The YouTubers are fighting!

[newfoundmass]

I don't know what this was all in response to, but it's entertaining (and interesting) none the less

 

[FHDcrew]

Yeppp.  I love Justin Philip BTW.  But yeah these youtubers deserve it lol.  The YT camera community is so toxic. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

I'm not sure about the start, but those two videos seem to be a response to this pissing match on another one of Justin's videos.

It is really funny to see Cam spazzing and claiming he wasn't paid for videos when he got thousands of dollars in free gear as well as the views/revenue that come from day 1 launch as well as the associated affiliate marketing revenue.

I also hadn't heard of Craterr before. Sounds like a real 💩 of a platform, designed to make YouTube reviews even more insufferable.

[eatstoomuchjam]

Meanwhile, I'm over here starting my own personal beef with PetaPixel.  They posted some breathy review of how great it was to make a music video in only one night using Midjourney and I basically said they should stick to photo/video stuff for humans instead of posting about shitty AI slop.  The author wrote back saying it was a "complicated" subject.

And now they deleted both of my responses to that - the first, OK, maybe because I wasn't very nice.  But in the second, I got more polite and pointed out that with current AI models, 5 seconds of video uses as much power as running a microwave for an hour - so his nearly 4 minute video was like running a microwave for nearly 2 straight days - and that's enough electricity to power an average household in the US for about 2 1/2 days, especially since it's unlikely that he used 100% of the clips that he generated, adding to the amount of wasted power.  Deleted again.

I guess, though, it's a good thing since it was the final straw in pulling their feed from my news reader (only so many clearly-sponsored (but not disclosed) positive reviews of shitty plastic film cameras that I can watch) and unsubscribing from the YouTube which has become an increasingly formulaic slog of Chris and Jordan reviewing products that they clearly don't give a shit about - and the weekly podcast where they act like smug celebrities, even though 99.9999% of people neither care who they are nor care about anything they've said.

Good encouragement also to fill out my YouTube subscriptions with some smaller creators who actually seem interested in what they do.

[newfoundmass]

21 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'm not sure about the start, but those two videos seem to be a response to this pissing match on another one of Justin's videos.

It is really funny to see Cam spazzing and claiming he wasn't paid for videos when he got thousands of dollars in free gear as well as the views/revenue that come from day 1 launch as well as the associated affiliate marketing revenue.

I also hadn't heard of Craterr before. Sounds like a real 💩 of a platform, designed to make YouTube reviews even more insufferable.

I normally like Justin, and agree with most of what he said in his video, but reading those comments from both of them, I feel embarrassed for both. Justin should have stuck to the higher ground instead of resorting to homophobia.

[FHDcrew]

12 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Good encouragement also to fill out my YouTube subscriptions with some smaller creators who actually seem interested in what they do.

Facts. Still some gems out there. I still love Nigel Barros’ content and he has a second channel now haha

 

(side-note, pretty funny how good the gh5 looks given many YouTubers dismiss it now lol. I’m realizing that a good 60% of the reason modern cameras seem to look so much better than cameras from 2014-2018 is because the skills of those reviewing cameras has gotten so much better. Nigel’s footage looks amazing. Obviously, there are absolutely valid reasons to upgrade still. But I’m realizing image quality is not as bad as I’m tempted to think on older cameras)

[newfoundmass]

11 minutes ago, FHDcrew said:

Facts. Still some gems out there. I still love Nigel Barros’ content and he has a second channel now haha

 

(side-note, pretty funny how good the gh5 looks given many YouTubers dismiss it now lol. I’m realizing that a good 60% of the reason modern cameras seem to look so much better than cameras from 2014-2018 is because the skills of those reviewing cameras has gotten so much better. Nigel’s footage looks amazing. Obviously, there are absolutely valid reasons to upgrade still. But I’m realizing image quality is not as bad as I’m tempted to think on older cameras)

Virtually any camera released in the last 10 years, if used with care and consideration, will look good. And ten years from now the GH5 will still be able to generate lovely images, assuming there are some still out there that work! The pace in which people upgrade cameras is crazy to me, it just seems pointless and wasteful.

---

I forgot to add, the Craterr video information makes me think that it might be related to several "creators" switching to Lumix recently. Armando and Cam are two of them who've switched and become VERY PRO Lumix, so it certainly makes me go "hmm." As much as I love Lumix and believe they are absolute powerhouses, it was and is very suspicious how many people were suddenly making the switch. 

[FHDcrew]

12 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

it was and is very suspicious how many people were suddenly making the switch. 

