanced lights (looks like white lights) are usually 5600K. If this mind-boggling, which is not uncommon, just set yours to Auto.
ISO —Typically this will be the last thing you adjust and you want to keep the number as low as possible. If your image seems dark even with a really wide aperture (1.2–2.8), and video lights, increase your ISO until you reach the desired exposure.

Camera: Using Manual Settings — In Depth

This is the section that will likely be the most daunting for people who are new to working with DSLR and Mirrorless cameras. I found this video very helpful in optimizing my own video stream.

You have your new camera and it’s terrifyingly complicated. I bought my first DSLR in 2015 because I wanted to get into video production. It was a Canon 70D. I remember being wildly excited about all the amazing content I was going to produce. I had read all of the articles and watched all of the videos but when I first started using it, my photos and videos looked terrible; I was overwhelmed and the camera sat in its case for quite a while before I decided to finally learn how to use it.

Yes, all cameras will have an “auto” setting meaning the camera will make its best guess at what settings to apply. Sometimes this works great but when there are highly contrasting areas in the image, like a bright window, the camera will more often than not under or over expose the image. But I also invite you to experiment and play around as you dial-in the quality of your image over the next weeks and months.

Most articles I’ve read about live streaming recommend setting your camera’s mode dial to M or Manual. For some models, manual mode is the only way the camera will output the “clean HDMI” that we talked about earlier. But, I’ve been setting my Sony A7III to “video” and then adjusting the settings manually — it’s been working perfectly with clean HDMI. You may need to experiment with depending on the model and brand.

Sample of a camera’s dial for selecting different modes.

The following settings are what you’ll be dealing with when using manual settings. Virtually all of them deal with the amount of light hitting your sensor, which is the foundation of all great photography, videography, and lighting.

Example of what camera settings look like displayed on your camera (I believe this is a Canon)

The exposure meter/control is your friend. These are pretty accurate, especially if you have a nice, evenly lit scene. Anything under “0” is under exposed and anything over “0” is overexposed. Now, there will might be times while filmmaking that you are purposely under or overexposing, or the camera might be telling you one thing but the image in your monitor says another. In general, especially for live streaming, you can rely on your exposure control. If anything, I would err on the side of under-exposing just a hair so as not over-expose skin highlights.

ISO — ideally you want this number to be as low as possible. The lowest ISO setting for most cameras is 100. ISO is basically the measure of how sensitive your camera’s sensor is to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the sensor becomes, but also the more noise you will have in your image (the grainy stuff we used to see in movies shot on film). Think about it like gain on a guitar amp — more gain gets you more volume but high gain causes distortion. Since your shutter speed, frame rate, and likely aperture will all be set, this is the setting you are most likely to adjust depending on how much light you have in your scene. To keep this number low, make sure to use a lighting set-up and a wide aperture — 2.8 or faster. 2.8? What the heck does that mean? Which brings me to the next manual camera setting.

Aperture — For the sake of not overwhelming you and to keep things simple, set your aperture to the lowest number available (which is in turn, the largest aperture). Think of an aperture as an adjustable circle, inside a camera lens, that allows light to reach the camera’s sensor. Some lenses have a fixed minimum aperture in that the circle remains the same size even if you’re zooming from one focal length to another, like in a 24–70mm F2.8 zoom lens, or in a fixed focal length lens like a 50mm F1.4 . F[X] refers to the size of the circle (aperture). It’s kind of counterintuitive but the smaller the number, the larger the aperture: F1.2, F1.4, or F1.8 all allow more light to hit the sensor than a F2.8 or F4. Aperture also deals with how much background blur you will have. The smaller the number (and again, larger the aperture) the more blurry the background will be. Background blur (called “Bokeh”) can really make the subject pop out of the image and creates a more professional image. One thing to consider is that lenses with really large apertures F1.2 through F2.8 are generally more expensive than lenses with a constant minimum aperture of F4. That said, most brands have a “nifty fifty,” which is typically a lower end version of their 50mm with a wide 1.8 aperture — most nifty fifties will provide an absolutely fine image quality and are affordable (and 1.8 is plenty fast enough). Most lenses are sharpest “stopped down” a bit. If you have an F1.4, which will produce beautiful dreamy looking “Bokeh” the part of the image in focus may not be quite as sharp as if you had that same lens stopped down to F4 or F5.6. When you go higher in “F-stops”, the aperture gets smaller and more of the image will be in focus, but, because the aperture is smaller, you need more light (from your light source, or having a slower shutter speed, or having a higher ISO. If you have multiple people on screen for your live stream and only one camera, you may want to set your camera to manual focus (so the camera isn’t hunting between two separate moving objects) and choose a higher F stop like F4 or F5.6 so more of the image will be in focus.

