Best lighting for video calls
Webcam sensors are small and noisy. More light, from the right direction, improves a call image more than any camera upgrade under two hundred pounds.
The one rule that matters
Your main light source should be in front of you and slightly above eye level. Not behind you, not directly overhead. A window behind you turns you into a silhouette because the camera exposes for the bright background. A ceiling light directly above casts shadows into your eye sockets and under your nose.
Using a screen as a light
A monitor or tablet displaying a full white screen is a large, diffuse, flicker-free light source — which is exactly what flattering light is. Large sources wrap around a face and soften shadows; small sources create hard edges.
- Open a full white screen on a second monitor, a tablet or a phone.
- Place it in front of you, slightly off to one side, roughly at or just above eye height.
- Set brightness so your face is lit but you are not squinting. Around 80 to 90 percent is usually right at arm's length.
- Warm the colour slightly if your room has warm bulbs. A pure blue-white screen against tungsten room light makes skin look grey.
A tablet at arm's length is roughly equivalent to a small softbox. It is genuinely good light, not a compromise.
Colour temperature and mixing
Mixing colour temperatures is what makes home-office video look amateurish — one side of your face warm from a lamp, the other cold from a screen. Pick one temperature and match everything to it. If your room lights are warm, warm the screen light. If you have daylight from a window, keep the screen neutral.
Fill and background
Once the key light is right, a much dimmer second source on the opposite side softens the shadow edge. This can be a phone on low brightness. Keep it well below the key or you will end up flat and shadowless.
For the background, avoid a bright wall directly behind you competing for the camera's exposure. A little separation — a lamp on the back wall, or simply sitting further from it — reads as depth.
Camera settings worth changing
Turn off automatic exposure adjustments if your software allows it, since they hunt distractingly when you move. Lock white balance once your lighting is set. And clean the camera lens: it is a fingerprint magnet and a smeared lens throws away detail no lighting can recover.