In this Ask Evan episode, Evan Carmichael answers a fan’s question about the equipment he uses to film his weekly industry‑update videos. He explains his philosophy of starting a venture with minimal financial outlay and only upgrading gear as the project proves its value. He recounts his progression from an inexpensive Flip camera to a Sony Handycam purchased at Costco, chosen for its external microphone jack. For on‑camera audio he uses a Sony clip‑on lavalier mic (about $90‑$100) positioned just below the camera lens, while for audio‑only recordings he switches to a Blue Yeti USB microphone he discovered at an Apple Store. He confirms using a tripod placed slightly above his head and angled downward to avoid a “giant” perspective. His lighting consists of six inexpensive IKEA fixtures equipped with high‑wattage bulbs from Home Depot, arranged around him in a basement studio with a white wall backdrop. He notes earlier videos suffered from wobbling and poor audio, but the current setup delivers clear, professional‑looking content. He encourages viewers to start cheap, test the concept, and then reinvest as results justify the expense, inviting further questions and feedback.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's episode, I'm going to answer a question from Eric, who's one of my Facebook fans, and he asked about my setup for making these videos. He wrote in saying, "Evan, what kind of camera and mic do you use? It's crystal clear. Also, do you use a tripod to elevate the camera above you?" I do a weekly announcement for my industry and I want to upgrade the appearance. So thank you for the question, Eric. A great question. I get asked it a number of times, so it's great to be able to answer this on video for you guys. I'm a big believer in starting off any venture, any new project, uh, really cheap, investing your time but not investing your money. So when I started doing video, I did it myself and I used a quick little flip camera that was pretty basic, and then I slowly started upgrading my equipment as I was able to get a few sponsors and make a little bit of money from the videos, so it wasn't just a loss as I turned it out. If you go back to some of my earlier videos, you'll see they were pretty bad. The quality of the content was still good, but the production quality was pretty bad. And I slowly started increasing the quality of my equipment. Now I film in a room in my basement, so it's got a white wall that looks pretty professional, and I've got some lighting on me. In terms of the camera, I now use a Sony Handycam, and I basically got the camera— I started with the Flip, and started moving my way up through the Costco cameras. So I got this one at Costco, it was the highest-end one that they had, and the reason I got it was it had an external microphone jack. So, my Flip was amazing, the new HD Flip that was out was awesome, the video quality was awesome, but there was no external microphone. So, some people who are watching my videos were complaining that it was great content, but they couldn't hear me really clearly. So, I wanted a camera that had an external microphone jack. And it was great to kind of get feedback from people saying that. So, you know, making the investment based on the, you know, people who are giving feedback are actually consuming the content. So, there was only one camera at Costco at the time, a Sony Handycam that had the external microphone jack. And now for the microphones, when I do these kind of presentations, when you see me on camera, I use a little clip mic from Sony, and I try to keep it just under the, the line of where you can see me on the camera. So the camera starts, what, about here, and I have a microphone just slightly under it. And I could take it off for you guys to see. So this is a clip mic that you can buy at a camera store. And maybe $90, $100. And it plugs into the side of the Sony camera and it's been pretty great ever since. When I do the audio-only ones, if you see any videos where I'm doing the famous entrepreneur profile and you see pictures and it's just audio of me, or if I'm doing a screencast and you're watching my screen as I'm talking, then I use a blue microphone. It's the Yeti one. I one day walked into the, the Apple Store and they had it on sale and I thought it looked interesting. I thought it could help improve the audio quality. I used to use a headset, but I found that the Yeti Blue was really amazing. And so thank you that you wrote in saying that you like the audio quality because we've been working on making it better. And I do use a tripod, so when I'm filming these, I have a tripod that's just a little bit above my head and then tilted on a downwards angle. Found that that that has a good image. If it's a little bit lower than you, then you kind of look like a giant and the quality goes down a little bit. So it's just a little bit above me and pointed at a slight downwards angle. And I've got 6 lights on me that again were super cheap, bought from IKEA, and then got some really powerful light bulbs from Home Depot. And they're placed in, you know, here, here, and here all around me. In a couple videos I move my hands and I hit a light, so you see that every now and then. But it's been a good setup. If you look over my old videos, you'll see I had some at my office, I had the really old ones at my house. When I didn't have a tripod and I used my flip camera, you could see the camera, the screen wobbling a little bit, so it's a little bit hard to watch as a viewer. But again, I like starting off cheap, see if it works. I could have tried a couple videos and said, you know, this isn't for me, I don't want to keep doing it, and then I would have been out a lot of money on the camera, on the lighting, on the tripod. So I always make sure I put energy at the beginning, see if it works, and then as it does continue to work and we get some results, then I start increasing the investment. And in this case now, I'm pretty happy with the equipment that I have, and I appreciate the comment that you thought it was professional and crystal clear. Quality on the audio. So, thank you everybody. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. I hope that helped answer your question there. The thumbs up makes me want to do more of these videos for you guys, and I always appreciate them. And if you have a question about my setup or another question about your business, feel free to leave a comment below. I always look at those, and I try to answer everyone if I can. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode.