Shutter Speed — To make this easy, you’re going to set your shutter speed to 1/60 (when shooting at 30 fps for streaming). When you go to see a stage play and the curtains open…that’s your shutter speed. In front of your camera’s sensor is a shutter that opens and closes to let light in. Setting your shutter speed means you’re telling the shutter how long to stay open. The longer your shutter is open, the more light that spills onto your camera sensor. Shutter speeds are usually measured in fractions of a second. When shooting video your shutter speed should always be 2x your frame rate. 24 fps=1/50 shutter speed, 30 fps=1/60 shutter speed, and so on and so forth. This one is a set it and forget setting.

Frame Rate —This is how many images your camera will take in once second. To make this easy, set your frame rate while live streaming to 30 fps (frames per second). Virtually all social media patterns will play your video at 30 fps so it just makes sense to set your camera to 30 fps. However, if you’re shooting content that won’t be live streamed, set your camera to 24 fps, which is the frame rate of pretty much every movie, music video, etc that you’ve seen with a few exceptions (The Hobbit was shot in 48 fps and action fight scenes are often shot at odd frame rates like 19 or 22 to make the footage feel jerky). Every setting is an opportunity to express your own creativity but not until you learn how to master the basics.

The same picture with a different color balance

White Balance — Getting the correct white balance is difficult — mainly because the concept is just hard to wrap you brain around. Our eyes are way better at seeing the world than even the most expensive cameras. When a human being moves from setting to another but with very different color temperatures, we don’t really have a problem making that adjustment right away. But a camera cannot do that very well. The camera needs some kind of reference to know the shades of the other colors in the scene. This is where color balancing comes in — you are giving your camera a reference point. You are saying, “Hi Camera, in this lighting environment, you can consider this particular shade of color as white.” Some cameras and editing programs also have the option to use “gray balance” or “neutral balance.” When you buy a video/photo light, the light will tell you the specific reference number. Lights usually come in Daylight (white light) or Tungsten (orange-ish light). Daylight balanced lights are usually around 5600K (my current key light is 5500k) and Tungsten is around 3200. If you’re using lights that all have the same color balance, you can simply tell your camera 5600k or 3200k and you’ll have a perfect white balance. As a beginner you can always set this to auto

Aspect Ratio — We don’t really need to go in-depth with this setting. Most cameras will have an option for 3:2 which is what you likely use for taking photographs and 16:9 which is the standard aspect ratio of most television and computer monitors. Set your camera to a16:9 aspect ratio

Camera: Lenses

The lens that you choose for your camera is almost more important than the camera itself. I’d rather have a great lens on a decent DSLR or mirrorless camera than the worst lens on a high end cinema camera.

Basically there are two types of lenses: Prime lenses and Zoom lenses.

Prime lenses have a fixed focal length, like 50mm, while zoom lenses have a variable focal range. Some common zoom ranges are 16–35mm, 24–70mm, 24–105mm, 70–200mm. This is a good article on focal length.

Prime lenses will typically be “faster” than zoom lenses, meaning that they have a larger aperture like 1.4 or 1.8. Remember, a large aperture is better in low-light situations and means a more blurred out background.

The fastest zoom lenses you’ll run into are usually 2.8, outside of Sigma’s famous 18–35mm 1.8 which was one of the most sought after lenses when it was released in 2013. In general, prime lenses will also be sharper than a zoom lens and have a bit more character. The main draw-back of prime lenses is the fixed focal length. With a zoom you have many more options for framing, especially when you get into a tight space or when you need a little more reach. The other benefit of a zoom lens is you don’t have to carry around as many lenses.

Maybe I’ll go into multi-cam streaming in my next article but I’m going to assume you’re starting with one camera and one lens. I’m also assuming you’ll be in a small to medium sized room so it’s unlikely you’ll beed something telephoto like a 70–200 zoom or a 300mm prime. And lastly, if you plan to stream on the regular, it’s likely you may keep your gear set-up in the same spot, in which case a sharp, fast, prime lens would be the best choice. You’ll get great bokeh, excellent sharpness and prime lenses are just a lot of fun. But, if you plan to stream in more than one location or different situations (maybe you give a lecture on Mondays and sit very close to the camera while on Wednesdays you teach a virtual dance class) a versatile zoom range like a 24–70mm or 24–105mm would work better. My first lens was the Canon 17–55mm 2.8, an APS-C format lens which you can find used for pretty cheap — it’s an excellent lens with a useful focal range.

You can always shop for used gear. Videographers and photographers are constantly buying, selling, and trading gear — it’s kind of part of the trade. Craigslist is a good starting point but also check in with any local video/photo rental places as they’ll often have sales throughout the year.

Most or all DSLR/Mirrorless cameras that you’ll be considering have the option to buy an entry-level “kit” lens with the camera body. While certainly not “professional,” they’ll be an absolutely fine starting point.

