Howdy folks!In today's episode we'll talk about whether ignoring YouTube could be the biggest mistake you have ever made as a photographer.Right after this.
Welcome to Camera Shake, where we bring you the insider scoop on all things photography and videography, giving you a unique opportunity to stay ahead of the curve.
As always, I'm your host, Christian Nutz, and before we get into it, I've got one thing to ask of you.I've noticed that over 65% of our viewers, that is 65, that's more than half,
on YouTube and Listen Listen Audio are not actually subscribed to this channel.I mean, come on, that's criminal, right?You can really help me out by hitting that subscribe button.It'll help me get even more amazing guests on the show.
Although, as I always say, I don't even think that's even possible anymore.It's just one click, though.That's all it takes.Thank you so much. Now, without further ado, let's give it up for today's special guest.
Photographer, filmmaker, YouTube legend, content producer and educator, Josef Linaschky, or as you might know him, Photo Josef.Josef, how's things, man?Have I revealed your true identity here for the first time?
No, definitely not the first time, but that was a good pronunciation.You got it right all the way through.So thank you.I appreciate that.How are you doing, Christian?
I'm very good.Where does that name come from?
A German supposedly, but you know, a little hard to tell with the Euro mutt that I am.
Joseph, your channel is very successful, very well known for your tech reviews and for your tutorials.What was the thing that originally motivated you to move from photography into the world of YouTube?
That's a good and very big question.So without taking up the entire duration of the podcast, just answering that one thing, my career, I've been doing photography for literally my whole life.
Since I was a little kid, I have photos of me when I was like seven years old with a camera in my hand.So it's really pretty much been forever.
And I was fortunate enough to be able to make photography a really important part of my entire youth, in school, in university.I studied photography in university and then my first job out of college was actually working for a software company.
It was kind of this idea of, well, now that I'm done with school and I've been doing photography for basically 20 years at this point, 15 years at this point, do I really want to keep doing, do I want to pursue a career directly in photography or do I want to pursue a career that might be more about
the tools of photography.
And so I kind of opted that way, ended up going into the world of software, worked for software companies, and part of that, you know, making software for photographers, and part of that trajectory put me on stage in front of people where I was demoing the software.
And so at quite a young age, very early in my career, I got this taste for presenting and talking about the cool tech stuff.And so that really defined the rest of my life.
And so since then, I've always endeavored to not only do photography, which eventually evolved into doing more videography, cinematography than still photography, but it's still, you know, it's a camera, just push a different button.
my, my career has always been about that, but it's also simultaneously always been about presenting that to people.
So whether that means talking about the images and the work or educating about how to do the work or educating about the gear that goes with it.And so it just kind of evolved, evolved, evolved over the years.And
I'm not exactly young anymore, and I've been doing this for a long time, and that's kind of how it's evolved.And I've been on YouTube for, I don't know, probably seven or eight years now.And it's just one of those branches.
It's just the natural evolution of what I've been doing my whole career.
And YouTube has really, I mean, the emergence of YouTube, let's put it this way, has really created a perfect platform for all of these interests and talents to come together, really.
Yeah, absolutely.I'm a total tech geek, so I love the nerdy aspect of all the cameras and the lighting and the microphone.And that's probably half of why I got into video anyway, because there's just more nerd stuff to do than with still photography.
And I love that technical aspect of it.And then doing,
youtube having to my youtube career actually started pure live i was doing live only exclusively live for like i don't know three years maybe i'm at one point i was doing five shows a week that's nuts um but that in itself is massively technical right there's a ton of tech that goes into live streaming and doing it well and of course when i started it wasn't just well i existed when i started you could just pick up your phone and go live to facebook but that was really really crappy quality and
Getting the quality of that live stream increased, getting it better and better, getting it higher resolution, better light, better sound, better camera angles, more camera angles, integrating all the different aspects of things that you can integrate in, comments and slides and just whatever, all was part of the journey and part of the joy for me.
So it was really fun to go through that whole process.And so it totally suited my personality.I'm doing the super techie, nerdy, geeky stuff that I love, while talking about photography and videography, something that I love.
And so it all just kind of comes together in this really nice little perfect harmony.So, yeah, YouTube really was a great path to that.
Did you have any sort of major kind of pitfalls when you first started out?Was there any, like, major disasters?
so I started my very first live show.It's kind of funny because I made a commitment to I'm going to start live and it was because live on YouTube wasn't even a thing.
It was live Facebook live and that was brand new and I wanted to get in early on something.I'd felt like a lot of these technological advancements I was late to the game and by the time I got in
People have been doing it for years and people were at, you know, hundreds or millions of followers or whatever it was called at the time.And I wanted to start something early.And so I got into Facebook Live when it was really early.
And the very first Facebook Live show I did, I had to be out of town, but I had committed, right?Like, I'm doing it, this is the date, line in the sand, I'm breaking this.
and I ended up having to be out of town and I was actually on a way to a funeral of all things and so I pulled over to the side of the road because it was you know Tuesday at 11 a.m.
whatever the heck it was and it's time to go live and so I pulled up my phone and I did a live and it was obviously horrible and that was the first live and Very quickly, I'm like, all right, so clearly the phone isn't the way to go.
And I probably knew that already.But then how do you do this with a proper camera and a computer and a capture card?
So I went through, this is way before the ATEM, I went through all different types of hardware, capture cards, trying to get, okay, here's one camera, can I add a second capture card over USB and get another camera angle?Yes, I can do that.
And it was using OBS because OBS is what you use, all there really was. And my God, the number of times that I built a perfectly configured OBS show, I've got my top downs and I've got my lower thirds and everything's in place and ready to go.
And I've tested it and I've saved it and I've backed it up and I've restored the backups and everything's good.And I go to go live and 30 seconds before I go live, OBS goes bye bye and it just blows up.
And my entire show disintegrates and the backups disintegrate. Multiple times I had this happen where the entire show and all of my backups of my show just blew up.They're just gone So that killed many a live show in the early days.
And that was enough right there to make you go, yeah, maybe I don't want to do this.
But I pursued, I kept going, and I ended up moving into a, excuse me, into a hardware-based solution, got into the ATEM and, you know, before the ATEM minis, but the bigger ATEMs.
And yeah, I just finally figured out that hardware was the way to go, but it was a disastrous series of steps getting there.And so many last-minute canceled shows and last-minute just blow up.
So you start to do a show in 30 seconds and it's like, well, I guess I'm off the air now for another week.And yeah.So yeah, there were a lot of mistakes in the beginning.Don't let that deter you.
It's totally easy to do now.I see that.You know, we started on Zoom.I mean, for the first, I don't know, 120 episodes or something, you know, I used to record interviews like this on Zoom.
And of course, Zoom, although it was sort of, you know, it was like the video call revolution, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, it also came with a lot of limitations when you're trying to actually put a show together like this, you know, and all of a sudden you need like, you need separated video files and blah, blah, blah, and all the rest of it, but then you have to edit everything.
And it's, you know, it's like, what, One of the major experiences that I had actually was that I think when we first started, the process was really simple.Like the workflow was really simple and we wanted to make it more interesting.
So we made the workflow more complicated because we went from like one camera.I mean, at the very beginning, we were in separate locations because you weren't allowed to meet each other at the beginning of lockdown.And so I had to record myself.
So we were talking to each other on Zoom, but I was recording myself on my Nikon camera.And then I would have to take that SD card.I would have to drive 25 minutes to where Nick used to live.
And I would literally put the SD card on the roof of his car, text him, say like, hey, it's there.You know, like a dead drop.It's like something you think, oh, man, what are they doing?
Um, but then, you know, when the time came that we could be in the same room, then we just thought, okay, we can make it look better.
So all of a sudden we had three camera angles, you know, and seven lights and like flip notes, how many mics and this and that and the other.And then of course the post-production part of it became. a lot more complicated.
And at some point, you know, you get to the point where you go like, well, can we do something?Can we simplify this process, but still make it look good or make it look better?
And actually just, you know, reduce the amount of setup time, reduce the amount of, you know, breakdown time and reduce the amount of, you know, post production time.Make an episode, but not like kill like two solid days making it.
Although it was fine during the pandemic, but of course as things were rolling back and going back to normal, that became an issue.In your original life, I mean, this is actually one of the reasons why I really like live kind of formats.
