Cameras and microphones for streaming
You can make almost anything look good with one or two cameras, some graphics and really good audio.
Have matching cameras – if you have two of the same camera brand, with same colour settings, your shots will match and your audience will be happy.
Your Camera:
Depends on what you want to do! I am a big fan of ‘handicams’ like the Sony PXW-X70, that will take in XLR audio and make almost everything look good. SDI connections are great. Make sure you tune your colour profiles.
I also like the DSLR/mirrorless cameras, but they need a bit more love to get going and rig up.
For reference I like these sony picture profile colour settings (on an x70 / x90 /z150 and probably others) :
BLACK LEVEL: -6
GAMMA: ITU709
BLACK GAMMA: HIGH
0KNEE: MANUAL 87.5%, SLOPE -2
COLOR MODE: ITU709 MATRIX
SATURATION: 0
COLOR PHASE: 0
COLOR DEPTH: R+3, G+3, B+2, C+2, M+3, Y+3
COLOR CORRECTION: COLOR REVISION
MEMORY SELECTION: 1&2
MEMORY1 COLOR: 15, 6, 0
MEMORY1 REVISION: -6, 0
MEMORY2 COLOR: 0, 9, 0
MEMORY2 REVISION: +4, -1
WHITE BALANCE SHIFT: 0, 0, 0, 0
DETAIL LEVEL: 0
MANUAL SET: ON
V/H BALANCE: 0
B/W BALANCE: TYPE1
LIMIT: 7
CRISPENING: 0
HI-LIGHT DETAIL: 0
Microphones
Your microphones and sound are incredibly important. Good sound and bad vision is better than the other way around for most things. Depends what you’re streaming as to what you’ll need. Here are some ideas:
Rode Wireless Go2 —> Excellent dual channel wireless setup for lapels.
Zoom h1/2/4/5/6 —> Can do amazing things as a USB interface with inbuilt microphones, line our with inbuilt microphones, or a mini mixer/pre-amp/interface to connect to external XLR microphones .
A close-ish shotgun mic —> Classic. Shotgun mics are underrated, and if you’re clever they can work well for capturing music performances too. Get one just out-of-frame and your viewers won’t even know how you are making things sound so good. I like the Sennheiser and Deity shotgun mics. A really cheap shotgun mic and some long XLR cable is so much better than using internal mics.
Stereo Pair or A-B ‘spaced’ pair of condensor mics —> This is my standard for simple music streaming. In a pinch you can run 1 microphone stand with two omni condensor mics, spaced apart maybe ~15-40cm apart, back directly into your x70 sony handicam. For better results, use an audio interface with a nicer pre-amp.
If you are using cardiod microphones, then go either an XY pattern (mic capsule tips facing each other at 90 degrees), or ORTF pattern (mic capsules facing outwards at 110 degree angle).
Handheld mic —> Get yourself a reporter microphone (I prefer super-cardiod to omni pattern, so you only get what the mic is pointing at. Great way to control an interview… when you stop pointing the mic at someone, they stop talking.