My new studio is coming in handy & a Linkup

Top: Gifted from my mom // Pants: Kohls // Shoes: Old Navy (old, similar here)

Top: My Merch! (This is my outro in my Youtube videos in case you were wondering, kind of an inside joke with my OG Subscribers. These photos were taken by my husband. I was being goofy in the first one, and the second one is a candid photo)

New Studio Coming In Handy!

My new studio has been coming in handy!  Over the weekend I decided instead of going out to take outfit photos, I’d give the studio a whirl.  As all of you may know, it’s been very hectic in my neck of the woods.  The shop is so busy, and over the weekend I went ahead and worked as much as I could to get caught up.  However, with having to get caught up, by the time that I was all done filming on Sunday (my usual photo shoot day), it was already getting late.  The sun was still out, but if I’m being completely honest, I just wanted to stay home for the rest of the night.  Instead, I took photos inside.  Which is super  convenient!

Related: Catching Up

Getting Caught Up & Hello Fresh Experience

A few weeks ago, I spoke about creating this space for my Youtube videos, which by the way it’s still not finished.  My husband went to go buy the insulation for the acoustic panels he wants to make.  That way there will be less of an echo.  Unfortunately, the insulation he wanted to buy was more than four times the price that he saw online, so instead of buying it from a store, we’ll go online.  For the time being we actually put a mattress in the room that has helped a little bit.

Related: Introducing 2021, and my new studio setup

My husband has been helping me get caught up too.  He’s helped me so much by either cooking dinner and telling me to go edit, or helping me with little things that I usually do so that I can focus.  He’s also helped with my stress levels.  Whenever I’m feeling very overwhelmed, I’ll let him know instead of bottling it up and he calms me down.  Before 2020 was over, we made the decision to test out Hello Fresh.  That’s been very helpful because I don’t have to worry about finding recipes, making a grocery list, then going to the store.  With Hello Fresh, all of that extra time that I usually spend on dinners is eliminated.  I’ll do an updated post on Hello Fresh after I’ve used it for at least a month, which we are coming up on that, but so far so good.  The meals are really good, of course some I like more than others.

What I purchased for my studio

Going back to the studio though, if you’re interested in knowing what I recently purchased for my upgrade, I’ll leave everything linked below.  I forgot to do this in the post where I discussed the new setup.

What I bought and recommend

• Camera: Sony a6400, I was using the Sony a6000 before, which is a great starting point, but it overheats after 20’ish minutes of filming and due to the length of some of my videos, I needed something better.  The longest I’ve recorded for so far on the 6400 is 54 minutes.
• Lens: I upgraded to the Sony 18-105mm F4 lens, but before I was just using the kit lens that comes with the Sony a6000 link I shared above.
• Tripod: I have a full standing tripod, but I wanted to get a smaller one that I can put on my desk.  This one has been really helpful and easy to use, I’m just really tall, so I do have to prop the tripod up on a box.
• Extra Batteries and Charger: Since I know have two cameras, I wanted to make sure I had enough batteries, and a charger so that once I’m done with one battery I can just take it out and charge it and not have to charge through the camera itself.
• Backpack: This backpack was kind of a last minute add to cart sort of thing.  It’s perfect for both of my cameras and all of my lenses, so I can keep them all in one spot.
• Lighting: I’m still figuring out how I want to set up my lighting, but this is the package that I bought for the time being.  I’ll eventually upgrade, but I thought it was a great starting point.
• Portable SSD:  My husband told me that I needed this.  I have used it yet, but if he picked it out, I know it’s good haha.  Tech, cars, and building things is his department.
• Memory Card: I upgraded to this 128 GB memory card.  Since I record longer videos, I don’t have to worry about my storage ever getting full, especially if let’s say I forget to delete older footage haha.  This memory card is a beast.

What I bought, but don’t recommend

• Mic: I bought this mic hoping that I would have better sound quality, especially because it was so close to my face (you can see it in the last two photos).  However, it had horrible feedback.  My first video with my new setup, I was really far away.  Some people didn’t like it, and neither did I, I’m so used to being closer to the camera.  I decided to get even closer to the camera, and when I did that, the feedback got even worse.  My husband tried to help fix the settings, but no matter what we did, the feedback was horrid.
• Remote: I’m really not sure why I bought this remote for my camera.  I think I wanted to have it just to have it, and because it was really inexpensive.  Well, very quickly I found out that it didn’t even work.  Both the remote and mic were returned, and I didn’t know that you can return Amazon orders to Kohls, as long as the particular Kohls participates in that program.  You learn something new everyday haha!

Anyway, let’s move on to the linkup!