The Enthusiasm Project
The Enthusiasm Project
Is Camera YouTube Dead?
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From the Canon 5D Mark II in 2008 to the insanely awesome mirrorless cameras of today, YouTube has always been THE place to go to nerd out about camera gear. But as tech matures, creators evolve, and audience tastes change, something feels...different now. What does that mean for "Camera YouTube"?
🎙This week's mic:
Shure Super 55
https://geni.us/ulcA (Amazon)
⚙️ Gear of the Week:
Rode XLR Cables:
https://geni.us/bluexlr (Amazon)
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——————————— CONNECT ———————————
Electronic Mail: tom@enthusiasmproject.com
Main Site: https://himynameistom.com
Social Medias: @sodarntom
——————————— PODCAST GEAR ———————————
•Rodecaster Video: https://bhpho.to/3Ub88j2 (B&H)
•Rodecaster Duo: https://geni.us/ULKDFkp (Amazon)
•Elgato Prompter: https://geni.us/elgatoprompter (Amazon)
•Mic Arm: https://geni.us/zc7hAbW (Amazon)
•Elgato Stream Deck Plus: https://geni.us/EzyY6o5 (Amazon)
•Headphones: https://bhpho.to/3JNacqg (B&H)
•XLR Cables: https://geni.us/bluexlr (Amazon)
S13E07 | Series Episode 181
Podcast Artwork by Kevin Ramirez
Original theme music written by Patrick Boberg and performed by Mike Alvarez
Thank you, hello and welcome. My name is Tom. This is the Enthusiasm Project, season 13, episode 7. I can remember these numbers and names of things. And welcome to another episode.
Speaker 1:Got some fun and interesting stuff. I've made some. I've made some cool timelines in my keynote presentation for today. So I'm excited to kind of share that.
Speaker 1:We get to talk a lot about cameras today. I haven't I feel like I haven't talked about cameras in a while. That is one of my favorite things and it used to be something that I talked about. I mean, it is still something I talk about nonstop in life, but it really, you know, I don't know, just feel like I haven't talked about cameras in a while. So we're gonna talk about that, talk about some other stuff that I've been working on and some cool gear. And as we shift gears, before we get into the main topic, of course, it is time to talk about the mic of the week, because again I am using a different microphone on all 10 of these episodes for season 13. And then at the end we will do a vote to see which one I don't know see if there's a clear winner. I need to also figure out how to do the vote between, like the audio version and the YouTube version. How do I add things? I don't know, we'll figure that out. I feel like a Google form probably is an answer or something. But this week I'm using one of my favorite microphones that I've honestly been neglecting a little bit For whatever reason, I don't know why, and once I started using it again on a stream, a podcast earlier this week that I was doing with someone else, it's like yep, this is, this is the way to go, the Shure Super 55.
Speaker 1:So if you're watching the video version you can see this is basically the Elvis mic. This is kind of that classic, you know. It's the mic emoji mic, basically that real retro style design. Shure has been making microphones that look like this for many, many decades. The Super 55 is one of two microphones that Shure currently makes that look a lot like this. There's this one, the Super 55, which has an MSRP of $249. And then there's the 55SH, which has an MSRP of $199. And that's probably the more common one, because it's basically like a silver microphone with a black you know windscreen. The Super 55, believe it or not, is my favorite and it has a blue windscreen, which I know that makes me biased right off the bat.
Speaker 1:But the difference in the Super 55 versus the other one is that it is a super cardioid pickup pattern. That's why it's called the Super 55. And basically what that means is it's a more directional microphone. The regular 55SH has a cardioid pickup pattern so it kind of picks up things over here, whereas the super cardioid is a bit more directional, so as soon as I get away from the microphone it drops off. You know more like it. Just it is a more directional microphone, so that can make it better for you know less than ideally sound treated spaces. But it can also make it better for live performance situations, obviously. Obviously, microphones that look like this are great in live event situations, and I totally lost my train of thought there. This microphone is great in live event situations, not that it only has to be used there, because you can totally use it at home. So that super cardioid pickup pattern is great. I also think that this is a better sounding microphone.
Speaker 1:I do have videos that compare the 55SH and this, and even I have another video that compares some lower end like retro style microphones, because this is such an iconic or my iconic microphone that it looks that lots of companies copy it. You know some with success, like Monoprice makes some pretty sweet. I think it was called the Memphis. It doesn't look exactly like this but it's, it could be a cousin to this microphone and it sounds awesome and it's like under 100 bucks. So there's some cool options. And then there's, you know you can go on Amazon and find like retro microphone and it's, you know you'll find something for 15 or $20 that kind of looks like this. And then you get it and you realize it's very lightweight, it's very plasticky, this is built like a tank, it's all metal. You know it's a Shure microphone which you can usually be sure will last you probably longer than you'll be alive. So yeah, so that's kind of a cool thing.
Speaker 1:A weird thing with this microphone and maybe a reason that I don't always use it as much as I want. If I uncrop my shot here a little bit, you kind of see I have it mounted on the how's it say GoXLR. I definitely don't have it mounted on that, on the WaveArm Pro, the Elgato WaveArm Pro. A tricky thing with this microphone you can kind of see in the image on the keynote presentation is at the bottom of it the 5.8 mic mount and the XLR port are right next to each other because it's really designed to be on a traditional mic stand, like a mic stand. That's just a tall stick and then the stick can go into the mount for the microphone and then the XLR cable can just run right down along it and be, like you know, clipped. It's very neat and organized for cable management.
Speaker 1:If you try to take this microphone, you put it on a boom arm or something or, you know, use it in home studio podcasting, setup kind of stuff, like lots of us do. Now it gets a little trickier sometimes to mount and so what I do actually have on here is a little mic extension tube. These are super affordable. I use them all the time. You can get like four packs for $10, $15 on Amazon and they're basically just like three inch extensions that make your boom arm or whatever, just give you a little more room and that way it's easier to run the cable.
Speaker 1:If I just tried to mount this on the arm itself, it would. It'd be a little tricky and prior to having low profile arms and strong low profile arms like this, elgato right here something I did a lot when I was using this microphone in the past is it would kind of be mounted sideways because I'd have it on like a Rode PSA1. It was always a little bit tricky to mount and I haven't. I haven't tried exploring it more since, you know, getting more updated boom arms and things, and it really has made a difference. I'm trying to position it right in the middle of the frame because now I can actually have it standing up the way it's intended Right in front it's. It's cool. I haven't been able to position this microphone this way before and I really like it. So anyway, I love this microphone, love the pickup pattern, love the way that it sounds, love the design of it. It's a cool one that I've kind of rediscovered my love for, you know, in the past week as we're doing this. So that's this week's microphone and then we've got three more after that.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to use microphones that are actually available. I have a couple of microphones that like are out of production, but I don't really want to use those because ideally I would like people to be able like if they like the microphone, they could also get it. I don't want to be like, hey, the best sounding microphone, the one that won the poll and the vote for this season of podcast. Things is something that you can't get. Like my friend, doc Rock did send me the Neat King B original version, which I have sitting over in a box, and that's awesome and I'm very excited for that, but it's out of production. So there's like I don't know, it's a wonderful microphone and I'm excited for it, but it's like there is a part of me that's like well, if I make a video on it, it's just me sort of going like look at this cool thing you can't buy. I guess you go on eBay. It's like an old camcorder I guess you could go on eBay or something and buy it. But and that's what we are using right here.
Speaker 1:Moving on to today's main topic, which is a relevant one, I think, based on a lot of online discourse that I've seen Is camera YouTube dead? Sounds like a clickbait title and thumbnail, but it is not. So camera YouTube the thing that brought me into YouTube many years ago, a thing that has been around since, you know, around 2008. Obviously, people have always been talking about cameras on YouTube, but when I'm talking about camera YouTube specifically, the thing that I'm really talking about is. It kind of starts with the release of the Canon 5D Mark II back in 2008, because there were always. You know, obviously you needed a camera to do YouTube at all right, like to make a video. In 2005, when YouTube started, you needed some kind of camera. 2008, when the Canon 5D Mark II incorporated video into it, that was that first time that people were able to basically use interchangeable lenses on giant sensors on. You know, the 5D Mark II is not a cheap camera in the $3,000, $3,500-ish price range, maybe closer to $4,000, kind of depending and that is, you know, back in 2008. So, I don't know, with inflation that's like $48,000 now or something.