It's because you don't really have any editing to do afterwards, which is beautiful.
Well, yeah, and that's actually why It's one of the reasons why my original format was pure live.Part of it was because I missed doing the live presentations that I had earlier in my career and I wanted to do that again.
even then it was a couple times a year going to trade shows, standing up on stage in front of people and doing an event.I absolutely love doing that.But that's only a few times a year.And I didn't have, that just wasn't part of my career anymore.
I didn't really have that opportunity anymore.And so by doing YouTube Live, I could get some of that, even though the audience is not right in front of me.You don't have that feedback of the applause and the cheers and what on.
that just doesn't exist but at least you know there's people there you can see the comments so it's kind of like that but then not editing it was absolutely a part of it right that's why I was able to do five shows a week at one point because this became basically everything every day the
So in the morning, it would be the last minute prep for the show that was prepared the day before.
So last minute prep for the show, go live, do the show, and then the rest of the day is doing the final touches on that live, you know, thumbnail descriptions, all that sort of thing.
And then getting ready for the next day's show, figuring out what that's going to be, planning it all out. But yeah, there was no live, right?There was no editing.It was basically just it all went up there.
And now, you know, if I put out one video a week, that's a lot because it takes that long to shoot and edit.Of course, the quality is different.Everything about it is different.
But that was why I started doing exclusively live because I didn't want to have to edit it.
What were you talking about in your original live shows?What was the topic?
Again, it was all photography stuff.And so I would, photo and video, and live switching.So I would pick something like, I don't know, microphone, right here.Great, so there's an example.I got a mic sitting here.
So I'd be like, all right, today's topic is gonna be the Sennheiser, whatever, microphone.And I would, It was, you know, in the beginning, it was just gear that I owned.I'm poking around my studio.
I had a photography studio for years, so I had a lot of gear.Like, ooh, what can I talk about?Ooh, here's this thing.Okay, I haven't done a show on this.People like this thing.So I do a show about it and explain it, demo it, whatever it might be.
And then at the end, because it was live, ask questions.And, you know, the format of the show evolved heavily over time in how I structured it, but that was always basically the idea.And some of the shows were very simple technically, right?
Here's a product, here's what it does, done. But a lot of things got really technical to show.So for example, if I was showing a feature inside of a camera, well, the viewers need to be able to see through the camera and see the menu system.
And that would require a variety of inputs.And some of these shows had like 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 different inputs to make a show the way that I wanted it to be.But of course, that was the fun, right?
That was the cool, geeky, nerdy part of it that I loved.But it was all photography and photo and video based.
And of course, the really cool thing is that it's not that long ago when shows like this would have had to have been produced in like TV studios, you know, and there would have been absolutely no way that, you know, you would have been able to do that in your own, like, spare room or something.
Right.And my setup definitely was pushing towards the television studio side of things with the complexity.But, you know, that's just part of what it was for me.That was part of the fun.But yeah, absolutely.I mean, I was doing it all myself.Right.
At one point, I had an assistant and in the studio with me, but he was always
He or she, because I had a few different assistants over time, their role during the live show was never anything to do with the switching or any of the technical management like that.
The most that they would do is keep an eye on comments, respond to common questions easily.And I think at one point I had them queuing up the best questions for me, if there were a lot of them, so I could kind of make that flow a little bit smoother.
But the actual technical aspect of camera switching of course, setting up the lighting and everything beforehand, but the actual switching of the live show, that was always on me, never on somebody else.
And even in the earlier days, before you had some of the much easier switching systems that you have today.
That's the one thing I always used to like about creative life, actually, was that they had somebody in the studio, you know, reading out questions as they were obviously producing the main course, which they were also, I think, streaming live at the time or however they did it.
But I thought that was quite a neat sort of thing.How do you do that now when you're doing live?Do you still do lives?
I haven't since I moved and I need to again.So there's kind of a funny progression of my live to edited videos story and how that happened.
So I was doing lives, like I said, at one point I was doing five shows a week and then I think I dropped everything down to three a week at some point.But that was it, right?That was all live.
And maybe I had uploaded one or two edited shows, but it was all live.And then, so back, Apple used to stream their keynotes on YouTube.Now it's, you know, it's just there.Maybe it's on YouTube, whatever.Apple streams their keynotes.
And at some point I had this really funny idea that I would simulcast the keynote and stick myself in the corner as like a silhouette, little MST3K style.And I'd be there in the corner commenting over it. And it was brilliant.
I'd get over 1,000 people watching the stream.And of course, invariably, there's somebody in the stream going, well, you told that guy to shut up.Why does he keep talking?And everybody else would jump on.I'm like, dude, you're in a simulcast.
You're here for the commentary.Go watch the original stream if you don't want it.So that was fun.I did that for, I don't know, probably half a dozen different Apple keynotes I did that for.
And then one day, I'm doing one of those, and I'm maybe 5 or 10 minutes into the keynote, and I go offline.I'm like, You know, what just happened?I'm scrambling.And I actually had a buddy in with me.We were kind of tag teaming this one.
We were both on there together because MSC3K, you got a couple of silhouettes.So this was awesome, right?So the both of us were talking back and forth, super fun.So we get, we're off air.Oh crap, what happened?Try to figure it out.I'm digging in.
I cannot figure out.It's not a technical thing.And I finally realized that I was hit with a copyright strike.
And up until that point, Apple had been totally fine with people simulcasting their shows and doing commentary, whatever, but they changed things, right?It was no longer possible.Okay.So boom, I couldn't do that.Well, I freaked out, right?
Like, oh my God, I'm off the air.So I go in and I delete the show and I'm like, okay, so it's gone.It should be fine.Obviously I'm not going to finish this, this show. Still can't go live the next day.Still can't go live the day after that.
What the hell's going on?Finally get in touch with somebody at YouTube who looks into it and they're going, well, this is okay, you were cut off because you were copyright violation.Okay, I get that.And I explained, but what I was doing is fair use.
Like legitimately, this is supposed to be fair use.And they go, oh, okay, well, let's take a look at it and we'll verify that and put you back on air.What's the link to the live show?Well, I deleted the show.
They're like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. We have, it's gone.We have no way to verify that what you're telling us is true.Your strike stays for, what is it, 45 days or 60 days or something like that.It couldn't go live.But I could still upload.
So I had to do something.So I was forced into starting to do uploads.And that's, I started doing edited shows and very quickly realized that I was getting way more views on edited shows than on the live shows.And so that became the priority.
And once I was able to go live again, I never really got back into the full rhythm.At most, I might do a show a week or a show every couple of weeks.
and but the format was never as solid it was more like oh hey everybody let's just chat about whatever you want to talk about it's an AMA it's like it was never the format of let me show you this thing because now I was doing that and edited and I just I don't want to say I lost interest but I just got overwhelmed with other things and I was doing it less and less and then since I moved I have not set it back up again but every time there's something new like the Roadcaster video that I just did a big video on I'm like you know it's time to start doing live again
I'll be there soon.Still haven't set it up, but I'll be there soon.It's not for a lack of technical toys.It's just a lack of, I don't know.I just, there's always something else to do.
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And that's the thing, you know, it's very often you get, there's only 24 hours in a day and there's only seven days in a week.So annoying.
But I want to take you back to, you mentioned Apple, and I know that you started out working for Apple and you started working on Aperture, if I'm correct.
Right. Right.Not started in my career, but yeah, I worked at Apple from 2001 to 2009, starting on the Final Cut team.I worked for Pro Apps and Final Cut was the only Pro App.So when I first started there, I was working on Final Cut.
And then over time, Apple either developed or acquired a variety of other products that ended up in that same niche.And then at some point, they did iPhoto, which I wasn't involved with, but that iPhoto was developed while I was there.
And then they decided to work on a pro version of that, which became Aputure.And so I worked on Aputure quite a bit.So I simultaneously worked on Final Cut and Aputure in the marketing side.Technical marketing was my title.
And yeah, so I worked on those products up until 2009 when I left.
What was the original thinking behind basically cutting Aperture completely?Because I was one of these people, I used to love Aperture.And when I first got into like serious photography, Aperture was really the tool that I used.
