Selfishness As A Virtue

Or perhaps that should be " selfie-ness ". The business of letting people see just how good you really think you look. I don't take many of them, not being over-confident of my ability to dazzle. It's not consideration for the viewers so much as a sort of fatalism. Like Cromwell, I would show warts and all, but unlike the Lord Protector, I cannot put my detractors in The Tower. You may be different, and if you are looking for a good way to illuminate yourself to illuminate others, have a look on the lighting shelves at the array of selfie ring lights. Most of them are designed to use the mobile phone as the capture device but there is no reason a small conventional camera could not be adapted for the purpose. Indeed, some of the purpose-built vlogging cameras from Nikon, Sony, and Panasonic would be a delight with the ring illumination. At this point you would do well to go off and google what ring-light illumination looks like on the human face and decide whether it is the light for you. it is distinctive, while being even and bland. It's been a favourite of fashion and face shooters for the last few decades, but may have been overdone for a while. In any case it is usually clear enough light to show what you are shooting, and if you have the camera pointed back upon yourself your face will dominate the scene. The lights are solid - they illuminate video as well as still images. They are generally LED types with daylight white balance and mobile phones and cameras make short work of getting an accurate white balance*. The light is short-range and exhibits quite a fall-off past the head - that may be an advantage if your backdrop is unprepossessing, but you may want to throw more light back there for design effect from other small lights. Note the mounting holes that sit in the centre of the ring - these are nearly all 1/4" screw threaded sockets that can take mobile phone or action camera mounts. In the case of the Phottix the whole sits upon a small tripod, and it also has the novel feature of a central hinge. If you lay the top back the underlight can make you look like a Disney villain. If you have taken the precaution of getting a good Røde microphone for your phone or camera the sound will be as good as the movies while the image may be as good as you can do. Be aware that you really do sound like that and you always have. People have just been too polite to laugh at you before. Consider whether you wish to just soldier on and tell your story anyway - at some point they will stop hearing the voice and start hearing the words. * The Joby Beamo ring light has 10 light intensity steps and adjustable colour balance.