Talking head videos are a popular vlogging format and one that Sony Artisan of Imagery and YouTuber Miguel Quiles is very familiar with creating. In this video, Quiles gives us a closer look at his vlogging setup for filming talking head videos. Watch below as he walks us through the equipment he uses and how to set up a studio environment for this specific style of vlogging. See more videos like this one on the Alpha Universe YouTube Channel.

Sony Artisan and YouTuber Miguel Quiles explains how he uses the Sony A7R V with the Xperia 1 IV as an external monitor for a perfect selfie-style vlog setup.

Filming Setup

Starting with his filming setup, Quiles explains his choice of camera, lens, microphone, filter and monitor. “For the camera I’m using the Sony Alpha 7R V, a brand new camera,” he explains. “I’m shooting right now in 4K, 24 frames-per-second. And I’ve got a little 35mm G Master lens on there, that’s what I use for a lot of my talking head videos here for YouTube. And I’ve got a filter on the front. This is actually a ¼ Pro Mist Filter. And this is basically just blooming the lights, so when we go back to the talking head you can kind of see that all the highlights are basically blooming. They look a little bit brighter and it looks really cool.

He continues, “For the audio, everything is going into this shotgun microphone, which is connected to the hot shoe. Love this microphone because you don’t actually have to connect it with cables to cameras like the Alpha 7R V. It works digitally which is really sweet. And then I’ve just got it all on a tripod here.”

Quiles also uses his Xperia device as an external monitor so he can easily see the framing of his video. “This is the Xperia 1 IV. I’ve actually got it connected to the A7R V with an HDMI cable going into a capture card and that’s going directly into the Xperia. So that’s something that I really love to do. It’s on a light stand so I can move it.”

Lighting Setup

While filming, Quiles has an LED tube Immediately to his right. “This is what I’m using to light my face in my talking head videos or at least for this studio setup right now,” he explains. “It’s really simple, just a two-foot LED tube. Right behind me I’ve got this ring light just to add this kind of halo to myself or the talking head. It just makes it a little more interesting in my opinion. Of course you can go without that if it’s not your jam.”

He also has a Nanlite Forza 120 on the other side of the set. “This is just a really powerful LED light, and I’ve got it going through this Westcott Optical Spot. It’s going through a gel, and essentially what’s that doing, is there’s a little adapter in there that’s creating these little slits of light and it just looks cool. You’ve got the blue light in the background with these little orange lights, I feel like it just gives it an interesting look.”

Quiles also has a couple of lights on the background. “We’ve got this Rotolight AEOS 2. That’s actually just set to blue and it’s splashing that blue color onto those black V-flats. So if you’ve not seen these, these are 4x8 panels that basically fold like a book. You pick them up, you move them. I love using them as photography backdrops and also for video backdrops as I’m doing today. Then here we’ve got another Rotolight AEOS 2 and again this is set to blue just to add that kind of blue color to the background. This is the entire studio setup here.”

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