My Recipe for Premium Video That Is Way Better Than A Webcam

To figure all this out required many thousands of dollars of experimentation. Enjoy! —JM

HDMI Capture Card

You need a way to get the signal from your camera into your computer. There’s currently a movement afoot for more conventional cameras to go directly into your USB, but I’ve found that the HDMI capture card method is more reliable.

HDMI Cable

You’ll need a usb-c cable from the HDMI Capture Card and also an HDMI cable to go to your camera’s Micro HDMI.

Camera Recommendation: Used Lumix GX85

You want a camera that doesn’t turn off in 30 minutes. This happens and it’s no fun to manage. You also need a camera that has “Clean HDMI” — that’s not immediately obvious how to figure out. I’ve enjoyed buying used cameras on eBay and think this option is highly economical:

Get a Lumix GX85 on eBay which will go for roughly $400 dollars. Try and get one with the “pancake” lens (12-32mm lens) for beautiful background blur.

Get a battery adapter for the GX85 so you can keep it powered up all day:

Mounting Your Camera

I prefer monopods, but you can find tons of other options online.

Wireless Microphone

You’ll need to charge a wireless microphone, so if you want to work in a wired way, then get a lavalier microphone to usb. Otherwise:

Lighting

I’ll cover lighting later. But for now you can look at my lighting tutorial: