Malte's home video conferencing setup

vc.md

• Lights: Elgato Key Lights (2, one as actual key light, one as fill light)
  • Looking into these lights can cause fatigue after a while, which sucks if you're doing that all day.
  • I managed to work around it by heavily dimming one light that is in my field of view and moving the other light out of my field of view.
• Microphone: Blue Snowball Ice
• Microphone pop filter
• Wall/ceiling mounts for camera and lights
• Camera: Sony a6000.
  • This is one of multiple older Sony mirrorless cameras recommended for streaming.
  • Whichever you buy, make sure the reviews mention that it can stay on long without overheating
  • And clean HDMI out is key (no on-screen menu)
  • Against what appears to be popular believe, you absolutely want to run the camera/lens in manual focus mode. That works totally fine as you won't be moving much. And to the contrary the adjustments of the auto-focus can be very distracting.
• 10 inch screen I mount this behind the camera, so you can look folks into the eye during a video conference.
  • Update 4/18/2021: Upgraded to this 15.6" 4K screen
• HDMI Capture. I have this Magewell but the current price of $299 is ridiculous. Find something else. (Again not prone to overheating)
• Cables
  • USB-C hub (optional if you have a real computer)
  • Dummy battery power adapter for the camera
  • Micro-HDMI adapter
  • 1 HDMI/USB-A for the HDMI capture device
• ~100W power adapter is required to run the Magewell capture device via unpowered USB on a Laptop without draining the battery.