John Matthews

Anyone know where he went? It would seem his "Gear Doesn't Matter" doesn't exist anymore.

This one gets on my moobs also as does, “tell me what content you want me to make”.
The latter reads to me as, “OK, I have been through everything I can think of and also copied everything everyone else has done in this genre and now I am stuck and desperate for more material. Please help”.
I have been recently unsubscribing from so many YouTube channels as part of my on-going “I unsubscribe from this world of fuckwittery” lifestyle choice.

Every time I’m watching a YouTube video and they say “Let me know down below in the comments” I just think “Oh no you poor bastard”.
The problem is of course that they have to appeal to people to do that to get the algorithm to work for them and give their content a chance to get noticed.
YouTube actually make you open yourself up for trolling to even attempt to make yourself relevant in their “who gives a shit about quality?” mindset.
It’s exactly the same with the other clown and his blue tick programme being a deliberate incitement to gain money by hateposting, rage baiting and outright lying to farm replies for cash and cause division.
Absolute shithouse behaviour.
Particularly as it also seems to be an effective template to become US President.

Great to hear from you!
It makes much more sense now we know why you brought the channel to a close and also chose to delete it eventually. All I can say is that I'll miss it.
And I hope you find the passion to return one day to the tube.
Having read that I understand completely and found the same challenges myself too, everyone can see that I struggle to get excited about the gear sometimes, whereas in the earlier "DSLR revolution" era, I'd be updating EOSHD 5 times a day sometimes more. It is difficult when a passion becomes work, when enthusiasm becomes repetition, when an audience goes toxic or when a big US tech companies enshitifies the platform you're posting such valuable creativity on. I mean, look what they did to Vimeo, it's a difficult pill to swallow and I've always struggled with my enthusiasm for YouTube as a platform as well and there's very little in way of alternatives.
I'm just glad you're well and enjoying your R5... You're right in that it still holds up as near the peak even 5 years later, and the overheating drama is far behind it after Canon decided to undo the damage caused by their fake timers and cripple hammer decisions.
 

Thank you for letting us know! I'm glad you're well! I do wish the content stayed up, as it was still useful, but I understand your reasoning. At the end of the day, it was YOUR content and you could do what you wanted with it!

I hope that you check in from time to time and thank you for all your input over the years! And congrats on the family! 

Hello, I hope everyone is well!
Even though I’m not really active on camera forums anymore, I frequently read the EOSHD blog and every now and then the forum, so I saw the thread and thought I would respond.
Because it wasn’t ”poof gone”, it was announced on the channel over a year ago and mentioned in the last three videos.
Before going into why, super flattered that this thread exist. I mean that.
So here are some thoughts on the matter and why I took it down.
Hobby vs Work
YouTube was never my job, just a hobby. So was video making and photography, in the beginning.
When starting the channel I was working as a producer after a couple of years as a radio/TV reporter. So I started the channel to keep my practical skills fresh. And to keep up with the development, which was huge at the time. The DSLR revolution, Blackmagic, cheaper editors etc.
Fast forward a couple of years and I started making more videos at work again. At the same time I pretty much lost all interest in doing it as a hobby. And actually canceled the channel.
Winston Churchill was definitely right in saying that work and hobbies should not be too similar. 
But what I had discovered was a passion for still photography, which I had pretty much no experience with. So I started making videos again.
That’s why my videos became very repetitive and short. I didn’t care about that part, I just wanted to display my stills work and get feedback, talk to the community, experiment with cameras and develop.
After a few years I became a good enough photographer that my new employer noticed and just like that I was shooting stills professionally all the time. And I still do (I work in marketing and PR). It’s a huge bonus in my field and if you are good at it you will never be out of work.
So photography also became less and less of a hobby.
Instead I found other hobbies. They where things that for example got me out into nature, so photography tagged a long a while, as a secondary activity. But eventually it faded. It was also nice to do things and not share it with people. I know I probably could have a very successful channel by making videos about my current hobbies, and even make some money. But I never really wanted a channel for the sake of a channel. And always had a full time job.
The fact is that at no point would I had been able to live of my channel, not even at the peak. Even with sponsors it was never more that a regular salary (in my field and country). But as long as it was a hobby and I was glad to do it, it was a welcome addition to finance camera gear.
 
Time
At the same time as my channel started to feel less fun and other hobbies started taking my time, I started a family. So.. you get the idea: full time job + family + 2-3 hobbies = no YouTube.
Upkeep 
So why take it down, why not leave it for the community? I did..  at first.
Like some of you pointed out, the YouTube crowd in the photography/video space is generally nice and positive. That is my experience as well.
Early on I learned that a good way of keeping the trolls away was to be present. Respond and engage. Trolls are usually idiots or cowards, so they don’t like getting push back.
But once I stopped making videos, views and comments obviously went down. But the trolls started coming back. Not so much after me, and I don’t care about that. But agains the community. The people commenting started being nasty towards each other.
I felt a responsibility to moderate, which was annoying. That’s when the thought about simply removing it started to grow.
It wasn’t an impuls. It was an internal debate that went on for months. And the issue grew much much larger than a couple of trolls. 
I started thinking about five years ahead, 10 years, 30 years..
This post is already way too long so I won’t go into all of it. But I think you get the idea when I say:
Privacy or when the content no longer reflects the creator. Digital minimalism, control over one’s narrative, inactive or outdated content. Risk of misuse of content  due to me not checking the terms updates. Closure.
 
