A monitor is a mirror that also glows. Every reflection in your BIOS footage was put there by a light in the room — usually one behind you. Arrange the light once and every take gets cleaner.
When a phone films a monitor, it records two pictures at once: the screen's own light and the room reflected in the glass. The second picture is the problem — your silhouette, a window, a ceiling tube light, all floating over the BIOS text. The encouraging part: reflections obey simple rules. Light behind the camera reflects into the lens; light in front of or beside the screen mostly does not. This page turns that rule into a lighting setup you can arrange in five minutes.
Before changing anything, sit where the phone will sit and look at the monitor while it shows a dark screen — a powered-off monitor or the black POST screen works. Everything you can see in the glass is a reflection your recording will fight. The usual suspects are a window behind you, a ceiling light, and a bright wall or door. You do not need a dark room; you need those specific reflections gone or dimmed. Move your head a little: the reflection that sits right over the BIOS text area is the one that matters most.
A little ambient light is actually good: in a pitch black room the bright screen makes the phone expose harshly and any stray reflection glows. Aim for dim and even, not dark.
The BIOS gives you no brightness control of its own — the picture brightness is the monitor's. Set the monitor to a comfortable middle, around half to two-thirds, before filming. At full brightness, white BIOS backgrounds bloom on camera and the exposure fights you all take; too low and the camera raises its gain and the picture gets noisy. If the monitor has a blue light or night mode, turn it off for filming so the colours stay honest. Change these on the monitor's own buttons or menu, and note the settings if the PC is someone else's daily machine.
Some filming spots are fixed — a client's office, a server corner, a classroom. When the lights cannot move, move the geometry instead: angle the monitor a few degrees, shift the phone slightly off centre and re-square it, or film at a different hour when the window light is gone. A matte screen protector on the monitor helps some setups, but buy nothing before trying position changes — in most rooms, thirty centimetres of movement removes the reflection entirely. And be honest with viewers if a faint reflection survives: a readable screen with a soft shadow beats a re-shoot that never happens.
Check your lighting on the brightest screen you will film (usually the white BIOS menu) and the darkest (the black POST screen). A setup that survives both will not surprise you mid-walkthrough. Lock the phone exposure after the lighting is set, because changing lights after locking means the lock was set for a different picture. Do the lighting once, in this order — arrange room, set monitor, lock camera — and the session stays stable from first boot to last.
Watch the full video to see the clean, reflection-free BIOS footage this lighting setup produces.
Watch Full VideoThe monitor glass reflects the room, and you and the phone are in the brightest part of it, lit by light behind you. Dim the light behind the camera, wear darker clothing, or shift the phone slightly — the reflection fades fast.
Dim and even is better than pitch dark. In total darkness the bright screen dominates the exposure and any small reflection stands out. Soft light beside or behind the monitor keeps the balance comfortable.
Around half to two-thirds of the monitor's range. Full brightness makes white BIOS backgrounds bloom on camera, and very low brightness forces the phone to add noisy gain.