Honestly you are so right. I too have noticed how rapidly people are hyping up Panasonic as they once did Sony. And all at once. And 1/3 of these YouTubers are brand ambassadors for LUMIX. Don’t get me wrong the current crop of lumix cams are amazing and they in a sense do deserve the praise they are getting…literally that good. But still…

[newfoundmass]

1 hour ago, FHDcrew said:

Honestly you are so right. I too have noticed how rapidly people are hyping up Panasonic as they once did Sony. And all at once. And 1/3 of these YouTubers are brand ambassadors for LUMIX. Don’t get me wrong the current crop of lumix cams are amazing and they in a sense do deserve the praise they are getting…literally that good. But still…

Yeah, as a Lumix user I am biased towards them and I strongly believe that they are a better tool than what Sony and Canon are offering, but if this newfound praise is because of marketing then that's a real disappointment. I want authenticity when watching, reading, and conversing with people about these cameras, not marketing hidden as opinion.

It's one thing when you go into something knowing it's marketing, and we should all probably assume that everyone is just trying to sell us something at this point, but it sucks that we have it. It'd be really nice to have some authenticity.

Like even Justin is clearly enjoying this attention. I suppose he's at least honest about it, but I really just wanna geek out about cameras and equipment, even if this is kinda entertaining watching them fight.

[FHDcrew]

7 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Yeah, as a Lumix user I am biased towards them and I strongly believe that they are a better tool than what Sony and Canon are offering, but if this newfound praise is because of marketing then that's a real disappointment. I want authenticity when watching, reading, and conversing with people about these cameras, not marketing hidden as opinion.

Absolutely, I agree and would say its a draw between Lumix and Nikon for the best value and innovation right now imo.  I feel super secure a a Nikon Z6 shooter knowing that my current camera has aged really well and continues to fit my needs, and when I need (or want) to upgrade I can easily get a Z6III (or heck even a Z5II is fantastic), use all my current f-mount lenses, use my Z6 OG as a bcam and have a camera that's super competitive.  And I'm so impressed at all of Lumix's stuff; the freaking S9 for $1k used is killer, the S5II is cheap and darn near perfect, and the S1 II basically flawless.  LUMIX and Nikon really are the top dogs right now.

 

But back to the main topic...it seems there are so many aspects of the brand deals that are not disclosed well.  Like this entire Craterr thing.  When was that ever made clear in a video ever?!?!  "Yo this camera manufacturer sent me this camera for free but dont worry this is my unbiased opinion" just does not cut it anymore.  When I watch the 'popular' camera youtube, i start to feel the lie that my current gear is inadequate...but its funny because then when I'm actually shooting and editing i totally forget about that and end up feeling really comfortable shooting on a camera I have been using for 4 years...and as my skills improve so do the results I'm able to get out of the camera.  I am getting better results out of the Z6 8 bit flat than I used to out of the 10 bit NLOG Prores from the Ninja V...and I literally had a post on this forum from 3 years ago deeming the 8 bit flat "unusable" with "terrible highlight rolloff".  Well a few small tricks in Resolve and I was able to just roll off the highlights more in post which really mitigates that problem haha, and I can get the color/image to a really nice point in the internal 8 bit...

[newfoundmass]

1 hour ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

and unsubscribing from the YouTube which has become an increasingly formulaic slog of Chris and Jordan reviewing products that they clearly don't give a shit about - and the weekly podcast where they act like smug celebrities, even though 99.9999% of people neither care who they are nor care about anything they've said.

I always liked Chris and Jordan. I know they have their critics, chief among them Andrew, and I agree with a lot of the criticism, but I always enjoyed watching them. Their banter was always enjoyable, and even when they were with the Camera Store, things like their review of the GH5 matched the same thoughts I had when using the camera and I watched it after I'd purchased it as I tried to consume every video I could to learn how to get the most out of it.

Since going to PetaPixel though, they do seemed checked out in most of their videos. Even when Chris doesn't seem to care about what they are reviewing, he seems to try to make the best of it and have fun. Jordan though went from an active participant to often just filming himself at his computer talking lifelessly for a minute or two before throwing back to Chris. Sometimes he doesn't even do that and Chris will talk about video features.

Never listened to the podcast, admittedly, so can't comment on how they come off on it.

[FHDcrew]

12 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Since going to PetaPixel though, they do seemed checked out in most of their videos.

Probably bored. I would be too if I was doing those reviews for that long lol. Still tho. 

[MrSMW]

Isn’t a crater an impact site of destruction?

[FHDcrew]

8 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Isn’t a crater an impact site of destruction?