And I think you could hear my cries across the pond when they decided to discontinue that.
Well, that was after I left, and I certainly had nothing to do with it going away, but I was, I saw I used to run a website called Aperture Expert.A lot of people who've been using Aperture probably know that website, apertureexpert.com.
That was my site.I did that, and it had evolved into the number one resource on the internet for Aperture users.It was awesome.
Um, so I will say that, you know, given my past relationship with Apple and the site, the fact that I had that big site, I was, as far as I know, I was the first person that got the press call that day to be informed of the very sad news.
And yeah, that was, that was kind of devastating. not just emotionally, you know, whatever.I mean, I worked on this product for a lot of years.I love that I use it all the time.It was great.
But also for me financially, because Aperture Expert was my sole, I shouldn't say sole, but it was my primary source of income.And suddenly the product went away and I had to learn to pivot very quickly.
And that was a huge lesson in reliance on any one company's product that they obviously have no obligation to you to maintain.And once they change their mind, you're like, oh, oh, wow, look at that.There goes that whole part of my life.Crap.
Yeah, but again, that's a super important issue because you know As any photographer knows, you know, you obviously if you're running a photography business, for example, you know, you you're basically You can you could look at YouTube as another Leg to stand on which is why I premise this, you know the intro to this episode with you know saying well, you know
you might be missing out if you don't consider YouTube as another avenue for you as a photographer.How easy or difficult was it for you to pivot at that point?
I don't know.I mean, it's, it's, you know, swim or die.It's just, you just do what you have to do.And I originally, so
Aperture went away, and Photos, what was iPhoto, became Photos, and that was supposed to be the replacement, even though it was well-known, and even from Apple themselves, this was not going to immediately be a replacement for Aperture.
But the idea was that eventually it should probably be there.That never actually happened, but regardless, okay, so Aperture's gone, Photos is going to be the new thing.
So really the pivot for me is simply it's no longer Aperture Expert, it's Photos Expert. I registered a new domain, the photos was the photos expert, photos expert, photos dot expert, something, whatever the phrasing was.
And very quickly realized that was a huge mistake because now I had the word SEX in my URL and I was getting blocked everywhere.And it took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it was like, oh crap, so that didn't work.
So then I had to change the name of it and
that quickly you realize a lot of people weren't going to go to photos they just weren't that interested in it and so it ended up kind of having to evolve again into something that was just more more generic not it was just about photography software photography apps so that's yeah so it eventually became the photo apps expert that's where it ended up being but in the interim there is this photos expert thing that just was a bad idea because it was once again relying on the exact company that had just killed me
And so I needed to find a way to make sure that didn't happen.So that's what the photos expert became, or the photo apps expert became, was all photo apps on Mac, on iOS and iPadOS eventually, and of course on Windows and just all platforms.
It's interesting this because sometimes it's really difficult to see how, you know, you come up with a name for something.Yeah, I could use this podcast as an example.
you know, you come up with a name for something, but you're not really necessarily immediately aware as to how limiting that name in itself could potentially be for future endeavors.
You know, the, and I remember, you know, when Nick and I sat down at the very beginning, we think like, well, okay, what are we going to call this thing?You know, and I was literally, I think it took like a,
You know, I think I looked at a website with photographic terms or something like that, and we just went, okay, what are we going to call it?Aperture?No.Blah, blah, blah.
You know, went from A to Z. And eventually, you know, I think I suggested, you know, camera shake actually sounds fun.You know, that's cool.Camera shake podcast, that will work.
But I do remember that when I set up the YouTube channel, I actually thought, well, I'm not going to call it camera shake podcast. on YouTube because it will limit whatever I can do in the future with this to it being a podcast.
But who knows, I might decide to do tutorials, whatever else, give reviews, who knows, at some point in the future.And so I kind of figure, okay, well, it might be a good idea to keep that open.
But that's a really difficult thing to always be fully aware of.
is it is difficult and you also don't want it to be so generic that nobody knows what it is you know you're we can't all be a kodak or a nike or an apple right those names mean absolutely nothing to what the brand is but their brand got big enough that it doesn't matter right you know what it is but when you're a little fish in the big pond here and trying to figure out what your name is going to be you don't want to just call it
joseph channel the joseph network right that's just not gonna work you need to be a little bit more specific especially in the day now where you have a million or billion different channels on youtube to look at and trying to figure out what you want to watch and if you if you see a video that's
on a topic that you know you were interested in but the title channel is something super generic like you know the joseph channel going okay well is that just a one-off from this guy or is that what he actually talks about so yeah it's hard to find out what that is and there's no easy answer there but certainly i would err on the side of not being as specific as calling it the podcast because like you said and you know it's got to be a podcast
Yeah, exactly, exactly.I've always loved the title Photo Joseph, because for some reason, you know, it's like, you look at it and you think like, oh, I wonder what that is.I wonder who that is.
And that's actually, that's the other really interesting part about that.You know, there are some channels that are really generic.
Some, you know, and some channels that are very kind of personality driven, thinking about your channel, thinking about, you know, Froknowsphoto, for example. What did it take for you to actually put your name in the brand?
That was a bit of luck and coincidence.So I had a website originally, I still have it somewhere out there, but it's just josephlanaschke.com, my full name, right?And obviously no one can spell that.
You can't tell anybody what that is and expect them to be able to find it.So I needed something different.And I remember one night, this is post-Apple and I'm
working from home and I'm trying to figure out what how to brand this thing and I was talking to another buddy of mine who was also a former Apple colleague and we were kind of brainstorming on it and looking at URLs you know part of what you want is a name that can be a dot-com maybe less important today but certainly
it was 2019 2009 we're talking here it's uh it was really important to get a good dot com name and so just trying all kinds of things and he's the one who found photo joseph he's like oh my god photo joseph.com is available like holy crap okay well that became the defining point i literally was got that name because it was available as a dot com and obviously it matched and it fit what i was doing so that was great um
As various social media platforms come online, I always grab the PhotoJoseph name to make sure that I park it so that I've got it.The site may, you know, that social media thing may never go anywhere, but I've got to make sure I have the name.
Twitter, of course, had been around for a long time and PhotoJoseph was already taken, but the person using it was not using it, it was totally dormant.But it still took me something like four or five years to get Twitter to hand it over to me.
Yeah, that's really difficult for some reason.Facebook is notorious for like not budging on anything.
Yeah, yeah.It's hard to do and I'm sure it's even harder now than it used to be.I certainly did get lucky in doing it, but I had that PhotoJoseph name everywhere except Twitter and then I finally got it.Yes.That was a big deal.
That's, I remember setting up Twitter account and I had to turn it around and to shake camera instead of camera shake, because camera shake was all over your tech and so, but you know, it did work out in the end.
Yeah, it is nice when I'm listing my social medias on say, I'm going to be speaking at a conference and you know, they have the whole list of your LinkedIn and your Twitter and everything else.It's like, PhotoJoseph, PhotoJoseph, PhotoJoseph.
It's literally every single one of them is PhotoJoseph, which is pretty cool.People are like, how do I find you?PhotoJoseph. anywhere.
Try it.Cool.Now your content has sort of evolved from being software-centric when it comes to Aperture Expert tutorials to including everything from software tutorials to, you know, hardware reviews and so on.
What was the point at which you sort of thought, okay, well, this might be a great way to pivot from software-based content only into this hardware world? really as soon as I started doing live.
Before I was doing Facebook live I was doing hosting webinars that were just about software and that was something I'd been doing for years and years.
You know we're talking like go to webinar type of platforms and that was always you know you're sharing your screen and a little kind of webcam image of yourself in there. obviously all live and live only.And that was always software.
But then as soon as I started doing live, I immediately started doing hardware.So that was kind of from the beginning of that live streaming experience, you know, evolving past the webinars.