So there is a looong ramble :)
 
To keep in spirit of the forum I can charge my current gear for pro work :)
For the longest time I used the EOS-R for 75% of all my work and the R5 (rental)  for the rest. It wasn’t mine but my employer told me to buy whatever I wanted. Paired it with a 28, 35 and 70-200. 70/30 stills/video.
 
The R5 is peak camera imo.
 
Today is a little different. I started working for a new company about a year ago and again was told to buy what I needed. I would have bought the R5 without hesitation if it wasn’t for the Sigma 35-150/2-2.8.. I just had to have it. So I ordered the Nikon Z6iii. It’s not as good overall as the R5 for me and what I like in a tool camera. But it’s 90% there. And coupled with that lens it’s becomes on par.
 
//MB

MFT has been dead for decades now - everyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last 10 years knows this.
What people don't know is that due to a quirk in quantum physics and the way that time works, MFT was actually dead before it was invented.
This means that my GH7 and GX85 and OG BMPCC and BMMCC never existed, don't exist, and when MFT finally "dies" somehow will disappear from my house.
I bet you even think the earth is round...   some people are just too much!

It would not surprise me in the least if Mattias packed it all in due to:
A. Having a YouTube channel can be very taxing, especially if trying to do it as a business rather than just for fun as it’s a beast that never stops increasing it’s appetite, plus,
B. It can get so toxic in the comments and most take it too personally and it only takes one or two toxic trolls and it can stress them out so much, it ruins it for them.
Based on a couple of pals and their own YouTube experience…

If anything good comes out of this, less dependance and less monopolies would be a great thing.
[UK switching to Chinese tech in 3,2,1...]

Anyone know where he went? It would seem his "Gear Doesn't Matter" doesn't exist anymore.

Yes, it's very difficult right now not to feel dirty. I've always been pretty far left politically, and as such pretty critical of the style of greedy capitalism that has won out, but today there is virtually no ethical way to do much of anything because EVERYTHING is wrapped up in some pretty deplorable shit. The way the tech companies especially kneeled to this administration, it just feels dirty to even use their services but it's virtually impossible not to. 
Everything uses at least something from Google or Amazon to operate and run. Look at how many sites and services become unusable when Amazon Web Services goes down, for example. The internet itself grinds almost to a complete halt.
It's such a bleak time. 

I struggle myself with using US services at the moment given that our data could soon (and might be already) in the hands of a neo-nazi government.
In terms of the ethics of it, I'm also disappointed with the behaviour of the American CEOs and how they have brown nosed the nazi President like a bunch of pathetic losers.
It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth and not just for them.
It does make me uneasy paying for YouTube Premium, Google Gemini, Apple iCloud, Adobe Premiere and Netflix, actually it makes me more than uneasy, it makes me sick.
But unfortunately our leaders in Europe barely know how to use MS Paint, and have over the years completely dropped the ball on tech. So there are no decent alternatives, not really.
That said, the UK & EU gets a bad rap for what it's created. The best of European technology is the most complex in the world from ASML and Zeiss. Without their EUV lithography machines, TSMC, Nvidia and Apple would not have their fancy chips.
They'd be reliant on Intel fabs and old processes.
Any more funny business from the US admin and the Dutch should fucking remind them of that.
Also the British invented the WWW, RISC architecture for CPUs and smartphones, not to mention ARM. We've not done so badly, we've just failed to commercialise stuff properly and let the American venture capitalists snatch it away from us.
If it is political and that's why he's taken the channel down, he's missed a big opportunity to publish a video saying so, and directing us to his new channel on a different and more ethical Tube.
It's a real shame just to pull the plug entirely without even so much as a goodbye.
But then, maybe he has good reasons to... I don't know. I just rather hope he's ok.

I had been searching awhile back for one of his videos I remember watching a few years ago and couldn't find it. He might just be pulling out of being online. I know several friends who have done that, (usually to stay sane.) Maybe he's not into photography anymore in his life.
I don't think any of his videos were at all political, they were always about photography and his personal philosophy about it. 
The thing I got the most from his videos (aside from some pretty thorough reviews of equipment) was him saying that it's okay to go back to a place and take the same picture again and again, improving it each time. This was good advice for me. I guess I had some idea that every picture should be original. (Don't know where I got that idea and wasn't even conscious I held that belief before he helped me change it.)

Really sad if he has indeed given up on YouTube.
He's still on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mattiasburling
Maybe we should ask him if he's alright?

I miss Gunpowder!
 
Burling's YouTube channel went down a few days ago, and the only thing that remains is the title, "ICE was here."  It's a shame, because he created some exceptionally informative videos.
 