The other option is to rent a few lenses to see what works best for your live stream set-up.

Lastly, B&H Photo has amazing customer service so don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for support if you have a question about your set-up or need recommendations.

Lighting & Framing

Lighting is arguably more important than the camera you’re using. Don’t believe me? Check out this video where a guy shows how to get pro video quality using a $300 camera.

Lighting is also another area where you could blow a lot of money — but you definitely don’t need, especially not to start.

You can have great lighting without actually using a light. Do you have a window? Turn off all the lights in your house/room and shoot your video next to the window — you’ll have great natural light that washes over part of your face. Do you have a small budget? No problem, the are amazing lights these days for super cheap. Both Neweer & Aputure & Aputure-Amaron all make lights that will work perfectly well even if you have a budget of $50–100.

When I first started producing video, one of my favorite YouTube channels was DSLR Video Shooter with Caleb Pike. His content his great for beginners and basically all he covers is how to get better at dialing in your direct-to-cam content (speaking into a camera). Below are a few of his videos on various lighting set-ups for different budgets. Some of the products might be dated based on when the video was created but even just watching how he sets up his lighting with affordable lights is worth a watch.

Before we go any further, there are a few terms you should know. Below are terms with links to in-depth descriptions:

Key Light —your main light. This is where the majority of your light is coming from. Usually this is on one side of your subject’s face.
Fill Light — the fill light is typically on the other side of the subject’s face. This light helps to fill in any shadows. You see a key and fill light in a lot of corporate work where you want the lighting very even and not moody. However, in a drama, you might use just a key light with deep dark shadows on one side of your subject’s face.
Back Light (or Hair Light) — This illuminates the back of your subject’s head to create
Diffusion — Diffusion is the absolute most important part of lighting. Unless a production is particularly stylized, your lighting shouldn’t be noticeable. Basically you want to make your light as soft as possible. In the image below you can see an example of using a scrim to diffuse a light source. If you look at the actual light source, it’s physically very small in size. The scrim, moved further away from the light, helps to take the small, powerful light source, and diffuse it by spreading out the light source over a large area. The diffusion material further helps to soften the light on your subject. Now, you don’t need a really expensive scrim like the one below. You could literally use clothes pins to clamp cheap diffusion material to a mic stand arm. Many of the affordable lights you’ll find on Amazon come with a plastic diffusion material already.

Lately, I’ve been using 3 lights with my streaming set-up. I use an Aputure 300d for my key light (a very powerful 300w LED light). Because my key light source is so large, it manages to wash over onto the shadow-y side of my face and act as a fill, which is nice and subtle. I have two small, cheap lights from Neweer I found on Amazon to light the room behind me. I set my key light to daylight balance (5500) and one of my small lights to tungsten (3200), and the other to daylight balance with a red gel.

In cinema and photography, the trick is creating the illusion that a 2D image is 3d. Like everything in video production, lighting is about creating a depth of field. Earlier I covered how bokeh (a blurred background) can create depth of field. But you can also create depth of field from your physical placement. Are you right up against a wall? Or, have you given yourself 5–10 feet away from the wall to physically create more depth?

There are many ways you can light a scene but we will cover four:

No Light
1 Light
2-Point Lighting
3-Point Lighting

Again, for a no-light scenario, use a window to light your face with beautiful natural light. Otherwise, below are some of the different set-ups to consider.

If you have extra light sources, you can play around with lighting up various parts of the room to create ambience.

Audio: In-Depth

*A great audio set-up doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. I get all my gear through Sweetwater.com . They have THE best customer service and also offer special 0% financing options from 24–48 months so you can upgrade to a professional set-up for only a few dollars/month.

Besides your internet connection, having good audio is the most important part of your stream. There are an infinite number of ways for you to set-up audio for a live stream from simply using your computer’s built-in microphone and speakers to a more complex set-up with a mixer, audio interface, wireless microphones, etc.

Your set-up will also depend largely what your niche: Are you only speaking? Are you adding recorded music? Are you playing live music? Is your instrument acoustic or electric? Will you be moving around?

Let’s go over some of the most common streaming situations and audio set-ups for each.

Just Sittin’ and Talkin’ — This is by far the most common set-up. The easiest and lowest tech solution is to simply use your built in camera and microphone. But, if you want to upgrade your sound you could add an external microphone.

**When adding an external microphone, makes sure you’ve selected it in your system settings. How to do that on Mac. How to do that on PC.

If you’re using a laptop/desktop, consider a USB microphone like the Rode NT-USB Mini USB Condenser Microphone, which will get you closer to broadcast quality (remember your voice is your instrument). Or if you prefer not to have a mic in front of your face, you could try something like a USB headset. There are also a number of lavalier microphones(small mics that clip to your shirt or collar) which will run a 3.5mm cable into your computer’s headphone port.