I still did software, I actually used to do something called that I called live training that was once a week, I would do a
Basically, it was an hour show, 45 minutes education, 15 minutes Q&A, and I would pick a piece of software, and it might be a simple little iPhone app that you could cover in one hour, or it might be something as big as Lightroom that would take 20 or 30 or 40 different hours, different days to go through.
and so I would map it all out so I knew right day one or week one would be this topic and week two is this topic and mapped it out so that every live show it was a deep dive into a very specific part of the app and people would come you know every week to watch that live show and the way I'd set it up was you could watch it live for free but then you had to pay to download the show later if you wanted to watch it later
and that was great that turned into a great business model and I did that for years and that was of course all software and I built up these libraries I've had you know massive library and of course now it's been god probably five years since I've even done this but I had this massive library of software training that you could get for relatively cheap I had a subscription model on my sites you could have access to everything or you could piecemeal download one video or you could buy
an entire collection, kind of like an iTunes model, right?You can buy a song for $0.99, buy the album for $9.99 or whatever.It was the same idea.
You could buy a single video for the one amount, buy the entire collection for another amount, or have a subscription and just have access to everything on the site, have a monthly subscription.And yeah, that worked out great.
And that was always pure software.But as I got to doing more and more edited videos and hardware, That became less and less interesting, but also I'd just been doing it for so long.
It was like, okay, this is, that was an evolution of the whole webinar thing.And it was just, it was just time to move on to something else.I just kind of got bored with it.
I think that's actually a key point.You know, you can only do stuff for so long until you literally sort of lose the, I don't know, the energy to do it.Spark.Yeah.
Yeah, and it becomes important to just pivot a little bit and do things a little differently.What's your ideation process, Mike?I have zero idea what you're talking about.Well, apparently that's what it is.
So how do you come up with new ideas, in other words, for the upcoming videos?And what's your process that you go through to bring that from the original idea to the finished video?Sure, sure.
It's fairly structured. I have a, like a notes, you know, just a notebook app of where I just drop any kind of random idea.Often actually what'll happen is I'll have an idea and I'll just put it in as a reminder for tomorrow morning, right?
I'm at home and doing something, ooh, this would be kind of cool, just whatever, have an idea, set it as a reminder for the next morning.So I kind of review the idea in the morning.Do I want to add this to my list?
And if it gets added to the list, I use a, I use an app called Hive that is a, it's just a project management kind of thing.
and it just gets created as a new project in there and there's dozens, probably over a hundred of them in there and those video ideas sit in there and some of them that's as far as they ever go they just never see the light of day again but some of them most of them eventually get made and so that idea will go in there and depending on how
interesting it is, how much more I think about it over the coming days and weeks.I will add notes to it.If I have thought more and more thoughts about it, then of course I'm adding more notes to it.
And it gets to a point where it's like, yeah, this, this is a video topic.This is something I can do a video on.Now, sometimes of course, it's, it's product based.A company has called me and said, Hey, we want you to do a video on this product.
Um, you know, it could be paid or unpaid or whatever.That's a whole other discussion, but it's a quite specific, I've got a thing that I need to do a video on.So, okay, now I need to figure out how to do a video on it. or if I even want to, right?
A lot of times it's like a company will send out a lens, hey, we want you to check out the lens, do a video on it.Cool, send me the lens, I'll play with it.Do I love it?
If I love it, if I, you know, enjoy it, then I'll use it for a while, make notes as I'm using it, and eventually turn that into a video.
If I decide I just really don't like it, then I, you know, call them and say, yeah, I actually don't like it, so no thanks.But that happens too.But eventually it's kind of this amalgamation of,
either I have the idea just on my own just you know out of the blue sky comes or a company has a product that they want something done about it so that gets written down and every thought that I have about that product or that video or that what that could be gets added to the list and eventually grows into something that
I'll sit down and start to form into a video.And just before this podcast started, that's exactly what I was doing.I have a lens that I'm working on a video for.I've had the lens now for a couple of months.I've been shooting with it quite a lot.
I've now moved on to one of their kind of competitor lenses, and I like that one a lot.And so now I have some really good ideas of how to formulate this video.And so I have all these notes.
I just pulled up all my old notes on it, and I just started building out a more structured outline for the video, which I'll record over the next couple of days.That's kind of the process.
How do you keep up with, you know, new stuff coming out?I mean, how do you approach it?Do you basically see like, okay, well, Panasonic are coming out with the, I don't know, G8 X, Y, Z, something.
Do you then get in touch with them and say like, I know, right? This is a first time sort of event on this podcast as always.
But do you get in touch with Panasonic at that point and go like, hey, I hear you're bringing this thing out, can you send me one because I want to review it?
Or is it more a thing of like where you've been working with those companies for such a long time that as they are putting out their marketing strategy, they're going, well, clearly we're going to work with influencers.
Yeah, it's a big mix.So for Panasonic specifically, I'm actually a LUMIX ambassador.I've been an ambassador for probably seven or eight years now for quite a long time.And so I'm on their payroll as an ambassador.
I'm, you know, always clued into what's coming and what's next.And I get copies of things usually
early so that I can prepare a video and do a video on especially something big like you know the gh7 when that dropped the g9 mark ii and as these new cameras come out I often have it early so that I can prepare a video and get that ready to go and that's just you know one of the perks benefits of being an ambassador so that's separate that's the only company that I have that relationship with
Then there's the companies that I have worked with in the past, however the relationship might have started, I work with them if I've worked with them before and so they will reach out to me and say, hey, there's either we've got something new or like I just, my most recent video was on the DJI RS4, which is not a new gimbal, it's been out for a while, but they reached out and said, hey, we're doing a kind of ongoing campaign, we'd like to send you one and have you do something and you know, we went back and forth and decided what to do about it.
So that happens as well. Then there's, you know, like the RØDE Castor video, which I actually, it's off camera here, but I'm using it right here.Not that I'm switching camera angles, but that's what's running this show.
And that's something where I'd never done a video with RØDE before, but I have a huge history of doing videos on the ATEM switchers on YouTube.
And so they reached out to all the biggest ATEM video, YouTube video makers and reached out to all of us and we're all friends.So we all got reached out to at the same time and we all ended up doing all these videos on that product.
well before launch because RØDE reached out to us so that happens too.It's a big variety of how things go and sometimes it's just I reach out.I'll see something that maybe it's, you know, already public, already shipping.
It's just like, you know, anybody can find it and I'm like, oh this is really cool.I think I'd like this.I'll reach out to them say, hey this is what I do and sometimes they already know who I am.They're like, oh cool, yeah, and they'll send it.
Sometimes they're going, who the hell are you?And sometimes they send it, sometimes they don't but that's just how it works.
How do you approach the whole process then?So let's say a new camera is coming out, you're creating a video for it.What is your structure as far as creating a tutorial video for that particular product?
Yeah, it's really going to depend on what it is. In the case of a Panasonic camera, there's very specific, I know exactly what the new features are, what the new highlights are.These are the most important things.And so I'm going to use it.
Part of it depends on how much time I have it, right?I mean, there's been times where I get a copy of something and I barely have 48 hours to make a video.
And there's times where I get a copy of something and I've got a month or two months before I have to make a video.So I can really spend time getting to know it and learn it.And obviously that's better, but we don't always have that luxury.
But in the case of something like that, I typically know, right?Panasonic goes, right, here's the new thing.These are the new features.This is the most important stuff.Obviously, that's what I'm going to want to talk about.
So I'm going to explore that and be able to educate my audience about that.Clearly, that's what makes it the new camera, right?That's these new features.That's why there's a new model.
sometimes it's just like in the case of a lens especially something that's already been out it's just a case of using it and figuring out what I like and don't like about it and then just doing a full straight up review like this is this lens I love it for this I don't like it for that there you go do what you will with that information.
When it comes to tutorials, I have a bit of an education background, in music education in particular, and so one of the things that I've always found challenging is to communicate something so that you're both serving beginners, but you're still doing those who are more advanced justice at the same time.
How do you approach that?
I tell people that that's my superpower, is the ability to take really complex topics and distill them down to a way that are easy to understand, but still technically advanced and accurate, obviously.It's just something I can do.
I don't know that I have a specific method to do it.It's just, you know, I look at all the information and spit out something that makes sense.And obviously it takes refinement.It's not like, you know, in one ear and out the other a perfect thing.
It takes refinement, but I've been doing this for a long time.
I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what people like, how people learn, what will help people to understand it, what will confuse people, and how to kind of formulate that message to explain it in a way that people actually will learn something and enjoy watching it and learn something no matter what level they're at.