Some of the transcripts from his videos are archived here.

Miss him. He also randomly deleted or privated a bunch of his older videos; I noticed this happen maybe 2-3 yrs ago. Tons of old Blackmagic videos, his awesome Canon XC10/XC15 review, etc etc. 

That's really unfortunate. His Vimeo is still up, and his Instagram too, though they haven't been updated recently. His content output decreased a lot once Gunpowder passed, but he had already been less active as I think he became more and more disillusioned with the entire YouTube/Filmmaking/Photography scene.
I hope he is well and creating the art that he loves.

Nice!
The other thing to consider when testing ISO and noise in the final image is the delivery part of the pipeline.  If I shot in two different modes and then processed them differently in my NLE, I might be able to tell the difference between them in my NLE.
But no-one except you is watching your footage in your NLE, so you'll be exporting it, probably to h264 or h265, and you might not be able to tell the difference between them at this point.
If you're going to be uploading them to a streaming service, then that service will decompress, process (NR, sharpening, who knows what else) and then brutally re-compress it.
Lots of things are visible in the NLE and are completely gone or mangled beyond recognition in the final export or stream.

I don't regret jumping to full frame. The S5 and S5II X have treated me well and both are really good values. It was the right choice at the time, for a multitude of reasons. BUT if I'd known that the G9 II and GH7 were in the pipeline I probably would've stayed with M43.
The main benefit for me has been the better low light, but these newer M43 cameras are pretty darn good at that. FF still has an edge, but it's not a huge one. I also don't typically do a lot of work where I need really shallow depth of field. Often times I'm closing the lense down to get similar results to what I got when filming on M43, except these lenses are much heavier and more expensive than the ones I used on my GH5, G85, and GX85 bodies. I could fit all my lenses in a bag and it didn't weigh much at all. The same definitely cannot be said for my FF lenses! The stabilization, to my eye, also looks a lot better on the G9II and GH7 than my S5 and S5II X. 
I hope Lumix keeps M43 alive and even gets back to innovating with the system. A return to smaller bodies, and possibly even smaller lenses, would definitely pique my interest. I don't know that I'd ever jump back into the system completely, but I could see myself buying a couple lenses and a body if it was compelling enough. 

A GH7 (or G9 II if it has unlimited recording and doesn't overheat) really would be my ideal camera. Even though I use the excellent kit lenses a lot on my two S5 bodies and my S5II X, it's still not as light weight as I wish it were. 
I don't really care about shallow dof and low light isn't nearly as big of an issue when it comes to the GH7 and G9 II based on what I've seen or for what it was on my GH5 cams. But it's hard to justify going back to M43 because I just don't have faith that Lumix is invested in it for the long haul. Everyone i know loves these two cameras, but they don't get the firmware updates that the full frame cameras get. For Lumix that's a red flag because they've always released firmware that gave new features and improved their cameras. I mean, look how long they supported the GH5!

Truth bomb spat out right there and unique to you, to me, to others as our situations and needs are all different but unless you actually get out there and shoot shoot shoot, you’ll never truly know what works. And what does not.
Probably always will be other than perhaps AI etc might/probably will fill in the blanks.

Good choice.  
I think that film-making is about compromises and the more you understand what you're trying to achieve then the more specific you can be with your equipment selection.  The "I'll being everything just in case" shooter does so because they don't know what they want and therefore can't make any decisions.
The more I shoot the more I understand what I want, how I work, what challenges I face, and what is available, and the clearer I get on what equipment I should use and why.
It's sort of incredible that even with todays offerings of 8K video and 240p slow-motion and 14+ stops of DR and RAW and all the lenses available, even if you had infinite money, infinite strength to carry and operate heavy equipment, there are still serious compromises that have to be made.  The does-everything camera is still a wild fantasy, even for gym bros in the billionaire class.

Yep. As I’ve shot more and more I’ve determined what is importantly to me:
 
A comfortable, balanced, somewhat lightweight body but that is built well and has a good grip
 
Great stabilization. I shoot heavily handheld and often will use warp stabilizer a lot. I’ve got a workflow down to get good results out of a lot of different cameras with varying IBIS strengths, but the G9II with its superb stabilization will make my life easier
 
Decent lowlight. That includes having a somewhat noisy image as long as the grain looks good. 
 
Decent autofocus. Benefits my very run and gun content like weddings. 
 
Good internal image. My Nikon Z6 setup taught me I don’t love rigging out my kit. 
 
I have learned to work around any camera that is weak in one of these areas. I’ve figured out how to make very different equipment work for me and work around limitations. It’s just the G9II seems to really fit the bill with what is most important to me. 
 
That’s where I really feel camera decisions matter. Not in the IQ. But in the usability. How does it feel to use. Does it have those practical features that matter to you. 

I get the appeal. Full frame makes that look easy. The medium format comparison is flattering, not literal. M43 can still do it, but only by design, not by accident.

Fair point. I think that’s where full frame really starts to show its edge.