Another option is to use earbuds or headphones that can be paired with your laptop. The only drawback here would be if you want to play music from your system and speak at the same time. Your computer will likely make you decide between bluetooth and system audio so you wouldn’t be able to speak and play music on a Zoom call, for example.

If you’re using a smartphone, many of the same options above will apply — here’s an article on best external mics for Android and here’s one for iOS.

Talkin’ and Movin’ — This is virtually the same set-up as above only without being physically connected to your device. I’ve heard great things about the Rode Wireless GO Compact Wireless Microphone System. The system has a built in mic with great sound but also has the option of adding an external headset or lavalier microphone with a 3.5mm input. This is The Rode Wireless Go Compact will work with Zoom if you want to play music while talking. I’ve had difficulty however finding a wireless USB headset — again, there are many bluetooth options out there.

Singin’ or Broadcastin’ When You Want Better Vocal Quality— Again, you could use a quality USB mic which will save you a ton of hassle and also cost less than adding a mixer and/or interface. But let’s say you want to have THE BEST quality for your vocals. I would recommend purchasing an audio interface. With an interface that supplies 48v phantom power, now you can literally hook up the nicest studio microphone in the world to your computer or smartphone. Most audio interfaces connect to your laptop/desktop via USB but there are a number of new audio interfaces for smartphones. For laptop/desktop, the Scarlett Focusrite interfaces have great quality and are very affordable. Apogee would probably be your next step-up in pro quality. If you want something over-the-top and way-pro studio quality, Universal Audio makes a stellar interface.

Another option is to get a Zoom audio recorder which also acts as an audio interface. The Zoom H4n has a built in stereo X/Y mic plus two additional inputs for XLR or 1/4". The H6n has the X/Y stereo mic plus 4 additional inputs. If you plan to record on the go, or end up doing any video-production work, one of these might come in handy and again, doubles as an audio interface.

For smartphones, I have zero experience but the IK Multimedia iRig Pro Duo I/O 2-channel Audio/MIDI Interface for iOS, Android, and Mac/PC looks pretty gosh-darn bad ass. It’s likely to be shipping July 1st 2020. Again, I always recommend reaching out to the professionals at Sweetwater Music for any technical questions.

If you’re just adding voice, and only one voice, you could get a single-input interface. That said, if you see adding more people to your program, you will need more inputs. OR, you could purchase a mixer, which simply runs two XLR or 1/4" cables into a two channel audio interface. A mixer will allow you to add more microphones and also add EQ (mix the sound like highs, mids, and bass) to really dial in your sound before the signal hits the interface. Yamaha & Mackie make quality, affordable mixers.

Playin’ an Instrument (while singing or not) — You would use exactly the same set-up options above. You will definitely need a 2-channel interface for a mic line and instrument line.

Let’s say you have a couple musicians performing in a room. You could either get a mixer with enough inputs for everyone, and run stereo (two cables) into your two-channel audio interface (technically you could use a 16-channel mixer and run that into your 2-channel smartphone interface and mix a huge group to have pro quality running into a smartphone — crazy). OR, you could mic the room. An X/Y set-up would work well and then you’d work with your group to have people move closer or further from the microphone set-up, or adjust their volume, until you’ve basically mixed the sound in the room. The Zoom H4n and Zoom H6n both have a fairly capable stereo X/Y mic set-up already included.

Zoom also makes X/Y Smartphone mics for smartphones.

Monitorin’ Your Sound — Your interface and/or mixer will have headphone jacks. Some will have one, others will have two. If you need more people to hear the audio, you could always add a headphone splitter. You would likely not want to use speakers at the same time you’re using a mic because you may experience feedback, depending on how directional, or not, your microphone is.

***The ultimate complexity is wireless connection (voice and/or instrument) and wireless in-ear monitoring. You would likely need a mixer, interface, a wireless mic system and a wireless in-ear monitoring system. If you click on any of those wireless links you’ll see how expensive the set-up will get. But if your budget can handle it, there’s nothing better than total freedom to move about a space with a great sounding wireless mic paired with great sounding in-ear monitors

Gettin’ a Good Mix — Many decent USB mics will sound great plugged directly into your computer. If you’re using a mixer, you have more options for EQ-ing your voice or instruments. I am not the best at mixing live sound but basically, you have three main adjustments: low, mid, high. I turn these down all way and start with the highs. Start speaking, singing, or playing your instrument, turn the highs up until you’re happy with the sound. Then do the same with mids, and then move to the lows/bass (some mixers will only have highs and lows to adjust), go back to make final adjustments to each once you have the basics dialed in. If your mix sounds muddy, add some highs. That’s really about all I know — again it’s one of those things you get better with over time and there are a number of online videos, tutorials, and articles to help you out.