Speaker 1:It was very unusual to see people, just normal people, be able to create footage that looked like that and so that kind of sparked the DSLR revolution. I don't know 100% how true the story is because I can't find the source, but ages ago I feel like, I read an article in one of the photography magazines or blogs or something where it was talking about the development of the Canon 5D Mark II, which was a full frame photo camera, because there had already been the 5D Mark, the Canon 5D Mark II, which was a full frame photo camera because there already been the 5D Mark I. 5d Mark II is coming out. A lot of the use for it was for photojournalism and they it wasn't the first DSLR that shot video. I believe there was a Nikon that shot video first, but it was like I don't say it was unusable, but kind of it was like the concept of video but versus like something that's usable video. And the story I heard, the story I read, was that it was kind of it's almost like multiplayer mode in golden eye for Nintendo 64, where they they built out the game and like literally like before like very close to release, like one developer was like oh, we could do this really cool multiplayer mode, like let's just throw that in there. Whatever, it's like an afterthought. It became like the most popular thing that the game is known for. So the 5D Mark II is kind of like I think we could do some video functionality in here, like and you can sort of tell it's an afterthought because the camera like doesn't have any dedicated video controls. It has a mic input. So that's really the thing where it's like okay, it seems like they wanted you to record video, but the record button is just like the center button on the dial, like there is no dedicated switch to go from photo to video mode. It's even getting into the video mode, is? It's not like an advertised feature? It really does seem like something that in a big way was just added in, you know, at the at the end of the camera's development phase, and the reasoning was, if a lot of photojournalists are using this, it would be really helpful for them to also be able to like grab interviews and b roll footage. So you don't you don't just have to take photos, but if you're trying to put a video clip online or grab something even for, like, your local news or whatever, you can just use the same camera, grab that and it's cool.
Speaker 1:But prior to that, if you wanted something that was really good in low light, that had shallow depth of field, that just sort of had that crisp crispness and that cinematic filmic quality, it really wasn't attainable. Like camcorders kind of had some modes that would sort of replicate 24 frames per second. You could sort of like tinker around with you know, like sort of lenses that could mount to things, but it really it was like you needed to get. You know, red was really big at the time and that was pretty revolutionary. Red-volutionary because prior to that it was what? Like a Panavision camera. You'd like rent a Panavision camera that wasn't even available for individuals to own if you wanted, like a movie camera and that is not in the budget of most people. And then you're also shooting on film. And then RED came out with, you know, like 4K cinema cameras that could use interchangeable lenses and could look pretty much every bit as good in a lot of ways as traditional movie cameras, and they were down in like the five figure range and which is still very expensive, but at least, like a small company could afford one or two. Someone could take out a small business loan and get one or so. It was less unattainable.
Speaker 1:And then the 5d Mark two comes out. It's, you know, whatever $3,500 will say and can shoot footage that looks almost exactly the same as the red. I know, I know it's not exactly the same, but, like in 2008, it was, it felt pretty much the same and that was where it was like, oh my god, like suddenly everything changed. It really was, it really really was a revolution. And I feel like now we're being so used to the fact that our phones have cinematic modes we kind of forget what a huge deal that was and you know Canon kind of kept with that. So the 5D Mark II in 2008,.
Speaker 1:And then there was the 7D in 2009, which was like basically the crop sensor version, and that was the one. The 5D Mark II always felt way out of my like. That was the one I wanted, but it was like not ever going to be possible. The 7D I think it was like $1,800, $1,900 MSRP around then still felt like impossible. I never got one because it was at the time I was like a poor college student. I couldn't get this but I really wanted it and that was the one. I was like I remember watching lots of YouTube videos where it was just someone would put you know, 45 seconds of footage from a 7D and just out of focus shots of their neighborhood or whatever, and I'm like this is amazing.
Speaker 1:And then there was the T2i in 2010. I know Canon did have the T1i, which is like their Rebel series, their more entry level camera. The T1i did have some sort of video thing. I think it was limited to 720. Again, it was kind of like not super usable.
Speaker 1:The T2i was an under $1,000 camera that had, in a lot of ways more video functionality than the 5D Mark II did, and same with the 7D, because the 7D was where it was like. There's actually like a switch that will let you switch between photo and video mode. There's actually a dedicated record button for video mode, like a lot of the 5D you know people would install they'd still do it with later cameras too but they would install magic lantern, which was like, um, not like bootleg firmware, but it's like third party firmware that would give you more, more video centric features that the camera just didn't have, because and now it's a lot of those features are things that you would just expect to be in any camera you buy that shoots video. But at the time it was like it was so limited. Sometimes people would do that to sort of unlock more functionality, and you know it's like no camera was shooting log or anything, I don't think at the time but you could sort of like you could sort of almost put LUTs on your footage to make it look like log footage so you could then try to grade it and it was, you know, but it was really cool, like that was a very fun experimental time and that really really was like a huge deal and it was very cool that it got scaled down. So the T2i was a camera that I ended up getting and at the same time, too, as Canon's doing this, you know. That kind of made them the default, which is why, when I switched to Sony cameras several years ago, like I was so frustrated with Canon because I was like you had it and you just you dropped the ball, which they did, and I feel like they've recovered in terms of what they offer. They've recovered pretty well now, like the R series cameras are awesome, but it's like they got so comfortable and complacent where they were. They were kind of the go-to only option for such a long time and but as that was happening, other companies were paying attention to stuff right Like micro.
Speaker 1:Four thirds cameras were coming out which are mirrorless cameras bigger mirrorless crop sensor, full frame mirrorless cameras, if you remember, like the early Sonys, you know, in like 2014, I think maybe the first A7 came out somewhere around then and it was like this camera has terrible battery life, overheats like crazy, but the footage looks amazing. Also, there's no autofocus, I don't think, or no good autofocus, but the footage does look amazing and the low light performance is unlike anything we've ever seen in a camera before and it's like is this what mirrorless cameras are going to be like? And then micro four thirds cameras came out, which was basically like now we can do 4k stuff, we can do all kinds of cool stabilization. The whole point of a micro four thirds sensor was basically now, you know, you can get a full frame mirrorless camera that doesn't overheat, that has good stabilization, that has great autofocus, all these things. 10 years ago it just wasn't possible to do that. It's the same way like I kind of rant sometimes about why video switchers don't have 4K modes because it's just currently technologically not really possible. But you know, in five, 10 years it'll probably be pretty common. We're just not there yet.
Speaker 1:Going back to micro four thirds, it was sort of the same thing If you wanted a camera that could have good battery life, have all those features, not overheat, you needed a smaller sensor. And so companies, you know like Lumix, came, panasonic and Lumix came out really big with micro four thirds, which opened up a lot of options for people. Sony was obviously then like going really hard down the mirrorless road, and that was big, like there were big things happening all the time road and that was big, like there were big things happening all the time, right, like every new camera release was a big deal, progress was being made, like there were huge changes, as people were also jumping in and discovering like I could actually make this stuff and prices were coming down. It was, you know, it really was a crazy, a really awesome time and I think we kind of forget sort of how big that was a lot of the time. And then, as time goes on, things kind of plateau.
Speaker 1:Like now, you know, you get a mirrorless camera from any of the main companies, get a Sony, a Canon, a Lumix, an Olympus, a Nikon. They're all pretty awesome. You know there's nothing really to complain about. Some might be more suited to others, or you might like the lens system of one camera or over the other or whatever, but it's like you're not going to get a bad camera, you're not going to, you're not going to have the extreme limitations that kind of did exist in the past. Like you know, if you want 4k, you're only going to be able to shoot for minutes at a time, like literally four minutes at a time. Maybe you want good autofocus? Okay, well you're. You know it's going to limit you to this kind of thing like that doesn't really exist anymore.
