Whenever I see an up-and-coming Youtuber I notice they often make the same mistake. When the time comes to increase production quality, the absolute first thing you should do is invest in improving your sound. Not the camera or the lens or lighting or set design. Audio quality trumps all of that. People being able to understand what you are communicating should always be the highest priority.
And the cool part is you can do this with a cheap lav mic. There are some that can just plug right into your phone. The next priority is learning how to set levels and make sure your voice isn't distorting from being too loud. You can even record a little quiet and bump up the levels later on. But if you record too loud to begin with, you can't fix that.
After that you can "treat" your room. Which just involves controlling echo and reverb. Foam acoustic panels are expensive and not necessary. You can do the same thing by just filling your room with stuff. Furniture, books, blankets, pillows. You want to eliminate large flat surfaces. If the sound has to bounce around on 20 different surfaces before it comes back to your microphone, it will have much less energy.
You can also figure out which wall is the biggest echo offender and hang a couple of heavy blankets in front of it. If you can score those moving blankets on the cheap, those work great. And if you can put a gap in between the blankets that will further reduce echo/reverb. You don't have to cover the entire wall, just the main area in front of where you are speaking. If you can reduce that very first reflection, the sound will have much less energy to bounce off other surfaces.
All that said, sometimes people will go overboard with sound and buy that giant phallic SM7B dynamic microphone. I see those things everywhere. Yes, Michael Jackson used it and it does sound great. But with so many quality USB mics that plug straight into your computer, it is a huge hassle and really overkill unless you just enjoy audio tech and want a cool toy. The SM7B requires extra equipment to make it sound good. It's XLR so you need a special interface. And most people add a "cloudlifter" because it isn't very sensitive and can be really quiet without it. Plus, dynamic mics need to be super close to your mouth and I think covering half your face with a giant mic isn't the best visual. There are lav mics in a wide spectrum of price ranges that can be hidden and sound great. Or you can do a shotgun mic like they use in movies. It can be hidden offscreen and pick up your voice from a distance.
Big dynamic mics are great for people with baritone voices. If you are James Earl Jones and you want to show off your voice, the SM7B or something similar makes more sense. Beyond that, most of your viewers just want clarity. Good room treatment and a $30 lav mic can achieve that pretty well. And if you watch a few tutorials on how to EQ and process audio, you can do a lot to make a cheaper microphone sound great. Reaper is a wonderful audio program with professional features and a reasonable price.
TLDR... fix your sound first!
If I had to pick a second priority, it would be lighting.
Here are the most important things to remember about lights...
The larger the light, the softer and more flattering it is. The brighter the light, the less noisy the image. (Lower ISO) The closer the light, the larger and brighter it is. (inverse square law)
Which brings me to my biggest lighting pet peeve...
NO RING LIGHTS!
Way back in the early days of YouTube when makeup vloggers were trying to show off their techniques and create compelling tutorials, they discovered an old lighting accessory photographers would use for face close-ups. Usually for fashion shoots where they wanted to show off fancy makeup.
They discovered the magical ring light.
People saw them using these lights and noticed how flattering they could be, so they bought their own ring lights. Except they weren't doing makeup videos. They weren't shooting close-ups of their face. And therein lies their mistake. A mistake that has caused a cascade effect of thousands and thousands of people buying ring lights just because that's what everyone else was doing.
RING LIGHTS EVERYWHERE!
The original ring lights looked something like this.
These lights were moved in as close as humanly possible in order to surround a face with light and eliminate nearly all shadows. It is a very flattering look that creates cool ring catchlights in the eyes and gives a blank shadow-free canvas for makeup.
This is how a ring light is meant to be used.
As you can see, light hits the face from every angle to give you that shadow free effect. But look at how close the ring light needs to be in order to have the desired effect.
Also, the camera must be placed dead center. If you don't put the camera in the hole, why are you using a ring light? The entire point of the hole is for the camera.
If you back the light up even a little bit, or put the camera off to the side, all of the ring light magic disappears.
It then turns into... a normal light.
A normal light without any light coming from the center.
Which means it is not as bright and it is smaller. If the ring light isn't right up in your face, it is even dimmer and smaller yet. And if you remember my rules, bigger and brighter is (almost) always better.
Do you see the mistake now?
People are buying a light specifically designed for tight face close-ups and the majority of them are not using them for tight face close-ups.
If you want something just as compact, you might consider an LED panel.
Look at all that extra light you get by not having a giant hole in the middle! And by putting the light off to the side, you actually get a more dramatic lighting effect. You can even get two or three of these puppies and create all kinds of different lighting setups.
And if you have a bit more space, just get a traditional softbox kit. You can get two giant lights for the price of a decent ring light.
Look at how big and bright those bad boys are!
Do your research. Check out video lighting tutorials and find a style that you like. There is Rembrandt lighting, 3-point lighting, edge lighting, clamshell lighting... all kinds of neat effects to choose from. And based on the style you prefer, make your lighting equipment choices from there.
Get cheap lights to start. Experiment and learn how to use them. And once you have a decent understanding of lighting, then consider getting the more expensive lights that can accept various modifiers.
In conclusion... NO MORE RING LIGHTS.