Like you said, to your point, that's really important, especially when you're doing something like a new camera. Yeah, there's, you're expecting that a lot of people who are watching it have the previous one.
They want to know what's new, but then there's a lot of people watching who don't know anything about it.And yeah, of course they want to know what's new, but they need to know the basics as well.
Now, obviously you can't go into a complete, you know, from zero to a hundred explainer video on what this camera is every time.You just can't do it.
Every video would be two hours long or 20 hours long, but, but there's the way to explain it that makes it more approachable.I don't know.I just, I just do.
The thing about education in general is, I think there's so much that is really based on the personality of the person teaching.It's like one of these things.
I went to a high school reunion not too long ago and it's interesting, you know, there's like 30, 40 people, you know, we talk about the old days, you know, back at high school and it's interesting, you know, it's like, who is your favorite teacher back at, you know, back in the day?
And, you know, somebody says one name and I'll be like, oh man, I used to hate that person, you know?And so, you know, what becomes clear very quickly is that, you know, not every teacher is, For everybody.Yeah, it's for everybody, exactly.
And so the same thing is true on YouTube.You know, when you look at the variety of different channels out there teaching different things, you know, some people might chime with the way that you're presenting and explaining and breaking things down.
and other people might chime with, I don't know, Fro, or whoever, right?And that's always a thing.That's why I always think it's very personality-driven.
It's extremely personality-driven, especially in a space like YouTube, where it's, if you go to work for some network TV, ABC or BBC or whatever, some big network, and you are a personality on that network, but you are,
You are doing things their way, right?This is the BBC way.This is the Fox News way.This is the CNN way, whatever.This is their way.And so you're following a format.And to some degree, it's you're representing their brand.
Whereas when it's you on YouTube, you are the brand.And that is one of the most important things to understand as a YouTuber is that people are watching not just because you're giving them good information.
There's a ton of good information on YouTube.It's how you deliver it, your personality,
what you the way that you express what you're doing and the way that you're teaching and to your point about about being an educator and teaching people it's how you teach and if people resonate with that or not and you can't please everybody and certainly you know i have my haters and that's fine go watch somebody else's channel but
But there's plenty of people who like the way that I do things, that they actually come back and watch the videos over and over again.And that's the key, right?You got to find people that resonate with what you do.
If you can't find them, or if they can't find you, then you're never going to succeed on YouTube.But it is all about your personality.Anybody can do a video on the next widget.It's how well it's presented, and of course, the personality behind it.
So yeah, the YouTube brand is 100% about you, the individual.
And I think that's a really positive thing, really, for anybody thinking about getting into the YouTube game.
If you're a photographer or a videographer and you're thinking, well, actually, I might quite like to start a YouTube channel about photography, but, and this is gonna be the first thought that people have usually, it's like, oh man, there are already so many out there, the competition is so steep.
The reality is, well, but it's only one of you.That's how I always think about it.
Right, exactly. Right.There's 1000 people doing camera reviews or 10,000 people or 100,000 people doing camera reviews, but there's only one you.That's exactly right.And that is a really, really important thing to recognize and to build on that.
If you don't know that from the beginning,
you're trying to emulate other people oh I'll watch um you know I'll watch Caleb Pike's videos and I'll do things the way he does or I'll watch Gerald and Dunn and I'll do the things the way that he does or I'll watch Potato Jet and do things the way that he does well that's just stupid now you're just copycatting and you'll get recognized for being a copycat pretty quickly
be you.You got to be you.You got to figure out what that isn't.Maybe you don't know who you are and your, your you on YouTube can be a persona, right?
It's, you meet these YouTubers in real life and not everybody's exactly who they are on camera in real life, right?I mean, there's, that's a show, it's an act, right?We put on a persona and I like to think that I'm very real and genuine.
But I'm sure that, you know, the way that I talk and the way that I carry myself, whatever, it's going to be a little bit different when I'm at home with my family than it is when I'm on the air.
I mean, if I talk like this to my wife all day long at the dinner table, like she'd shoot me, right?There's just no way.Yeah, exactly.There's, you know, there is that that personal you and there's that presenter you.
And it's like an actor in a movie or on stage or whatever.You're presenting, man.You've got to put it out there and you've got to be big and bold and be you and develop that personality. And that can change, right?You can evolve that over time.
It's not like you're drawing a box in the sand and you can't get out of it.You can evolve that over time, but you definitely got to pick something that's you and evolve it as you and not as somebody else.
That's the thing.I call it hyper-realism.I would say like when I'm presenting on stage or when I'm teaching, for example, I'm still me.I'm still the same person.I'm just hyper-real.
I'm just like a little bit more of maybe 120% of me than what I would be like at home, watching TV or something.That's a good way to put it.You're getting the 150% me version, the 200% me version.That's a great way to put it.I like that.
And as my wife would put it, 150% of annoying. Mine can't watch my videos either.She's like, if I can't fall asleep, I'll just watch your videos.Thanks, babe.No, thanks, really.
See, this is what I've been saying to my wife.This is going to be, I think, episode 229 of the Camera Check Podcast.My wife, to this day, has not listened to an entire episode.This has been going on for over four years.
And I say to her, and she goes, well, I'm not interested in cameras.It's just not my thing.And I say, well, But you very often have trouble falling asleep.
You know, if the camera tech podcast can do that for you, I mean, if you're not interested in cameras and photography, this would be the most boring thing you possibly listen to ever.So it's a great sleep-inducing remedy.
I mean... Yeah, just don't ask her to leave a review to that effect.
Well, no, but... I can't sleep through this podcast every night.
Well, I don't care where the views come from.One of the things I always wonder is when it comes to content, creation of content ideation, to come back to this stupid word.
Do you look at your back and you kind of go, do you analyze things like, okay, well, I don't know, camera-related videos are doing really well, so I'm going to make more camera-related videos, or like, you know, I don't know, lens-related videos.
I'm just kidding.Lens-related videos are not doing very well, so I'm going to do less of those.Is that part of your decision-making process?
Oh, absolutely.It is.And to be honest, it probably should be more of my decision-making process.There are times where I make a video that I'm just like, I want to make this video.Probably it's not going to get that many views, but I want to make it.
And that's important, right?It's important to do that too.
Sara Dietschy, who's another content creator in the space, she had something she was saying years ago about make one video for the algorithm and then make one for yourself, one for the algo and one for you.
and because sometimes you have to feed the beast right you have to do what you know is going to get the views even if it's not the most exciting thing that you really want to do but I know it's going to get the views you know like ATEM videos I can do ATEM videos all day long and they'll get tons of views I kind of got bored with doing them so I slowed down on them but those are some of my best performers so probably should do more of those but that's what like when the Roadcaster video came out I knew that that would be a really popular video and it was it did great for me because
A, that's the kind of content that a lot of people are on my channel to see.And B, it's a whole new thing in this realm that of course people are going to want to watch.Lens videos always do well for me, so I should do more lens videos.
And in fact, you know, like I said, that's what I'm working on right now.My next video is about a lens.
filter videos i've found do terribly and to the point where i've now companies reach out like oh we have a new you know variable nd filter i'm like yeah no i'm not i'm not i can't put another video up that's only getting a thousand views i just can't do that to my channel or myself so uh so i turn those down right so yes absolutely looking back and seeing what does well and what doesn't do well
has to drive the decision of what you do next, probably should drive the decision more for me than it often does.But also, sometimes I just do a video because I want to and damn the results, I just want to do it.That happens too.And that's okay.
Absolutely.Absolutely.Because I mean, people don't necessarily always realize how much work goes into making any of this content, you know, videos, podcasts, whatever it may be. A lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of effort goes into it.
And if you can put your own interest into that as well and do the things that you'd like, it becomes a real chore.And again, I mean, I just do whatever the heck I wanna do.
It's like I get in touch with the people I find interesting and some of them say yes, so they come on the show like yourself.That's fantastic.And I really enjoy having those conversations.That's basically it.Ultimately, that's one way to do it.
I want to talk to you about another subject that's a very now, and that's the whole thing of AI.
Of course, AI has been a massive, huge thing, as we all know, over the last two, two and a half years or something in the world of photography, and now also in the world of video, because it's making its inroads there too.How do you see AI becoming
Where do you see AI going in the world of photo editing, for example, and therefore in the need of education for that particular subject?