Speaker 1:And so actually I kind of I was thinking about my own personal like camera timeline because again, this that was a crazy you know decade plus of camera development. And so I I was thinking of you know for me what it kind of started with. I mentioned that I got the T2i, but that was not my first DSLR, so I don't, I don't want to go through every camera I've ever had. So I'm not going to talk about, like GoPros and action cameras or webcams or point and shoot cameras or anything. We're just going to talk about my journey through DSLR and mirrorless cameras and I'm curious if this matches up maybe with yours and maybe also can give you some perspective about where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1:So the I always kind of had. You know I've always had camcorders since I was a kid. I've talked about that many, many times, whether they're hand-me-downs or something I saved up for Getting into like later. Well, actually I had little. I don't know if you remember, but Canon had like these, they were called ELPH, e-l-p-h cameras and they were film cameras, but they the film wasn't like a thing you had to roll, it was like it was just like a little film thing. You popped it in the camera, like roll the film. It was very easy. It's like easy film camera. You couldn't like preview your image or anything. So I kind of always had something like that.
Speaker 1:From like middle school, high school, I think it was like mid high school I got my first digital camera which, like was this like Polaroid thing? That was very I don't know 164th of a megapixel or something like. The image quality was not great, but it was still like hey, I can put images on a computer. That's amazing. What can we do? Like that's cool. And so I kind of always had like a and then always had like a point and shoot camera. I just remember, like you know, some kind of Canon elf. They went to their like or was it? No, yeah, I just liked that, I don't know. I just always had like a, whatever Canon's little like point and shoot camera was. I think some of them actually could do video as well, but it was like I don't know what you would do with the video. It was like 360p, standard definition, four by three resolution. Like there's nothing you can really do with the video, especially for YouTube. Where are you even going to upload that? I don't know, but it was fun Going into DSLRs.
Speaker 1:I remember, like as someone who's kind of always flipped back and forth between like sometimes I really get into doing video specific stuff and sometimes I get really into doing photo specific stuff. I really, you know, video on DSLR wasn't a thing at this time and I really wanted, I really wanted, like a real camera, a camera with the lens. So I saved up a bunch of money. I remember order. I remember sitting in my little like college apartment and then like pacing back and forth with the order confirmation page on B&H, photo of like do I order this camera or not? I think I ordered the Canon XTI in 2007. That's not when the camera came out, that's just when I ordered it in 2007. It came with the 18 to 55 millimeter lens. I think I remember the total being $845 for the kit, which is pretty good. But that was like yeah, I don't know barring like rent or like some like life necessity kind of thing. I don't know that I'd ever really spent that much money on it. Maybe a computer, I think? Yeah, in 2006, I bought my first Mac and I had saved up for like a year and that was $2,000 to get the iMac that I got. Otherwise, this was like the most expensive thing I ever bought and the iMac at least was justifiable. Like I need a computer, like I am in college, I need a computer. I also want to be able to like edit video, and photo Makes sense. This was like not a necessity and I was just so nervous, but anyway, I got the camera. I love that camera. It was awesome Ended up getting a couple lenses for it, Because, again, that was the thing that was.
Speaker 1:I remember buying that camera was when I was like who would ever spend as much or more money on a lens than they would? The camera, the camera is the way cool part. Who cares about the lens? And I had the thought of, like why do I need a 50 millimeter lens? I have an 18 to 55 millimeter lens on the camera. Why would I like I can just put that at 50 and it's the same thing? Well, it turns out it's not the same thing, because when I got that camera, what am I going to do? I'm going to go to YouTube and I'm going to go hey, canon XTi, I'm going to see people reading or see reviews on that camera. This is also still more in the blog age, so you could find a lot of blog reviews of the camera and stuff. So I went and and looked at all those things and saw what people are using, and obviously the thing that popped up same thing with message boards photography on the NET like Canon message board.
Speaker 1:I went to Tons of people like get the nifty 50, get the 51.8, which at the time was under $100. I think now they're 200 or 200 plus dollars. At the time they would be under $100. You can get this 50 millimeter lens. So a couple couple months after I got that camera, I got the 51.8. And that was when it was like oh, this does things that the kit lens doesn't do. But that's why kit lenses are great, though is because they let you do a little bit of everything, so I can see you know what I like, what I don't like. Do I want to be wider? Do I want to be tighter? Do I want more background, like more low light performance? Whatever it might be and you know 51.8 was is still a good way to kind of dive into that without feeling too much pressure, and so that was I remember you know, of course I'm doing the thing. You're just I'm just in my apartment like artsy pictures of the remote control and things or whatever, and then you know.
Speaker 1:I then got really big into light painting where it's you know. Know you do like long exposures and do light stuff and I'll try to do like multiple ones and smash them together into like a gif or something to make animated, like lines moving around, super, like very fun, very creative. I did eventually get this is maybe that was kind of crazy. This may be like eight or nine months after getting the camera, I did get the canon 55 to 250 zoom lens, which is like such a good lens for the price I think it's like a $200 lens, $250 lens, such a good zoom lens. And then those were kind of like my three. You know it was fun because then then the next lens I got was in 2009. I was going on my first trip to New York City and I was like I don't have a lens that's wide enough. I want a wide angle lens to take like wide angle city shots, street shots, skyscrapers, all that stuff. So I got the Sigma 10 to 20. And that was like I felt so cool. I was like this is like a very specialized. Like I know I needed this lens for a specific. I was just very, very cool. Like I know, I needed this lens for a specific. I was just very, very cool. So those were the lenses I pretty much just had.
Speaker 1:And then my the next camera I got. So the X-Ti does not shoot video, it's a crop sensor camera. Forget the megapixel count eight or nine megapixels, something like that and it is just a photo camera. Then, in 2010, I got the T2i because it came out and shot video. I think it might have come out in 2010. I feel like I got that pretty close to the time it was released and it was also like 800 bucks and I was like, oh, my goodness, like it's the same price as my current camera, except it can do so much more because it can do video and I can still use all my existing lenses with it. So I don't need to buy the kit lens, I can just buy the or the kit with the lens. I can just buy the body only, which is very cool. And that's when I started realizing, oh, the value of being invested in the lens ecosystem. It's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:As time goes on, the T2i was just like such a fantastic camera, and that was where it was like I want to do so much with this camera. What do I do? So it's a lot of random footage of I don't know nothing but editing things together, or just you know lots of montages about nothing, but it's just like being able to film video in that way was crazy In 2010,. If you go to camera, youtube and you're looking at you know Dave Dugdale or Caleb Pike, who's still making videos and has his channel going, or you're looking at like the film right channel also still around, so much stuff. That was like helping you learn how to use these things and everybody was sort of discovering like different ways to do lighting, different ways to do camera, movements, focus, audio, like everything was just coming together and the T2i was such a was my cool window into that, and so I had that camera for a couple of years. And then I the next camera I got in 2013 was the 6DD. The reason being is I I wanted that flip screen, like the T2i and the XTi didn't have flip screens, and when you're doing video, like it was funny, because I actually have a very clear memory of it.
Speaker 1:I was teaching digital media at the time. So in 2012 is when I became a digital media teacher like full time. I started doing yearbook in 2011. So that had like photo things and a little bit of video elements, but when I was doing digital media full time it was sort of different. That was a nice excuse to like I gotta invest in myself, right for all these things here.
Speaker 1:And I had my T2i. You know like we had the cameras for the program, which was very small at the time. So we had like some Canon cameras there, like some 50Ds that didn't even shoot video. We had two 5D Mark IIs and then I got a bunch of 60Ds and stuff. But I remember being at an event and I had my T2i and I was just filming stuff like behind the scenes stuff and I saw one of my students had his own camera and it was a T3i that had a flip out screen and he was getting. We were both trying to get like this low angle and I was like literally smashing my face like into the ground to try to like get this to see what was happening on the on the screen, and he just like had his flip screen out and I was like I really need to flip screen None of these cameras that autofocus in video or anything either. And then the 60D was just like you know, it's a little bit bigger, a little bit beefier, flip screen, amazing camera. Really love the 60D.
Speaker 1:And then, though, my thing going all the way back to 2008,. I did always want a full frame camera. It fell out of reach by 2015,. I was in my teaching career as a full time digital media teacher, so it made sense to make the investment in a full frame camera and Canon released the 6D the original one. So I got that, which I lost my flip screen and I went back to just a regular flat screen. But then I had full frame video. This is the camera that I filmed my very first YouTube video with my drone, like how to get your Part 107 license, and that the 6D like not having a flip screen, not having video autofocus still amazing.
