I already had a pretty good PC with a pretty good camera, a nice headset with mic and some lights I scrounged for additional lighting, and my Zoom presence wasn’t terrible, but I knew it could use some polish. So $241.28 (plus tax) later, I think I’m in a better place.
But why? Because it matters! You’re on center stage each time you host a Zoom meeting, so treat it as a ‘performance’. Appearance, presentation style, how you interact with your audience – all these things matter (a lot). But just as important is the technology you use to present the best image possible when the lights go on and the director says ‘ACTION’.
So let’s talk about technology – oh, how I do like that word!
Lights
Don’t leave lighting to chance! Room lighting, windows, and table lamps don’t cut it. You need to control not only the amount of light, but also the color of the light, and the light angles. This takes experimentation, but I have found that having 2700k side lighting (one on the left and one on the right) to brighten my face and remove shadows on the green screen (to be discussed later), then a 5000k reflector in the center brightens things up nicely and eliminates the hard shadows you see when light comes from only one direction. The two images below show how my lighting changed the image, going from ‘natural’ light (left) to a ‘balanced’ lighting arrangement (right).
Camera
I’m not one to obsess too much about PC cameras, and you can spend a whole lot of money in this regard, but I did upgrade from a $30 camera to a $100 camera to give me slightly better image quality. This is just something to think about as you try to improve your ‘image’. It’s also useful to note that although most PC cameras include a microphone, I recommend not using it. They might not to be directional so will pick up all kinds of other sounds in the room that could be distracting. A ‘directional’ shotgun mic is a better choice as we’ll discuss next.
Microphone
Sound quality and volume is very important! And this is another area where you can spend some serious money. I went cheap with a Movo VXR10, but if my budget permitted, I probably would have sprung for the Blue Yeti USB Microphone. I’m happy with my Movo, so I saved a $100 there. As mentioned above, it’s important to choose a mic that is either directional (shotgun style like the Movo) or has a directional option (which the Blue Yeti has) to eliminate ambient ‘noise’ if that’s a problem in your setting.
In the image below, you can see I have the Movo mic suspended on a boom arm above my monitor (but outside the camera view). This arrangement gets the mic close to the presenter (within 12″ to 18″) and keeps it off my desk (precious real estate).
Green Screen and Virtual Backgrounds
Green screens and virtual backgrounds are icing on the Zoom cake. I love a background with subtle/peaceful/non-distracting motion. For best effect in Zoom, I use a chromakey green panel suspended from a rickety PVC frame of my own construction. Again, I went the cheap route with both my screen material and frame, but had my budget supported it, I probably would have gotten a better screen material and support system. But hey, it works. Just imagine you’re in this place during your next Zoom meeting. It’s not hard to do:
The videos I use for my moving backgrounds come from YouTube. Just download a video you like that has at least 5 minutes of motion, but the camera is fixed in a given location. Clip that section so that the beginning and ending frames are as identical as possible, save, then select the video in the ‘virtual background’ setting in Zoom. Easy peasy… well not really. There are some steps in this process that get a little technical, but you get the idea.
It’s a Wrap!
The fact is, Zoom is fairly forgiving when it comes to the actual hardware required to deliver a pretty good presentation. Hopefully this post will give you some ideas about how to improve in areas that make your overall presentation stand out. Keep in mind that you are ‘on stage’ when hosting your meetings, and you are responsible for the quality of your on-line image as much as the quality of your message.
Parts List
$8.98
Emart Photography E26/E27 Lamp Holder with Light Stand Mount Umbrella Holder 2 Packs
$9.99
$13.50
$31.96
$69.99
WALI Single Fully Adjustable Arm for WALI Monitor Mounting System (001ARM), Black
$21.99
$41.99
$13.88
** Update **
Not much has changed with my Zoom instruction setup with the exception of adding a new/better microphone:
Amazon Basics Mini USB Condenser Microphone (about $50 incl. tax)
This is a pretty good mic for the price and I’m happy with it so far. It’s much better than my previous recommendation and the mic built into the webcam.