Yes…it destroys our contentment with the gear we already have haha

[kye]

2 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

(side-note, pretty funny how good the gh5 looks given many YouTubers dismiss it now lol. I’m realizing that a good 60% of the reason modern cameras seem to look so much better than cameras from 2014-2018 is because the skills of those reviewing cameras has gotten so much better. Nigel’s footage looks amazing. Obviously, there are absolutely valid reasons to upgrade still. But I’m realizing image quality is not as bad as I’m tempted to think on older cameras)

2 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Virtually any camera released in the last 10 years, if used with care and consideration, will look good. And ten years from now the GH5 will still be able to generate lovely images, assuming there are some still out there that work!

The elephant in the room is Resolve.

As I have discussed and demonstrated in my "New travel film-making setup and pipeline - I feel like the tech has finally come of age" thread, over the last decade Resolve has gotten more feature-rich, but more importantly, it's made it HUGELY easier to use and get good images.

People now have a lot more knowledge about colour grading tools and techniques, that's for sure, but things like the Film Look Creator enable you to use a single node, you set your input and output colour spaces, and then you can adjust exposure / WB / saturation / contrast and all sorts of other things in the same tool.  You don't even need to apply a film look at all...  just select the "Blank Slate" preset, which sets it to have no look at all, and you can still use all the tools to adjust the image without having to worry about colour management at all.

Any improvement in your post-processes is a retroactive upgrade to your camera, your lenses, and all the footage you have already shot.

Colour grading is such a deep art that I think the average GH5 user back in the day was probably extracting a third of the potential of the images they'd shot, if that, simply because they didn't know how to colour grade properly.  I'm not being nostalgic about the GH5 either, the same applies for any camera you can think of.

There are reasons to upgrade your camera, for sure, but most of the reasons people use aren't the right reasons, and they'd be better spent taking the several thousand dollars it would take for a camera upgrade and taking unpaid leave from their job and improving their colour grading skills instead.

[eatstoomuchjam]

28 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Since going to PetaPixel though, they do seemed checked out in most of their videos. Even when Chris doesn't seem to care about what they are reviewing, he seems to try to make the best of it and have fun. Jordan though went from an active participant to often just filming himself at his computer talking lifelessly for a minute or two before throwing back to Chris. Sometimes he doesn't even do that and Chris will talk about video features.

Yeah, exactly.  That's what I'm saying.  Their banter is still good/fun, but there doesn't seem to be even the slightest spark in the reviews anymore.  That's probably also a symptom of PetaPixel demanding a higher volume of reviews and with a number of them being for things that are inherently uninteresting. 

And I get it - to some extent, how much is there to say about a 21mm lens?  And in that review in particular, they didn't even seem to be doing any basic research before the videos - talking about Thypoch coming out with one (the Simera-C has had a 21/1.4 lens for months already, though with a different design) - and 21mm has been a Leica staple for many years with the 21/1.4 Summilux having been released in like 2008 (which makes sense since Thypoch, to some extent, is emulating Leica with the Simera series).  But yet, Chris acted like a 21mm lens was something he'd not heard of before...  presumably because he just doesn't care about what he's reviewing anymore.  It's a job.  Lens comes in, take some photos around Calgary, do some LoCa tests, shoot a test chart or two, lens go out.  Ready for the next lens to come in...

But they've also become a channel that won't publish a negative review at all.  I had high hopes for the new person - Sarah?  But then she did a review of some shitty wearable camera that seemed way more like an advertisement and any criticism mixed in with tons of praise, despite that the footage looked like pure garbage.  Then the next week in the Podcast, they acted like people were crazy for suggesting it, given that some small criticism had been slipped in to a 14 minute mostly positive review where the footage is described as "good enough" and since the gross oversaturated colors are "so vibrant there's not much you have to do to them."  To me the footage (the link should go right to the sample clips) could be much better described as "a gross, shaky jello-filled nightmare."  Later, in the conclusion, the presenter concludes that the camera is definitely worth the $200 price tag, despite that it's redundant with a smartphone and records with quality much worse than a smartphone.

If that shit is sponsored, it's not disclosed and they actively denied it - so that's gross.  If it's not sponsored, then PetaPixel's standards on cameras are incredibly different from mine.  It was already a thin ice - and posting videos heaping glowing praise on AI slop and deleting critical comments is just the last push that I needed.

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

24 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Isn’t a crater an impact site of destruction?

Right, but this one has 2 r's at the end for a double dose of their review-ing?

It's like "creator," but without the creation/creativity?

 

[FHDcrew]

7 minutes ago, kye said:

There are reasons to upgrade your camera, for sure, but most of the reasons people use aren't the right reasons, and they'd be better spent taking the several thousand dollars it would take for a camera upgrade and taking unpaid leave from their job and improving their colour grading skills instead.

I love this