Speaker 1:That first YouTube video I had to set up. I was trying to set up to film. You know like kind of back behind where I'm sitting right now, and I remember like trying to get the focus was so hard. So I got like my bass guitar and set it up like in a stand and then I was using the head of the bass. I was trying to put the head of the bass where my head was going to be and then I could go behind the camera and like focus in so that was clear and sit there and then do a test clip. It was like so hard. I didn't have a flip screen and I didn't have a monitor and I didn't have autofocus, so it's like it took forever just to set up like the simplest talking headshot, but the 6D is great In the end of 2017.
Speaker 1:So at this point I'm like full into you know, wanting to build this YouTube channel. I think that was actually the month I hit 100 subscribers on my YouTube channel and I got the Canon 6D Mark II, which, oh, actually I still have it. I have it right here. That's right. I have don't worry, I have props if you're watching the video version my 6D 2, which was Heather's camera for a long time. She used this for a number of years after I upgraded from it.
Speaker 1:This camera is amazing because it's a full frame. You know, get your big, beautiful full frame sensor in there, takes great photos, but also then full frame video. You've got your dedicated photo video switch, but you got a flip screen. This was canon's first full frame camera with a flip screen, which people flipped out about because it's like pro cameras shouldn't have flip screens. That was a huge deal to me also. This was one of their first. I don't think it was their first, I think they had some maybe like t6s or something, but this was like the first camera that had good video autofocus where, like you could just I don't know the 70D had good video autofocus as well. I think that came out first.
Speaker 1:I had a bunch of those with my school program, didn't realize it had video autofocus because no DSLRs did, until I watched a bunch of Casey Neistat videos, realized he was using the 70D and I was like, wait a minute. I remember going into like the equipment room being like, oh, using the 70D, and I was like, wait a minute. I remember going into like the equipment room being like, oh, my god, we. I didn't mind that I taught my students manual focus because I feel like it gave them a better appreciation for the skill and the craft, but it turns out they could have been using autofocus and then it was a cool way of like how do you, how and when do you use this like you know all that kind of stuff, but anyway, 6d Mark II full frame camera, great video quality, flip out screen with autofocus. That was my next camera in 2017. Used this as my main camera on a lot of YouTube videos up until 2019, when I got Still.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I love all these cameras. That's why I can't get rid of them. The EOS R, my first mirrorless camera, full frame, no shutter, because it's a mirrorless camera. You've got flip out LCD. Of course, you've also got eye autofocus. So the 6D Mark II had face recognition, but sometimes it would kind of it could be a little hit or miss at times or it could be a little bit slow. The EOS R had eye autofocus so it'd go right on your eye and lock on a little bit better. Sometimes it would still randomly decide that the background is more important or something, but for the most part it was pretty solid and it also shot at a higher bitrate than the 6D Mark II, which I didn't see.
Speaker 1:This is me learning YouTube. I didn't know anything about this stuff. I was like full frameframe camera 1080. Full-frame camera 1080. They're the same, but what I noticed, especially if I didn't shave for a while and I had a little bit more shagginess on my face and I was filming a talking head part of a video is my stubble or my beard would get kind of grainy and pixely looking sometimes with the 6D Mark II and it was sort of strange. I was like I'm doing this in 1080. Everything's clear, I'm using good lenses, but it's just it's like too much, I don't know, information to be packed into the footage.
Speaker 1:And then the EOS R it looked. It's like the best looking 1080 you're going to get Like. It's so crisp and so clear and the autofocus was improved and all of like my chin wasn't like going into like a blocky mess of like pixelation sometimes. It was very crisp and clear because it could do higher bit rates at a 10-bit color depth, which doesn't it have to. Yeah, it has 10-bit.
Speaker 1:Am I a crazy person or was the a7s3 my first 10-bit camera? I can't remember a little bit. It had better colors. I'm not sure it had 10-bit, not, I think it could, but you had some limitations. Speaking of things that had with limitations, though, the EOS R also had 4k. So that was my first not technically my first 4k camera, because I had a little Sony point and shoot that did 4k limited and this did 4k. It wouldn't overheat but it had a huge crop in 4K and so that was really fun though, because it let me experiment with 4K in a time you know, going back 2019,. I was like it's hard to upload 4K videos. I don't even have a computer that can really edit them. Most people can't watch them, most platforms can't deliver 4K, so like it was not the necessity that we probably think of it as being today, so like it was not the necessity that we probably think of it as being today, but it was really fun to experiment with 4K on this camera.
Speaker 1:I found it being very useful for B-roll footage when I was trying to do talking head stuff. Even with my widest lens, the crop was too great. It would be like really cropped in and kind of uncomfortable. But when I was doing B-roll footage I could put it in 4K and the crop would then, you know, almost make my lenses look like macro lenses and I do a lot of B-roll footage of products that have small little buttons and features and components, and like I found that actually to be really helpful, especially because I was doing 1080 videos. So then it's like I could put that 4K cropped in footage on a 1080 timeline, crop it even further, and now it looks like I almost have a macro lens when I'm not using one. And then I kind of started putting 1080 footage on a 4K timeline and letting Final Cut Pro upscale it because the EOS R's 1080 is so good. It actually still looked quite good, and then when I had those 4K clips in there, they looked really stunning because it's actual native 4K.
Speaker 1:I did try playing around with, like the Metabones speed booster, which basically means it's an adapter. It's kind of expensive. It's an adapter you can put on the camera to help reduce the 4K crop, and then I did actually use it. I was actually able to film several videos. The autofocus kind of takes a hit in performance with the Metabones, but it still works, and I was able to kind of like start playing around with like what's the difference between 1080 and 4K? Is it worth it? The EOS RS 4K is really inefficient, though, and the file sizes just get absolutely massive, but that was kind of it was a it was it ultimately led to me in 2020.
Speaker 1:Feeling like I really do want a full frame 4k camera, and that's when Canon was releasing the R5, which I put in a pre order for, and then saw all the overheating drama and all the things or whatever, and then I canceled my pre order and I was like I'm just gonna stick with the EOS R. And then, uh, what? Maybe seven months after the, like the, the R5 was announced, then I just bought the uh, the A7S3 from Sony. So that's when I switched to Sony and we've talked about you know there's a whole podcast series about that, you know trying to figure out why to go from Canon to Sony and ultimately the a7S III was released in 2020. And it was just like the Jesus camera that everybody loved and it was. I got mine in 2021.
Speaker 1:It really, really didn't want to switch. I've talked about this before, but it was at the end of the day. At that time, when I looked at the things that I wanted full frame, 4k, really good autofocus, flip out screen, no overheating I can't remember a couple other things at the time there was only like, literally, this was the only camera that had those things available at the time, and so it was like, okay, got to go with it. So I got my Sony a7S III, which I got right here. So, again, you got. Now I've got a full frame camera with the flip out screen and amazing like the best autofocus I'd ever used at the time and dual memory card slots and 120 FPS in 4K and no overheating. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason why I bought this camera in May of 2021, loved it and then in December of 2021 or maybe November of 2021, I got my FX3.
Speaker 1:I was like, okay, I'm going full in on Sony here, which the FX3, is my main camera to this day. This is the one that I film most of my videos with. Obviously, I'm holding the camera, so it's not the one I'm filming this podcast with right now, but I, you know the FX3, the internals are the same as the a7S III. The body is different, and then Sony has released over the years, since these are now almost five year old cameras, they have released firmware updates that differentiate them a little bit more and their capabilities and things, which is it's sort of goofy. But yeah, I really love the FX3 because of the form factor, because you get the audio handle. It does have the built-in fan, so you, you, I've never had my A7S3 overheat, but the FX3, same with the FX30, like can't overheat, so it's, it's just been like the coolest camera. Ow, I hit my head with the camera, I said nice things about it and it hit me. So those, those were pretty great and I'm really glad that happened. I know some of you probably know this, but I got the a7S III.
Speaker 1:At one point I did have two EOS R's because I was like I needed a second camera. Heather was using my 6D Mark II so I was like, okay, I'll get another EOS R and it was really nice having two of the exact same camera for workflow because, like everything just matches. You know, you can, you don't even have to look at the back, they can just reach around the back of the camera, know what the buttons are, everything's good. So I sold one of my EOS Rs to help fund the, you know, the Sony purchase sold, like the Metabones adapter and even some lenses and things, which is why, like, yeah, going back to my cameras, I gave my XTi and my 6D to my mom, so she has those. I gave my T2i to a student who, I mean, I don't know if he still has it. That was a long, long time ago. I sold the 6DD to fund the purchase of the 6D. The 6D Mark II is still here and it was Heather's camera for a while.