For photography specifically, I mean, there's already so much of it is already there, right?There's so much that AI can do.If you're, say, loading your photos into something like Lightroom, they have more and more AI features in there by the day.
And sometimes an AI thing is simply like one of the newest features, object removal.This just absolutely incredible object removal that is now built in.I haven't even played with it yet.I've seen demos on it.It just updated today.
That is purely AI driven because the AI can go, okay, that used to be a, that should be a leg and there's a thing in front of it.We're going to get rid of the thing.We redraw the leg.Amazing, right?
Then there's the AI, the AI of just making the photo better.And that's in a bunch of software now, like Luminar Neo, I think it's called, has some really, really good AI stuff where you just give it a photo and it's like, oh, let's make it better.
And suddenly it's just, it's just better. But then you have AI built into your phone when you take a picture.There's so much artificial intelligence that goes into making that image better when you push that button.And so you don't have to edit it.
It's just, well, this looks fantastic.More often than I care to admit, I will take a photo with my regular camera that just looks like a plain, you know, unauthored JPEG on the back, because obviously that's what it is.
But then I'll take the same photo with my iPhone, because I know it's going to process it in a really funky way that obviously the image isn't as good quality, but that gives me some ideas and inspiration for how I might try to treat that photo later.
It just, the phone is so good.That's just, it's just that good.And so I do that sometimes.And then if you don't get around to processing it, well, at least you have the iPhone photo to show.
Editing, I'm actually kind of surprised there's not more for culling.You know, if you feed it a hundred photos or a thousand photos and having it automatically pull stuff out.
I know that it kind of happens in the background in Apple photos and Google photos where it'll automatically present a slideshow.But even those, you know, I still, I'll get a little slideshow.
Oh, your trip to, I don't know, whatever the islands last year.And here's a little slideshow.And you're like, okay, you showed me three of virtually the same photo.The hell are you doing?Well, why did you do that?
um so that certainly is far from perfect but it seems to me that should be something that is happening more.
Eliminate either you got five photos of the same group of people at the dinner table not a single one of them is perfect why do I have to tell the software to go in there and find these the smiling face from each one and blend it together so I have one photo where everybody's actually looking at the damn camera right why is that so hard and that should just happen in the background
uh we're not there yet but we should be so that's certainly something I see happening sooner rather than later it just has to um yeah there's less and less need to edit I mean as we get to a point where more of our cameras have the ability to push our photos straight to the cloud automatically you know we can do it now through processes of connecting your camera to your phone and then uploading them
eventually this is all going to happen automatically right eventually cameras will have uh cellular access in them and wi-fi access in them and they'll just upload everything to the cloud and then everything will get automatically edited and culled and you'll have a slideshow for your trip to paris for the week and you didn't have to do a single thing that will happen
taken a little longer than i would have thought it would have but that will happen and so editing becomes less and less important except for those who just want to because they enjoy the process most people don't give a crap about the process they just want a collection of good photos um it's the purist the people who just are doing it for the fun of it they really want to get into it or you know it's your career you're you're literally making your living making gorgeous landscape photos or something then of course you need to go in there and do that bit by bit but
Yeah, I think that market is going to be shrinking while the AI side of it is just going to take over everything because who needs to do that?People don't want to, they just want good pictures.
Do you think that has an impact on the education side of things?I'm thinking like, give an example.I used to be a big fan of Florian, for instance, Florian Arenas' channel on YouTube, teaching Photoshop in all its glory.Of course now,
you click one button, you use one tool, like the removal tool, like the AI removal tool.And that would have been like 10 separate videos that everyone would have had to make in order to teach you the whole process of cloning and replacing things.
Back in the day, that now takes two seconds and all you have to do is click two buttons. Do you think the emergence of that technology will have a major impact on what we teach or how we teach it?
Yeah.Yeah, I do.I'm not going to pretend to have a timeline like, in 10 years, this will... I don't know how long, like I said already, I think I'm a little surprised that some of it's taking so long that some of it isn't already there.But
That type of education is more and more for the hobbyist, the one who just does it because they want to, not because they feel like they need to to make their pictures better.
It's only those who really want to get into the weeds and do the really advanced stuff and make that one really amazing image that they're going to make a huge print of and hang on the wall.Most people are never going to do that.
So yeah, I think that market is definitely going to shrink.
But the other thing that's of course huge and it's becoming bigger and bigger and bigger year on year is mobile photography.
You know, mobile editing, which is something I just recently got into, especially with, you know, Final Cut Pro for iPad, that release, I found that that's actually made quite a bit of a difference, you know, for me.
because I can now edit these episodes on my iPad whilst I'm sitting on the couch, and I can do it in 20 minutes flat.So woo-hoo.Yeah, big winner.
But of course, mobile photography, as in iPhone photography and so on, has really changed the landscape dramatically.What's your sense as to where that is going?Also in terms of video, because I think that's knocking on the door.
Well, I mean, I would say that's already here.For still photography, certainly your smartphone is the vast majority of photography.Was it Flickr?
I don't know if they still do this, but Flickr used to put out a report every year of the most used cameras, right?Looking at all the images that are uploaded to their platform.
And the smartphone, maybe it was the iPhone specifically, had became the number one a long time ago. that's already there.
And the market for small point-and-shoot cameras is virtually dead now, because why would you buy a little pocket-sized point-and-shoot camera when you can get something that, yeah, sure, it has a slightly smaller sensor and maybe slightly fewer features, but the AI built into it makes up for all that, and it's always in your pocket, because you're never leaving the house without your phone.
And so, yeah, who would buy a little point-and-shoot?So then you've got your bigger DSLR, DSLM-sized cameras that are,
certainly more for those who are more interested in getting that image quality and thankfully there's still a very large market for that.But absolutely that market has shrunk because the iPhone and smartphones have gotten so good.
And I think that is only going to increase as those phones get better and better.Because I'm a Lumix ambassador, I work with Panasonic all the time, the Lumix S9, one of the newer cameras is that
kind of bridge between the iPhone and the big DSLR big DSLM camera where it is this small compact mirrorless camera but it is interchangeable lens and you do have some of the smartphone features and you can connect to your phone and there's there's this really cool bridge in there and and that's great for people like me who
want that better quality but I don't want to carry a big camera everywhere I go like those days are past man I but I do want something better than my phone and so there is that for those who want it but certainly it's not what everybody wants most people are just perfectly happy with what with their phone.
That's actually something I've been wondering about over the last few years, really, is that, you know, a lot of the technology or technological advances that we see in smartphones, like the iPhone, you know, a lot of these technologies are really missing from, or sometimes very cumbersome when it comes to actual, like, mirrorless cameras.
And, you know, I'm thinking, like, autofocus is a really good example, you know, a whole thing about, you know, the way that we can,
you to alter the image literally on the screen on an iPhone, there seem to be some very basic functions that I, for some reason, think, you know, a Canon, Nikon, and the like, I'm not really picking up on.
And that's why there still is sort of this big divide.I'm not talking about, I don't mean I want to be able to make phone calls with my camera.
You know, that's, although I can't remember the last time I used my phone for that, but you know, do you know what I mean?There's a lot of things on, You know, especially also on the video side on an iPhone.
that I always think like, well, that'd be cool if, you know, like full autofocus and that kind of stuff.
And I think we've been saying that for a long time that we're surprised there isn't more of that.
There's the AI stuff that's finding its way into the bigger cameras is like predictive autofocus, that type of artificial intelligence, which is great and is making great strides in autofocus.And that's a great space for that.
Exposure to a less of a degree because The way that the iPhone captures an image and it can capture multiple exposures essentially simultaneously and blend them together, that's just not something that bigger cameras really do.
And it's not to say that they can't do, but there are quality trade-offs that you just don't really notice when you're looking at an image from a tiny sensor like you get on a phone.So you can get away with a lot more on a phone.
When you're talking about changing like the depth of field, changing the bokeh, the image of what's in focus, that's because what was out of focus wasn't really out of focus in the first place.It's all computational.
It's pretending to be out of focus.And so you can change that when it's just an algorithm that makes it out of focus.
