“What Camera Should I Get?” (And Why That’s the Wrong Question)

Everybody asks for the model number. Let me tell you, lovingly, why the answer you’re hoping for is the one that would help you least.

Last week my friend Julie Ciardi’s operations manager, Erin, sent me an email. A few people in Julie’s IGNITE Her® Community had written in asking the same thing:

“What camera is Julie using on Zoom? And what’s her lighting?”

Now, here’s why that question landed in my inbox and not someone else’s. In November 2025 Julie and I built her entire on-camera setup together, start to finish, over Zoom, from opposite sides of the country. That’s the work I do now. I call it GlamCam Studio™. So when her clients notice how great she looks on screen and ask how she pulled it off, Erin knew exactly who to ask.

I read the email and I heard myself utter a familiar chuckle.

Not because they are silly questions. They are totally reasonable questions. I’ve been asked questions like these a thousand times, probably more. In my DMs, on Zoom, after workshops, at events:

“What camera should I get?”
”Which camera do you have?”
”Just tell me the one to buy, Tommy!”

I have to smile because I know what people are really hoping for when they ask. They want a clean answer. A model number. A link they can click. That little hit of “okay, got that, handled” dopamine. Buy the thing, and the thing is done.

And honestly? I get it. I’d want that too. It’s just not how a single bit of this actually works. So let me walk you through it, the way I would if you were sitting across the table from me…

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The answer that doesn’t help

Here’s the truth, and I say this with all the love in the world: even if I gave you the exact specs of what camera/tech Julie has in front of her, or I have in front of me, you’d be a mess. You’d open the many boxes and have no idea what to do with any of it.

I’m not being dramatic, I promise. Out of the box, in the wrong hands, the exact camera(s) my clients and I use could make you look worse than the webcam built into your laptop. That is not a knock on you! Why on earth would you know what to do with it? You’ve spent your years getting genuinely brilliant at the thing you actually do. I’ve spent mine learning the hundred tiny decisions that turn a good camera into a great image. Those are just very different lanes.

Because that’s what it really is, a stack of decisions. That image you’re admiring, the one that made you go “oooh, what camera is that,” is not one purchase. It’s a composite of a hundred, sometimes two hundred little choices stacked on top of each other. The lens. Where the light’s coming from. Color. Settings most people never even open. What’s behind you. And then the part nobody sees, the way every one of those choices is dialed in to ALL the others. The camera itself is maybe one lever out of five, and I’ll be honest, it’s not even the first one I’d reach for.

So when somebody asks me what camera to buy thinking that’s the finish line, I just chuckle. There’s just no one-size-fits-all answer to give them. This right here is the exact part of the work where most people need me the most.

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And the “right” camera keeps moving anyway

Here’s the part that really lets the air out of the whole model-number thing.

The gear I had Julie buy is already coming up on a year old. And in that time, what I use and recommend has changed. I’ve moved to a setup that costs less and looks every bit as good, and there are more “Tommy Approved” options on the market now than there were when I set her up. So if I handed you “Julie’s camera” today, I’d literally be handing you last year’s answer.

That’s the trap with chasing the equipment. The “right camera” is a moving target, always. Buy the answer today and you’re holding an outdated one by next year. The thing that doesn’t go stale is knowing how to choose well for your space, and how to make the whole thing sing once it’s in the room. That’s not something you buy. That’s a skill, and a stubborn, hard-won one at that.

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Why I’m not going to hand you the list

Now, I could still give you a gear list. Julie wouldn’t mind a bit. But I’m not going to, and I want to be straight with you about why.

There’s no one-size-fits-all setup, because there’s no one-size-fits-all YOU.

What works gorgeously in Julie’s space, with her brand, her light, her face, the story she’s telling, is not automatically right for you. Different room. Different light. Different level you’re stepping into.

And here’s the thing, Julie teaches this better than just about anybody. Her whole body of work is built on the idea that there are no borrowed formulas, that you don’t become more yourself by copying somebody else’s blueprint. So if I handed you her gear list, I’d be doing the exact thing she and I both spend our lives begging people not to do, take somebody else’s answer and try to wedge it into your life.

So no, I’m not gatekeeping. I’m just refusing to give you a one-size answer to a question that deserves a real one. Yours.

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What you’re actually asking for

Let me tell you what I think is really going on when you watch Julie (or anyone else with an awesome setup that you’re admiring) and find yourself reaching for the model number.

You don’t actually want her camera. You want what you felt watching her. That ease. That presence. That sense that what you’re seeing on screen is finally telling the truth about who she is and the level she works at. And that feeling has a cause, but the cause is not a product you can add to cart.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand after doing this for a couple of decades. The problem was never that you’re not impressive enough.

You’re already the real thing. I know it, your clients know it, the people in the room with you feel it the second you open your mouth. The problem is that the default webcam you’re using is handing back a smaller, blurrier, slightly-off version of you. A stranger who’s almost you but not quite. And every day you show up on a screen that’s quietly under-selling you, and that gap is costing you…

My whole job, really, is closing that gap. Getting the screen to show the person who’s really (and already) there. I’ve watched it happen more times than I can count, that little moment when the setup finally clicks and someone sees themselves on screen and goes quiet for a second. “Ohhh…There I am!” That’s the whole thing. That’s what you’re actually asking for. Not a camera. That.

Bob Proctor understood this decades ago, by the way. He knew that if he was going to teach million-dollar ideas to the whole world, the room had to match the level, so he went and built his iconic, million dollar studio in his back yard. The good news is that here in 2026 it no longer takes a million dollars to look like a million dollars. But it does take knowing what you’re doing. Or knowing somebody who does. (Hi.👋)

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So here’s my real answer

Next time you catch yourself asking “what camera should I get,” try gently swapping the question. The better one goes like this: “What do I want people to feel when they see me, and how far is that from what my screen is showing right now?”

That I can help with. The camera question, not so much, and not because I’m holding out on you. It’s because the model number was never going to be the thing that helped.

If you want, I’ll just look at where you are. I offer a complimentary On-Camera Presence Audit, a short call where I can actually see your current setup and your space, hear about the work you do, your goals, and your timeline, and give you the honest, specific next step that makes sense for you. Sometimes that’s a couple of small tweaks to gear you already own. Sometimes it’s the full custom GlamCam Studio™ build. There’s more than one way in, and the entire point of the call is to find yours.

👉 Click here to learn more and schedule your complimentary On-Camera Presence Audit. 📸

No existing setup details required. Just come as you actually are. Turns out that’s the whole thing I’m trying to get on screen anyway.

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Below: Julie’s before and after. Same brilliant woman in both. The screen just finally caught up to the real her. Julie Ciardi-50 Not Finished📕