Something must be done about the ethical standards of this planet and there’s no better place to start than in some small way, on YouTube. For years I’ve had my articles and forum posts co-opted by people like Tony Northrup with 1.42 million subscribers, without any credit or acknowledgement. A lot of hard work goes into writing this blog, the understanding of the technical side of my filmmaking, the journalism and sources, the research and investment in cameras. I do this purely to help people and because I live and breath technology and cinema. To see Tony Northrup fish around for a big story so he can sell his adverts around it, mislead people and not even understand the topic, pump misinformation out and not credit where he got his “breaking news” from is absolutely unacceptable.
I regret to have to show you this binfire of a video, but here it is…
Because I need to correct the absolute horseshit he has come out with.
The removal of the clock battery is not a “solution”!
They did not solve the overheating problem.
It is not a “permanent fix”.
It is a hack step along the way to confirm a timer is involved in the recovery cool-down behaviour of EOS R5. We get a deeper understanding of how the camera is designed and how it behaves, thanks to someone in China brave enough and skilled enough to put it on the workbench and take a screwdriver to it.
Opening your $4000 camera, removing the circuitboard battery and disabling the internal clock timer should not be recommended as a “fix for overheating”.
Let’s be honest, these workarounds are not practical on set.
It is up to Canon to fix the damn camera, not us.
We paid the money, and not a small amount.
Unscrewing the back, prodding the card door sensor, ripping the clock battery out… None of it is acceptable for $4000.
Those of us researching the overheating controversy are risking our cameras. The user in China has had his in bits. My friend BTM_Pix on the EOSHD forum has invested countless hours into his EOS R5 temperature sensor monitor app. I even went out, and bought the sodding camera to see for myself if there was a solution to the overheating issue.
You know what finishes this kind of passion faster than the EOS R5 reaches boiling point?
People like snakeoil Tony.
Stealing our story and selling his Squarespace sponsorship around it.
Claiming he has “the solution” to overheating in the description.
Misleading people.
Trotting out his lame, non-understanding of the topic and technology.
He has the fix!
He has the breaking news!
All about him.
No he doesn’t.
He stole the breaking news.
He has not one, but TWO EOSHD tabs open in his web browser.
We know this, only because he forgot to crop the toolbar out of the screen grab that made it into his YouTube video at 4m 38.
On YouTube, in the comments…
Several of his own followers call him out.
Still the majority of the comments are unaware.
They gush about the guy, Thank You For Your Hard Work.
1.42 million subs.
The irony of that.
Here is a silver haired click weasel taking Canon to task for unethical business behaviour, at the same time as stealing from people like me.
Call me naive, but I don’t think Northrup reads Baidu. I don’t think his followers do either!
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter to me who wins the attention war, the clicks. I leave the clicks to the weasels. What matters to me is cinematography and technology.
But it DOES matter to me about character, about credit where it’s due, about not cheating, not screwing people over, not ripping them off.
“Breaking news”. The cheek of it.
The topic on Baidu was brought to our attention on the EOSHD Forum thanks to eagle eyed technically knowledgeable readers all across the world.
We have put ourselves at risk of Canon’s wrath all to encourage the company to come clean.
At the very least to encourage Japan to apologise for the problems and attempt to fix the camera.
If Tony thinks he can rip me off, he has another thing coming.
He has now made an enemy for life. Camera trade shows, YOU Tony will be confronted in person. YOU will face up to who you are.
And I have a message for Tony’s sponsor as well, Squarespace.
Do you support this video?
Do you endorse this moral standard?
I won’t rest until I get an answer.
I also have a message for Canon.
If you have in the ranks people who want to sweep all this under the rug, discredit me as a source, claim it’s all overblown and wrong, or even hawks agitating for legal action against a blogger and customer, people will see directly through it like a gin clear sky.
Unlike the Russian autocrat government or the management behind VW’s “defeat device” I do not think all people are that stupid. I do not think all people can be sold lazy excuses and be told to eat candy, to keep your blood sugar levels up and avoid metabolic disorders that end up in screaming agony then a coma in Omsk. The same people who think they can get away with poisoning the opposition, and glibly lying to the public, are the same people who will try to cover up the cynical market segmentation of the EOS R5 or the VW emissions scandal, by glibly lying to customers and discrediting the journalists who reveal the stories in the first place.
CDA-TEK / BTM_Pix, myself as an EOS R5 owner, the man who goes by the name of Math Class on Baidu and others have all made sacrifices and put the hard graft in to explore the issue of overheating, over several weeks, several articles and forum posts – to reveal completely new information.
For the best part of a few months, all Canon’s official ambassadors and so-called reviewers could do were… Toe the line. Ignore the issue. Misunderstand it.
I am absolutely sure that now Tony has been publicly confronted he will claim innocence just like Max Yuryev did last month – hiding behind the get-out clause of a slimy apology, insincere as you can get, the quick hand of a ninja edit to add a tiny meaningless URL to my blog in the description of his video long after everyone’s already watched it and moved on.
Don’t let these people fool you.
Max Yuryev and TONEH – two peas in a fucking pod.
10 years in this industry, and I have learnt one thing. The narcissism and backscratching is never ending.
I do hope viewers and readers remember this, next time they visit their favourite channel.
Finally I’ll leave you with this meme…
Can you believe that Philip Bloom came after me about it? Asking me to remove it?
If ever you needed an example of the tragic narcissism of this industry, there you have it.