But then, of course, you have those edges around the head that just, yeah, it looks pretty good, but when you look close, it's not right.Whereas with a regular camera,
there is no edge, it's an actual, genuine optical progression of depth of field, and so it has that better look, but that means you can't change it later.Will that digital depth of field effect make its way into full-size cameras?Probably.
That's probably going to be there. It's not right now, but it's, there's really no good reason that it can't be.
Phones just need to have more of an operating system like an Android or iOS operating system into them to be able to do more of that, to combine that with the bigger sensor and the bigger lenses, you know, yeah, we've all been waiting for that for
frankly, well over a decade going, where is this?Why isn't it coming?And, you know, who knows?Hopefully one of these days we'll actually start seeing that.
I think they're going to have to, or else they're just going to completely vaporize because the phones are not going to stop getting better, right?The sensors will get a little bit bigger, but they can't get that much bigger.
The lenses will get a little bigger and a little better, but they can't get full big.You know, you can't put a lens, physically put a lens as big on a camera.I mean, on a phone and still make it a phone.
A lot of that can be made up in software and with computational photography and some really clever tricks with optics, but not everything.
So if the big cameras want to survive, they're going to have to start adopting more of this smartphone type tech inside of them, for sure.
especially in that sort of amateur, you know, enthusiast market, which is a huge chunk of the market.Because, you know, the super pro market is the tip of the pyramid, you know, that's the smallest chunk of it.Yeah.
There's not that many people that are shooting at the Olympics.
Exactly, right, David Bergman.But no, it's this massive base of the pyramid, which used to be the point-and-shoot camera users.That's basically completely been eroded and gone entirely to smartphones.But it's that chunk in the middle.
I had this conversation only a few days ago, actually, with a friend of mine, actually a friend of my wife's, at a party. And she just dropped some money on a Canon camera, but she didn't know how to use it.
So she wanted me to show her some basic settings or whatever.I just got to use it in auto mode.But she was really surprised that there were certain things that she couldn't do on the camera that she has been doing on her smartphone for years.
And she couldn't really quite understand because she thought that was not great. to her smartphone.So she thought, clearly that camera must be able to do more than my iPhone.
But of course, they had to say to her, well, yeah, no, the fake bokeh thing, it doesn't do that.You can't, you actually have to know things about apertures and focal distances and all the rest of it.
You know, so it was just, you can kind of, I think what I'm trying to say is it appears as though the demand for good looking imagery is still there. But the path of least resistance is quite clearly the iPhone.
Yeah, my least favorite words in the English language are good enough. I despise that idea, but it's a reality.For most people, what they get on their phone, it's good enough.
They know it's not as good as it would be if they had a big, huge camera and they spent all this time taking the photos and making sure everything was right and went into Lightroom and did all the adjustments and they know, but this is good enough, man.
And it's true.It hurts, but it's true.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, they're not good enough.
Like for me, it only comes into when, you know, when there's money on the other side, it's like, OK, well, for this budget, this is definitely good enough because, you know, if it's going to get and if you want it to be any better than that, I can't eat next week.
So this is how this goes. What skills do you think will become essential for photographers and video makers in the next five, 10 years, given this progress that technology has made and is clearly making over the next few years?
For professional photographers and video makers or consumers?I think, well, maybe both.
Because there's two very different answers.I would say for professionals, the most important skill is marketing.There's a million people can take a good picture.Only a couple of them are actually going to make money doing it.
So being able to market yourself, get your stuff out there, get it seen, get it sold, convince companies to give you money to go do what they could probably send an intern out to do instead, and it would be good enough, is that's key.
And that is marketing. that's you just got to get out there and make sure that people know that there's a good reason they should hire you.And that's hard.That's really hard to do.It gets harder all the time.
Yeah.And that's the downfall of many a photographer trying to set themselves up in the industry, you know, because just being able to take a pretty picture isn't really going to do it.That's really not going to pay the rent at the end of the month.
It is the marketing piece for sure.
Yeah.For the consumer, I would say just getting the most basic of education about composition and lighting will advance your photography tremendously.
You know, the number of times that I see someone's smartphone photo, the phone that's capable of making, you know, an excellent image, right?This is not, The bad photo is not the camera, right?It's the photographer.
And because they didn't take the time to hold the camera level or to think about their composition or think about the lighting or get a little closer, get a little farther back, whatever it might be.So you're looking at the picture going, okay, fine.
But this could have been much better if you just thought a little bit about it.But people don't know what to think about.They don't know what to look for without a little bit of education.
So a little bit of education on how to take better photos, how to make a better image, how to think about composition and lighting and so on. That'll go a long way.
I mean, just a couple hour long course is going to drastically improve your photography.
And then people, then you're going to start hearing what, you know, those of us who grew up like me heard as kids, people are like, well, those, you know, you could do that for a living.That's really good.Like, okay.Yeah.Thanks.Shut up.
I just held the camera straight.
unlike you know you didn't so that's why mine is better but it it really it doesn't take much to make a photo so much better just you have to know what to look for and that takes experience obviously but if you don't know what you're going to look for you can take a billion pictures never get any better because you don't even know what you're looking for a little bit of education there can go a really really really long way
For me, it's always lighting.
Understanding light is such a huge thing because you can take pictures with a potato and if you know how to light things or if you know how to look for the right type of lighting, then even images taken on a potato will look a hell of a lot better.
That's the thing.I mean, one of the biggest fallacies, I think, in the beginning is always, and certainly, you know, I've experienced that.
I think most people have experienced that, you know, when you start actually taking care of the images that you create, especially in this world of social media, you know, it's very easy to fall into this trap.
Like, because all of your friends are going to go, hey, man, your images are amazing.You know, they're great.And you sort of, you don't really, you're not at that point yet, maybe, where you really understand
you know, what it takes to shoot at a pro level.
And you're sort of, you know, you're being slotted with these positive comments from like friends and family that doesn't allow you to really have an objective view on how good your photography actually really is.
And this is where the education part comes in.
right right if you're told constantly the photos look great but people don't know anything about what makes a great photo and you yourself don't know what makes a great photo then you start to believe that your crap photo is great so get a little bit of education on what it what actually makes a good image start to study and look at the differences between this is what i made and this is what a good photographer made you oh okay well wow all they did differently was a b and c
I could have done that.Yeah, you could have.That's, you know, makes a huge difference.But again, a little bit of education goes a long way there.
Now, with the gear that you're, you know, that your experience in reviewing, you know, camera gear, lenses, camera bodies, and the rest of it, what would you say is the sort of, like, can you see any emerging trends?
over the next few years.If you're thinking of things like the megapixel wars, right?That came and went, right?Everybody's striving for the higher and higher megapixels.
And sure, every once in a while we get a camera that does extremely, even higher resolution, but the standard average kind of 24 megapixel. more than enough for everybody and everything you might ever do.So that's kind of done.
The higher and higher ISO with still maintaining usable quality, I wouldn't say that's done, but that is pretty well, we've kind of reached peak ISO, right?We can shoot at insanely high ISOs and get a really good image.
And if it's still a little bit noisy, you can run it through a denoiser and get something that looks like it was shot at 200 ISO when it was shot at, you know, 28,000 or something, you're like, geez, it's just amazing what you can do.
So sure, that could still get better.Autofocus always continue to improve.I think that I think more predict more AI based autofocus, knowing the camera, knowing where it should go.
And if you get three people in the frame, the camera figuring out who the most important one is to focus on that kind of thing can definitely be can be improved.We already talked about bringing in more.More AI image generation into the camera.
And that's just going to require a totally different way of thinking of making the phones more like, you know, running Android, running iOS, that sort of thing.
um cloud connection that's a biggie that's got to come that's a biggie that has to come where that'll happen eventually we'll start seeing cameras full-size cameras with uh you know an e-sim and especially now if they have an e-sim you no longer have to have a physical sim to put in you can just e-sim on your camera that'd be amazing right well most cameras have wi-fi antennas in them already adding that chipset that adds a cellular chipset these things are tiny right it's not for lack of space so they could certainly do that i think that's something we'll start to see um
I don't know.I think making the phone, making the cameras more like phones, not by making phone calls to your point, but more like what phones can do, I think is what we're going to be seeing over the next, you know, five to 10 years.
We're going to see a lot of that happening and making the images get a lot better.And that'll help sell those bigger cameras because people go, Oh, now I really, now I can really see the difference.