Speaker 1:The EOS R, the original one that I got. I still have it and Heather didn't really use this. This has been was like my third camera still is like my fourth camera. Sometimes I use it. I actually use it a lot. I use it a lot for when I do mic'd up videos for hockey and stuff. I use this because I why did I? Oh, I probably don't need to use it.
Speaker 1:It was the only lens. It was the only camera that had a good zoom lens with autofocus, but now I have some Sony zooms. Yeah, I just even film vertically with this and it's a great camera. This is also the camera like filmed Heather and I's wedding, so I just can't get rid of it. It's such a good camera, even if I don't use it as much as I want. And then, obviously, I still have my three Sony cameras, even though I've only talked about them right now, because I got this one, I remembered how nice it was to have two of the same camera. I wanted to get another one and at that point, I was ready to invest in. Like you know, this was my full-time job in 2021. It was just crazy.
Speaker 1:This was a huge purchase to make after becoming self-employed and it did as great as this camera was it, honestly, for the first six months it kind of showed me how great the EOS R was, because I was like the footage doesn't look that much better Like things. It honestly took me about six months to not only get to understand how to use the Sony A7S III in a really good way, but to really start to then be able to work with it in a way where it felt like the EOS R wasn't able to keep up. I know there's the thing of like I'm still trying to match Canon and Sony colors, which can be a little bit tricky, but I felt like the EOS R was holding up a lot. So initially the A7S III I didn't regret it. I was like I'm glad I have this camera. It's wonderful, it lets me do things I couldn't do before. But it also showed me like, wow, the EOS R was pretty amazing and holds up really well. After about six months, when I was getting more proficient with the a7S III, that was when it was like okay, now I'm not wanting to cut to footage from the R as much because I'm noticing the difference in color. I guess the R is only eight bits, then the 10 bit. I was like who cares? Two more bits Turns out that's a lot of extra colors and a lot of extra color information and the autofocus was just a lot more reliable and it just I don't know.
Speaker 1:I just decided that I wanted a second A7S III, but if you remember in 2020, the shortage on everything, it was impossible to get one, like they just weren't available. You just couldn't buy one, and the only thing that was available that I could find at the time, at the end of 2021, was an FX3. There was like one brand new retail FX3 available online in the United States that I could find, maybe even on the internet, but I ordered this from Full Compass. It's like not one of my normal places like B&H, adorama, all those places, no options. So I ordered the FX3 because it's the only thing that was. It's literally was the only one. They had one in stock and it's the only store that could find that at any full frame Sony like the FX3 or the A7S III in stock, and I'm so glad I got it.
Speaker 1:I was a little bummed at first because I wanted that ease of like two of the exact same body. But then I very quickly realized like there's a lot about the FX3, even just things like the tally lamps and having multiple record buttons, so wherever you're at, it's kind of easy to hit a record button. You know, the audio handle became huge right away for me and that I felt bad, but it became my main camera, like right away. And then the a7S III became my secondary camera and, yeah, and then I was using my EOS R as like a hybrid camera when I needed photos as well. But that became a little bit annoying because it was like, if I'm going somewhere where I wanna do photos and videos, these cameras with their 12 megapixel sensors not the best for photos. They'd be okay, but not the best, especially if you wanna print things out kind of bigger or crop in and edit them in a certain way. The EOS R is great for photos, but then for video I was like, well, now, if I now I can only get, you know, basically 1080 video and I don't have like the cool stabilization, I can't do 120 frames per second.
Speaker 1:So January of 2022, I got the a7 IV, which is the camera that I'm recording this podcast with. So I can't hold that up right now and I got that specifically. Even though it's an expensive camera $2,400,. I got that specifically to be my like hybrid take everywhere camera. So if I want to do something that's photos, it's that camera. If I want to do photo video, it's that camera. If I'm going on trips and things, that's usually the camera that I take, because even though it's still crazy expensive, it's less expensive than the other two. So that's kind of my like do everything everywhere camera. So when I pop here for streaming so even though I'm bumping it down to only 1080 right now there's the a7 IV. I haven't had any overheating issues with it either.
Speaker 1:And then the other fun tidbit is Heather was able to get the. It's actually a friend gave us the Sony ZV-E1 for her, so she has. So that's what she's using now. She made the Sony switch, switched to 4K last summer. She's using the E1, which is basically like the sensor of the FX3, if I'm not mistaken, but in a smaller, compact body, and that's been absolutely amazing because she was using the 6D Mark II, which the thing about this, when you're using it for streaming and stuff, is it it has video autofocus, but it doesn't have clean HDMI out If you have autofocus turned on while HDMI is running out on the 6D Mark II, it keeps the box over your face so you can get rid of all the display information, but it will keep the focus box over your face. So the only way to get rid of that is to flip it into manual focus.
Speaker 1:So for all of those years, heather was using manual focus, which she didn't mind, because then the focus wasn't hunting or anything, but it was, like you know, she couldn't hold something up to the camera and have it focus on it. She couldn't move too far forward or backward. So, um, when she decided she did want to go to 4k and we were going to get the zbe 10 that's why, like, I borrowed one from sony, or I borrowed one from sony of the mark 2 and then the original from bnh, so that I could like try out those cameras, because we're going to get one for heather's studio so she could have 4k and she could have autofocus. And then we just ended up being given gifted a, an e1, which was just amazing it's nice to have nice friends um, and then it was, like you know, you got full frame 4k with autofocus and it's such a phenomenal camera. There we go.
Speaker 1:So that is my camera journey, the thing that the reason I want to share that is because it's fun for me to go down memory lane. You might have skipped the playback, that whole thing, I don't know, but I did want to look at the dates and this is what was sort of interesting, because you kind of notice, you know, I get my first camera 2007, then the T2i in 2010. So that's three years. I have that camera for three years, I have that 60D for two years, I have the 6D for two years, the Mark II for two years, the EOS R for two years and now we're going on four years with the Sonys. Like you know that I got them throughout the course of like an eight month period from May of 2021 to January of 2022 is when I like, assembled them and made that full shift over to Sony. But in my mind it's kind of like they're all older than the time I got them. So you know, I think the a7 IV came out in 2021. And the S3 and FX3 came out in 2020.
Speaker 1:So these are five year old, four five year old camera models that I've had for four years, coming up on four years, and that's the longest I've gone without getting new cameras or needing new cameras, and I have zero interest in getting a new camera, other than like the curiosity sake, like cameras are fun and I want to play with new cameras, but like in terms of feeling those limitations right, like, whatever it is, I need autofocus, I need to flip out screen, I need 4K, I need better autofocus, I need better bit depth, whatever. Those limitations aren't there, there's, there's, I feel, held back in no way by any of my cameras. So, other than just like, because I want to or something, there would be no reason to get a new camera and I think that kind of makes the point. Going all the way back to believe it or not, the topic that is related to this camera, youtube, going back from a time where things are changing all the time and it's very exciting to like, literally, you know, I know, whenever Sony releases like an FX3 Mark II or an A7 V or whatever, they're going to be better than the cameras I have, and I'm sure when I see how they're better, I'm like, oh, that makes sense, that's pretty cool, there's probably gonna be something I want about that, but there's, there's not going to be anything where it's like oh my god, finally, I can't, I honestly can't imagine there being that.
Speaker 1:Just because of where we're at with technology and so everything, there's kind of that plateau and everything has matured a little bit. You see, with everything. See with iPhones, right Like. See with iPods, remember, like the first iPod was this little green LCD screen. It's like you can put a thousand songs in your pocket and then every year it's like now you can have more songs, now it's got a touch wheel, now it's got a color display, now it can play videos, now it has a camera, now it's basically a smartphone Also. Smartphones exist and you see those iterate. But now you know phones for the past, you know, six, seven years have basically been the exact same same glass rectangles, you know, with slightly different camera specs.
Speaker 1:Things mature and then there's you can't keep innovating at that pace forever, which is fine, there's nothing wrong with that, you know. In a way that's a good thing. But it kind of makes the point to me about, like we're talking about camera, youtube and we go back to, you know, like those new periods of like, oh my gosh, this technology is becoming more accessible, there's new versions of it coming out, everybody's kind of grasping onto it to like it's been, it's sort of been around for a while and, yeah, like what does that mean? It makes me go back to think about, like wait, why did I even start watching camera YouTube in the first place? I personally because I can only speak for myself did not start watching camera YouTube to keep up with, like, new releases.