Not only is a bigger lens, bigger sensor, I'm getting all that AI stuff in there with it.Yeah.Now this looks really cool.
And what's the future for your channel?Where do you see yourself in the next year, two, three years, five years?
Yeah, I think my most successful videos are deep dives into things.You know, it's always tempting to just try and make a short video because, yeah, people like to watch short videos, right?
If you are searching for a topic, whatever, how to screw in a light bulb, and you find a 30-second video and up to a 20 minute long video, which one are you gonna watch first?You're gonna watch that 30 second video first.
So it's really, and then if you don't learn everything you wanted to learn, then you might go to a longer one or a longer one.But there's that just simple, we're simple creatures.We have trained ourselves to want those fast videos.
The TikToks and Instagram reels are just these 30 seconds, 60 seconds.We want the answer quick.And so that is a trend that's,
that's easy to get sucked up into, but I find that my longer form, more in-depth videos are the ones that do better, that perform better.The problem with those is I can't make as many of them, right?
It can take me a month to make some of these really in-depth videos.I don't make that much money on a video.So if I'm not, if I'm only doing one video a month, I'm gonna have a hard time eating, right?I need to create more content than that.
So it's finding that balance and trying to trying to find more ways to make more money with a single video with these longer in-depth videos.
And so one of the things that I'm doing right now I've only recently brought in my first regular sponsor of the channel as in a an ad read, not a
you know, a company that's paying me to do a single video on a single thing, but a, just an insert ad read.This is the first time I've had that on a regular basis right now.And it's great.
It's very exciting because for me, it means that now I can do a video where I don't have to worry so much about how am I going to make money on this video because the money's already there.So now I can just make the video.
And for me and my channel and me personally, that's a big progression for me and something that I definitely need to pursue more and get more of.
um but that means that I can do more of what I want to do and not worry as much about is this video going to get a billion views or not and still has to get the views because obviously the sponsor has to be happy but um it's just it's just a different kind of approach but yeah those longer in-depth videos is more of what I'm mostly interested in I just can't make as many of them but you know you do what you can and it's not really much of anything but there you go
What piece of advice would you give to anybody, any photographer or video content creator who's thinking about getting into YouTube?What would that advice be?
Okay, so it's actually a good timing for that question.I just had a conversation with a friend yesterday who's considering getting into YouTube and trying to figure out if it's the right thing to do for him or not.
I would say you need to figure out what your niche is going to be.Like we talked about in the beginning,
you can have a channel that's, you know, Joseph's channel that is about anything and everything, but you're never gonna find really good success with that, unless you're just the most amazing entertainer, you're just super good presenter about everything, and people just, you know, love you so much, but that's not exactly common.
So finding that niche, what it is, and that doesn't mean that that's all you can ever do, and it doesn't mean that that's the only thing you should do, but you need to focus at least in the beginning.
focus on a topic, a genre, a thing, whatever that's going to be, figure out what it is that you want to do.And it has to be something you want, or it has to be something you enjoy, or you're going to get bored with it.
Now, you can build a YouTube channel that is purely for the algorithm, right?
You can very easily, you can, if all you care about is money, or if you're looking, and I don't mean to say that in a bad way, but like, if you're, if all you care about as far as YouTube goes, is it's just a job, right?
I'm not doing this because I'm passionate about
microphones and so i want to do a bunch of videos about microphones because i think these are the coolest things ever it's just i want to do youtube videos and turn that into a job okay what are your topics i don't care what's going to make me money okay well that's easy right there's there's tools that will tell you what people are searching for on youtube what's trending on well on google and on youtube
what's trending, what the most important or most searched topics are.And it's usually, you know, it could be health-related things or political things or whatever.You find that thing and deep dive into that.
And God, you can do videos where you don't ever have to show your face or speak a word, or you can AI-generated voices that sound basically like human.You can do AI-generated images to fill in all the image components and stock and everything else.
You might never have to shoot a frame of video, you may never have to speak a word into a microphone, and you can still build a channel with 100,000 subscribers in a matter of months.So that's entirely possible.But is that what you want to do?
And if you want to do YouTube because you want to do videos about microphones or whatever it is, then pick that topic, be focused, be consistent, right?Consistency is key.
Getting a video up once a week or twice a week or whatever it is, get consistent, have a schedule and go for it.Market the hell out of the thing, you know, get on the socials, do shorts and get it out there so that people find it.And
just just be you be natural be who you are be your personality is what's going to sell these videos so you need to have one to start with right i mean not not everybody's cut out for making videos on youtube right let's be honest it's just not everybody's cut out for it um but if you've got that if you got what it takes to do it then by all means go but you can't go half-assed you got to go full-on and it doesn't mean you have to quit your day job but it does mean you're going to be working a lot of nights and weekends while you figure this out
It's not easy, right?I think a lot of people think, oh, YouTube's easy.Oh, what do you do?Just push a button, record something, talk, and what else?That's all there is to it.Totally.That's all there is to it.You try.
Exactly.I mean, this is the thing.The average lifespan or life expectancy of a podcast, for example, is seven episodes.Oh, interesting.OK. You know, and I completely understand why that is.
It's because, you know, I think especially during the pandemic, you know, a lot of people would have had that idea, you know, it's like, oh man, I'm sitting around, I'm not doing anything.I think, hey, let's start a podcast, sounds like a good idea.
You know, me included, by the way.And it's really, you know, it's only once you've made one or two episodes that you actually very quickly realize how much work it actually is.
And at that point, I can absolutely see how a lot of people will go, well, you know what?This is just too much hard work.It's just too much effort.
Bearing in mind that, you know, you can make a hundred episodes and still your audience consists of your dog and maybe your mom, And even in my case, you know, my cat isn't even interested.So, you know, this is, this is the reality of it.
You know, you sort of think, well, you know, I'm putting all this work and effort into it and, and it really seemed to be getting the return that I sort of thought I was, you know, that I deserve for something, you know, whatever the thing is.
But yeah, you're right.If you don't do it because you, you really love doing it. but at least you really like doing it, then that's a problem.Yep, for sure, for sure.
Now, lastly, before we go, one thing I was going to ask you, actually at the beginning I forgot, is I know that you've recently moved to Slovenia.Tell me a little bit about that.How did that happen?
Yeah.Yeah.So, um, so I'm American.I originally was, well, previous to living here, I was on the West coast and in Oregon and, uh, lived there for the last 12 years before moving here about a year and a half ago.But my wife is from here.
We lived in America for what we lived in Oregon for about 12 years together.And we had always known that
we had a time set we had a 10-year plan of moving to Europe and um it just we made it happen that's really all it is is what it comes down to she has the legal right to live here because she's you know EU citizen I have a legal right to live here because we're married and so it was a plan it was a long-term plan and we just we really planned for it you know financially and everything else we just made every all the moves so that we could make that happen on a particular schedule
And we did it.And that's really all there is to it.And so it's, you know, it's a lifestyle choice.It's a different world here than it is over there.And it suits my personality better.And I just like it here.So here we are.
Joseph, thank you so much for being the guest on the Camera Shack podcast this week.It's a very enlightening conversation.Thank you so much.
Well, thank you for having me on.It was fun.
Okay, folks, that is it for today.It was fantastic having Joseph on the show.And as always, before we go, let me just recommend another episode I think you'll like.Check out episode 227 with Karen Hutton.I'm sure you love it.
If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on buymeacoffee.com forward slash Karen Shake to help us continue creating and bringing you more exciting episodes.I have absolutely no idea why I keep saying us.It's really just me.There you go.
Anyway, it really does mean the world to me.
And for those of you who are listening to the audio version of this podcast, did you know that there is a fully-fledged video version over on YouTube with plenty of examples of our guest's photography in full Technicolor?
Well, you should by now, because I keep hopping on about it all the time.All you have to do is go over to YouTube, search for Camera Shake Podcast, and you'll be able to watch all past episodes on there.
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So thank you for listening and watching, and remember... Little microphone scratch here.Anyway, remember, a new episode drops every Thursday.So make sure you mark that in your calendars, diaries, whatever it is that you use these days, kids.
Until next time, keep shaking things up in the world of photography.See you next Thursday.
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