Speaker 1:If a new camera came out, yeah for sure, I would like to check out and see if someone got one and what they think about it. But that was like such a small part of why I started watching it. I started watching it to learn. I started watching it to better understand how to use these things, how to film with them. You know, and especially if you remember those early experimental things, there was a lot of like you know, here's how you make a homemade shoulder rig out of PVC pipe. Here's how you could use a camera slider. Here's how to connect a microphone to your camera and a lot of that.
Speaker 1:What I kind of liken it to is like maybe learning an instrument, right, like you want to learn to play the guitar. So you get a guitar and you go on YouTube and you search up like how to play one of your favorite songs. There's a very good chance that the person you watch is going to have a different guitar than you have. And if you're a beginner player, maybe you just got like the cheapest low-end thing that the store had. And if they've been playing a long time and they're teaching guitar and stuff online, they might have many guitars and they might have custom guitars and super high-end things. So they're not using the exact same thing you're using, but it doesn't really matter, because the way that they're teaching you how to play the song is the same. A lot of the technique stuff that they're sharing is the same. So it doesn't matter that they're running through amazing amps and pedals and all this stuff and you're running through like the whatever the cheapest amp that came with your guitar is like.
Speaker 1:When they say, like, make sure you know to keep your thumb position on the back of the neck and try to avoid having it roll over if you can't like. That applies to what it's so much more about, about the craft rather than the specifics. You could dig into the specifics if you want. If you wanted to know, like, hey, how do I, you know, set up this specific guitar, you could maybe dive into figuring out your specific guitar. If you wanted to learn more about pickups, maybe you wanted to change them out and you wanted to get real specific about different types of pickups to put in your guitar. You go down those things, but it was like it was.
Speaker 1:There was this really nice balance of gear versus craft and you know, you would see, like this is how to do something, this is what you can do with it, and then sort of more specific, more specific things, and I think that I think that was a really cool thing. Like gear versus craft, you might want the higher end thing, like I would watch film right and want the 5d Mark two that they were using in a lot of videos, but I knew I could do a lot of what I was seeing with my T2i and it would be totally fine. And it's funny because on YouTube there's a thing where people always say like, oh yes, it's not about the gear, it's about what you do with it. I think that's kind of dumb. Like I understand the sentiment behind it, but I like I have a whole episode which and I've talked about this a couple times of gear doesn't not matter.
Speaker 1:There is a certain point like, yes, if you're talking about if you have the a7s3 and someone else has the fx3. There are differences between those cameras. You're not going to be held back one way or the other like, you're going to be fine if you have either one of those cameras, and so that's where then we could talk more about like the technique and the craft. But even that can still be like. And there's a thing on YouTube where people go like I don't want to see what you use, I want to see what you make with it, and it's like no, you don't. Anybody who has posted like let me just post my short film, let me post my experimental thing, let me do whatever, versus like a review. You can very easily see what people want to see and don't want to see. People say they want to see I want to see what you do with the gear, not the gear itself. Absolutely, you do not. People don't want to see that.
Speaker 1:I think there's a good balance, though I don't think it has to be one or the other, I think then you flip to the other side, which is a lot of where, like camera YouTube has gone, and especially in the case of this place we're in now, which is like this tech plateau trying to cover every release, like when someone's videos are just the new releases of a thing. Like there's this new model and this new camera and this new camera and that one and this one and this lens and this. It's like sometimes that's fun because the stuff is relevant and interesting and the person's really excited about it. But a lot of people, it's like they sort of get into a rhythm where it feels like, oh, I just have to cover the next new thing, and when there's not a lot of differentiation between older things and newer things, that's a lot less interesting. And so that's where I feel like what's interesting is what can you do with those things?
Speaker 1:Not necessarily in terms of like, I just want to watch a bunch of bad short films. I was a digital media teacher for over a decade. I have seen enough bad short films to last a lifetime. I've made enough bad short films to last a lifetime. But but seeing different ways of using these things, how to incorporate them like maybe how different tools work with them, how to like there's a lot you can still learn. That's gear related. That doesn't just have to be like focus on a new piece or the newest piece of gear and I think that I think you can find that really good balance of gear, of gear versus craft, and that's that's maybe where we're like tech YouTube or not.
Speaker 1:Tech YouTube, camera YouTube is sort of stuck and so if we look at the creator side of things, there is this thing with that I've noticed on YouTube as it's grown, because this wasn't even possible until the platform been around for a while. But there are. We are seeing like different generations of creators, and I don't just mean age, but I mean like there is a difference between someone who is starting a channel today versus someone who's had a channel for five years, versus someone who's been on the chat chat form platform for 10 years versus someone who started, grew, did a thing and left. You know that's. Creators start, they grow, they evolve and they sometimes move on. And you can, you can sort of see, you can see people.
Speaker 1:You can see lots of people who, in the era that I'm talking about, where it's like, oh my gosh, just trying to get a DSLR to get, you know, put my prime lens on there and get some, you know, blurry footage of Christmas lights in the background all the way up to, you know, if you go to like a lot of the camera, youtube, like heavy hitting channels, the main names that you think of in that space, a lot of them now it's like you're using what seem to be full on cinema rigs. You're doing huge like it's. It's a very different level, not just in terms of what you're able to do, what you know how to do because they built their skills and their knowledge up over the years, but also of accessibility. You know that you're using a lot of gear, that a lot of people, the fact that, like I have seen in the past couple years, six to $9,000 cameras be released, you know, like big cinema cameras and people seriously considering like the number of people are like I should probably get that camera. Now, there's nothing wrong If you've got the budget for it and you want it. I say absolutely go for it.
Speaker 1:But to me it's like I'm at the point where when a $6,000 camera comes out, I go that's a cool camera, like maybe I'll see it in a showroom one day that I could try it. It doesn't even cross my mind that there's a thing to buy and that's. You know, like obviously everybody's financial situations and things are different, but it's like there's nothing that that's gonna bring other than maybe just fun of like, this is a cool camera. There's nothing that's going to bring to my capabilities that I don't already have. And I think you know you see a lot of people who are like, okay, the way that I make my videos is I have a $40,000 camera rig, when all is said and done, with the camera and the lenses and the attachments and the monitors and the this is and the that's and it's like okay, and the only way we can do what you're doing is to have what you have. It's not, it's like okay, and the only way we can do what you're doing is to have what you have. It's not, it's like you know, here I'm going to teach you how to like play guitar. I've got this super custom shop, you know, $7,000 guitar. For some reason you can only make this sound. You can only play this song on this guitar. So if you just got your Squire from Guitar Center, click away from this video. You can't play this song. So if you just got your Squier from Guitar Center, click away from this video. You can't play the song. It's like that's kind of how it feels and I feel like that there's some pushback there.
Speaker 1:I really really feel like a lot of camera YouTube has just lost the plot. Like, why are you doing this? I see so many people talk about like fatigue, of like trying to meet embargo deadlines and release days and cover new stuff and it's like do you want to do that, like? Do you do you want to do that? I remember you know something like I don't know. I mean, there are different products.
Speaker 1:I was thinking cameras specifically but you know there are certain things that when they come out, it just makes sense to be excited with. Like when the Rodecaster Pro 2 came out, it made sense. If you know me and you know the videos I make, it makes sense that that's something I was very excited about. So I did want to like get it as soon as possible. I wanted to make videos about it as soon as possible. It totally makes sense. I don't have that with like every other podcast mixer that comes out or that has come out since then. It's not like, oh, this other company made another podcast mixer. Let me like go out of my way to instantly try to like cover it, and I think that we went we talked about this a while back like covering things versus just sharing things. A lot of, a lot of people have shifted into the space of like needing to cover things and I feel like that does lose the plot a little bit. You know there was a lot of drama recently. That's kind of what sparked my thought of thinking of this episode.
Speaker 1:I've been following a bit of stuff YouTube videos, you know, threads online and posts and things of whatever the newest Lumix camera is. I don't know the bottle numbers, but it's one of their more flagship cameras came out recently and there's been like lots of sort of arguments and discussions about very niche features and performance capabilities of that camera that probably don't really matter in the long run. And there's also been I've seen creators, you know, because Lumix. Lumix has this wonderful thing where they pay for very extravagant trips for creators. They provide cameras and lenses for creators, whether they're given to them or they're just long-term loans, and then for some reason, everyone wants to drive home the video's not sponsored. And I know I will, as someone who walks that line of like just because someone provides something free does not mean the video is sponsored. When you were on trip number two or three of going to a, you know, a luxury trip to a luxury location multiple times in a row, and then you're you're cranking out content that needs to be released at a specific time. Maybe it's not sponsored, but it is heavily influenced by the company that provides that. There's just, it just is.
Speaker 1:And I've seen people feel like almost angry about that. And then I've seen people angry that their videos on this new camera aren't doing well and it's like well, you went to the same place with the same people and made the same video and released it at the same time about the same thing, and you're surprised that a bunch of people aren't watching that. Would you wanna watch that? Would you wanna watch the thing that you're surprised that a bunch of people aren't watching that? Would you want to watch that? Would you want to watch the thing that you made? Probably not Like, and that's you know, like.
Speaker 1:I obviously have all kinds of thoughts about situations like that. Not that they're inherently bad. I think those kinds of events, those kinds of trips, those kinds of experiences can be great. It depends on how they're handled, it depends on how they're shared. But it's like can be great. It depends on how they're handled, depends on how they're shared, but it's like we have gone from people being like look, how awesome it is to make this PVC shoulder mount. You know, go to Home Depot, you get some glue and you get some PVC pipe and now you can put your camera on a shoulder mount, get some weights on the back.
Speaker 1:We've gone from that to like like people being upset that the trip they went on for a new camera release didn't lead to as viral of a video as they wanted. And now other people like a niche feature of this great new camera is like slightly less great in some circumstances. And it's like what are we? That's what I mean when I say we have lost the plot. What are we doing? Like? What are we talking about? And that so much of it goes from covering to sharing. Like what is the difference when you feel the need to cover something versus just sharing what you're interested in?
Speaker 1:You know, like, and I feel like that's where a lot of people get mixed up and a lot of people almost don't realize their own evolution, personally and professionally as YouTube creators. You know if you've been doing this for a number of years and your skill sets and your access to equipment and things this applies to myself as well. If those things change, your perspective might change a little bit from what it was when you started, but if you're not willing to accept and adapt to that change, it's going to be kind of tricky there, and so I guess, to bring all that back, is camera YouTube dead, in my opinion? This is all just my opinion. I think what we knew is probably dead. The thing that if you were like me and you were just kind of addicted to camera YouTube back in, you know, anywhere from 2010 to say 2020, that whole decade it's probably dead.
Speaker 1:Things have changed. Tech has changed. Accessibility to that has changed. You know it used to be. If you wanted footage that looked like that, you had to get a DSLR. You had to learn how to use a prime lens, you had to figure that stuff out. Now you can pop your phone into cinematic mode and be like 85% there and everybody has that in their pocket. So, like things have changed, I do think it's still possible to bridge this, like this gap, though, between like covering and sharing this plateau gear versus craft. In a way, I almost think this plateau, like this tech plateau, where things aren't as exciting and crazy as they used to be, could even be beneficial, because for people who feel the pressure to cover things, it does open up more of that dialogue for the skill and the craft.
Speaker 1:And for people like me and maybe you who are interested in gear, like you just like it, I like the gear, I like the toys, I like tinkering. That stuff is half the fun for me. You can still scratch that itch even if, like a new revolutionary thing isn't coming out every year or every couple of months. Like you can still find cool new ways to put stuff together. I do think I think Caleb Pike at DSLR Video Shooter does a great job with this. Like he builds, like these crazy custom rigs. He does like 3D printing projects to make cameras more expandable, more accessible, more unique and customizable. You know there's stuff like that that I think can be a ton of fun and have a ton of benefit to people and be a great way to grow and build your skill set as well. But that's very different than I mean it's different and it's not like is that really any different than building a PVC shoulder mount from stuff at home depot?
Speaker 1:Maybe it's like kind of going back to why were you interested in this stuff in the beginning. What were you getting out of it? And there's still like there's always going to be new people who want to know more about this stuff. There's always going to be new tools that come out. There's always going to be new ways to use it, different, like and that's what's kind of cool is seeing how different people use different things differently. And then you can you can kind of piece that together versus everybody, just like new thing comes out, let's do the spec sheet thing and let's just all read the spec sheets and make the same video about it, like that's yeah, no one wants to see that anymore. But if you go back to the roots of what made it special and fun in the beginning, I think there are still parts of that and I still think that's there. And I don't necessarily think that that means it's what we knew is dead. But what we liked about it persists.
Speaker 1:And I will persist to the next section, channel check-in. We're talking about this, we're talking about YouTube, we're talking about creating let's talk about channel check-in stuff here Some fun things to share. So what I've been working on the next video coming out. I mentioned this last week because I had just sort of finished working on it. But the next video that I will be publishing is my review of the MV7i. Kind of a good example. This is a microphone that came out that I that I was like interested in because I thought it was cool but had no plans to make a video on. It wasn't like I need to get that pre-release and have that release day video made or whatever, but kind of interested in it. So when the opportunity came up for me to for them to send one out for me to check out, I was like, yeah, sure, I will check that out, sure, and I then decided like this is pretty cool. Knowing who watches my channel, knowing what I'm interested in, knowing what workflows are like, feels like a cool thing to make a video about.
Speaker 1:If you didn't listen to last week, you're unfamiliar with the, with what the MV7i is. It's basically a Shure MV7. So it's a USB microphone. It does have an XLR connector on the back, but it's an XLR input, not an output, so it's basically a microphone that's also an interface, or an interface that's also a microphone, however you want to look at it. So you connect the MV7i to your computer with USB and then you can plug another microphone into the back of your microphone and now you have two mic. It's a dual microphone interface. It's pretty cool and you can go into the Shure Motive Mix application it has, I think it has 65 decibels of gain. It can run an SM7B with no booster, but it also has phantom power so you can run condenser mics from your mic. You can run boosters from your mic if you need to. It's pretty cool. So the video kind of covers all of that.
Speaker 1:I also put together, finished editing a video this week called audio is half a video, which I think is really fun, and I got to incorporate some footage from my Canon GL two into that and that was pretty because I wanted to emphasize the point of people will tend to stick with something that looks bad and sounds good longer than they will something that looks good and sounds bad. So the video starts with like footage from the GL two, which does not look great, but I'm on the SM7B through the Rodecaster so it sounds fantastic and it's like it's fine. And then I switched to the FX3, which looks amazing, but I'm using the built-in microphone, which sounds terrible and it's like the footage looks wrong because the sound is wrong. So it's I wanted to go through and, kind of like, really exemplify my audio is half a video thesis that I've always had, and then and then I also wanted to give some practical tips, especially for people just starting out who wanted to you know, know ways to level up the audio in their videos, because I feel like the best way to instantly improve the quality of your videos is to improve the quality of your audio. I talked about the YoloBox Ultra review.
Speaker 1:Right before I made this podcast, I checked my email and there was an email in there that said YoloBox Ultra in 2025. Hear what a top AV YouTuber says. The entire newsletter was just about my video, which is so crazy, and I thought this was really cool. Like one, I just think that this is neat, like this is one of those, like I should send this to my mom and she'll be proud of me, kind of things. Finally, and I thought this was kind of a cool example, though, of like a win-win-win brand partnership, and when I say win-win-win, it's I'm not just like trying to sound like an office reference, but a win for me, a win for the company and a win for the viewer right, or the audience, like those three parties, if you can align those. I think that's a really cool thing to do. So the YoloBox Ultra like I mentioned, I've had the thing for well over a year.
Speaker 1:That was originally sent out under the ethics statement process. So there's no there's obviously no obligation to make a video because it had been a very long time and I talked about on here. I've used it, I like it. I just didn't know how to like frame it into a video. I literally tried making other videos about like simpler mixers, almost as practice to figure out how to approach the YoloBox. And then I did and it was great and the video has been awesome and it's been fun to see. There was no pressure.
Speaker 1:That was a video I wanted to make about a thing that I thought was cool. And they saw the video and they were like, hey, this is awesome. And they asked can we share this in a newsletter? And they said we're not going to download the video or re-upload or anything. We just want to share the link to your channel, to your video, which that's one of the things that's in the ethics statement as well is like I don't want my videos put my channel and they they're like, yeah, can we do that? I was like sure, I thought they would do a newsletter where it's like hey, also check out a review here. I didn't think it would just be an email blast. There's even a part that, like they go, they highlight in the email thumbnails from every chapter of the YouTube video. It's cool. But I feel like this is such a good example of that win, win win that can happen when a brand doesn't try to control everything Because they sent out the thing like okay, we'll send you the thing, share some feedback on it, which I've done even before making a video.
Speaker 1:Like I'm always happy to share feedback on products, even if I don't make videos on them, and a lot of companies like that's all they want because they think that's helpful. So they sent it out zero pressure. So I'm not under any pressure, I just get to use this thing. The more I use it, the more I discover it's almost like the A7S III, where it's like, yeah, it's pretty good. And then the more I use it, I'm like, wow, now it's. Now I kind of get it. It's kind of the same thing, like, yeah, these features are cool, it works neat. But the more I use it, even better.
Speaker 1:And so by the time I made a video on it, I felt a lot more equipped to talk about it, and the whole reason I even made the video was because I wanted to, so I was not under any pressure. I got to make the video I wanted to make. Nobody provided input on the video other than me. So there we go I get to make a cool video about a cool thing that I'm excited about. That's a win for me, for the company they get you know there's no doubt that they're sending this out on an email blast because it is a marketing bit of material, right, like they feel that this can help market it. They didn't edit or cut out the video, so any of like my you know, criticisms or whatever are still in there. It's still my regular video, but it's a win for them, obviously, because they think this is going to help promote their product. I guess all it cost them was a free product a year ago and I think it's a win for the audience because they're not getting, you know, just an ad. They're not getting a manufactured thing that I'm under pressure to make, but it's also now it's real specific. The person who's already on the YoloBox mailing list is probably gonna be a lot more interested in this than just a random person, right? So, like it's a useful video to the audience, the audience gets a useful video. I get to make the video I want, the company gets to gets a cool piece of marketing info and, like, everybody wins, that's. I just think that's a good example of how brand and creative partnerships can work to benefit everyone. And, yeah, that's what I'm working on.
Speaker 1:Last segment of the day is the gear spotlight. I was trying to figure out, like, what are some cool underrated things that I almost talked about a ladder that I bought last week, but I might. I might actually try to do. That's not audio video related, but I'm just excited about this ladder. It's a gorilla ladder, so if you know, you know. But this week my gear of the week.
Speaker 1:I really do want to share my excitement for the Rode XLR cables. I love these things. I've been using them I think Rode's been making their own cables, I don't know two, almost two years now. I could be wrong about that. These are great, like I had, I like them. Obviously, the thing that initially caught my eye is they come in bright colors. They come in seven different colors, I think. So obviously instantly. I'm like cool Cause I was going and you know getting six $7, whatever no name brand blue XLR cables I could find on Amazon and they were okay, except that they totally did like break from time to time and they stopped working and it was just like I couldn't trust them.
Speaker 1:They'd be prone to interference. So I got these. I've had no problem with these. I've used them a lot. I you know I'm using one right now that's permanently wired into this microphone here. It's running through a ton of electronic equipment zero interference there. I've never had one of these fail so far and I use them a lot Like I wrap them up, move them, set them up, different setups, like there's a reason I have a lot of them. So far I've never had one fail, which is very cool.
Speaker 1:I think they're a good price. You know they're not the $7 cable that I got before, but I knew that was crummy. The MSRP is $35 for a three meter cable and $46 for a six meter cable. So it's funny because you're like it's so much less of four, it's so much, it's not much more money for twice the cable. Why won't you just always get that? If you're trying to wire something up, though, and you end up with twice as much cable as you need. It ends up kind of being a hassle like just for cable management. So I have a mix of both. I have some of the $35 ones and some of the $46 ones. Rode has sent some. I've bought a bunch Like I yeah, I love these cables, they're great. Now I do have now XLR cables are interesting, and these ones specifically. They have Neutrik connectors, which is a good that's like kind of the best kind of connectors you can get on an XLR cable, and they are canary cables, so the cables themselves are high quality and they are canary cables, so the cables themselves are high quality, the connectors themselves are high quality.
Speaker 1:But I do actually have a video. If you are a channel member or even if you're still on the Patreon, I have a video with Alan from SoundSpeeds that I uploaded several months ago, where he actually visited. He was we're in this room together in person and I was asking about these cables, and he takes one of these apart and basically points out all the things that are wrong with it and the things he doesn't like about it. Alan is a professional I mean he's a professional sound guy but his main job. His main position is he's like a on-camera, like boom mic operator, is probably not encompassing enough for everything that he does, but chances are he's been doing that since, like, I think, the 90s, at least, or no, I think, the 90s, if not the early 2000s. Chances are, though. If you've watched movies or TV shows, or any you've heard, you've seen and heard something that was boomed by Alan, I can almost guarantee it over the years. So he's done like Marvel stuff and Netflix things and like big. Yeah, he's pro, he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 1:He even makes his own XLR cables, and he sent me one a while back and I was like he makes them by hand. He gets a lot of these same components, but higher end versions of them, and when he sent me the cable he said I thought this was just a huge flex. He was like don't use this cable on mic reviews because it's going to make the mic sound too good. It's like I thought it was a joke, but no, the cable is so clear and it's like impossible to the way. He puts like a ferrite core in there, like it cannot. It cannot be messed with with interference. So basically, what it means is like you're going to hear, the microphone sounds so clean that the average person, when they get their microphone and they plug it into a cable, it might not actually sound especially if they're listening in like a really nice pair of headphones. And that's what your review sounds like and they get it. They're going to have a hard time making it sound the same way. So he's like, only use this on stuff that you just you're using for the sound, not for reviews and comparisons. And it's true I've compared that cable and like things sound better through it. Um, but he makes those by hand every once in a while, so it's like I can't recommend go get one from alan.
Speaker 1:So I feel like these, which you can get from anywhere bnh, amazon road, directly, whatever, um, they're pretty good, they're they're they're affordable and they're in cool colors. They do come in black. You don't have to only get the bright colors. If you want classic black cable, you can still do that. Um.
Speaker 1:There is another brand, though, called world's best cables, which I think are actually some of the best cables. I haven't used them, but I've had friends that use them or that have tried them out, all of whom have been very impressed with them, and they are roughly the same price as the Rhodes. I say roughly because, like you can get for $30 or $35, you can get a world's best XLR cable, but the length is different. So, like the price per foot, price per meter of the cables, the world's best are a little more expensive than the Rhodes, but they're not totally off. There's some, you know you can find other boutique XLR cables that can be over a hundred dollars or whatever, and you know there's reasons and purposes that someone would want something like that and need something like that. If you have that video, if you have access to channel membership stuff and you want to see the video with Alan, it is interesting how he explains. You know what he does differently and what he would do differently if he's making these cables.
Speaker 1:But I do like to look at things from a practical, everyday point of view and as someone who's been using these practically every day for almost two years at this point I never had one fail and I've only. The only thing I've done is bought more of them because I want more colors and more sizes. And you know I love these cables. I replaced everything in Heather's office with them. They are my favorite XLR cables by far. I think they're the perfect. That's what Rode does really well Quality, price, reliability.
Speaker 1:The Venn diagram, like overlaps really really well, even though there are things out there that are a little bit cheaper, maybe not as good, things out there that are higher quality but maybe more expensive. Maybe you don't, maybe you don't really need need that as much. You know. It all just kind of. It all just kind of works. So I love these cables.
Speaker 1:That's going to be my gear of the week and that actually does wrap it up this week. We don't have much else to go through. I really liked my camera timeline, sorry. I had a lot of fun putting that slide together, so hopefully you enjoyed that as well. If you have any thoughts or anything you'd like to share, you can email tom at enthusiasmprojectcom. You can click the fan mail link in the show notes if you're listening to the audio version, or you could always leave a voicemail by going to hi, my name is tomcom and leaving a message for the podcast. Or if you're watching this on YouTube, you can just leave a comment as you do on YouTube. My first YouTube comment ever led to me meeting my wife, so you never know what will happen with the YouTube comment. With all that in mind, I hope you have a safe, happy, healthy rest of your week and I'll see you next time.
