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I'm in the same boat. I work for a non profit, so it's a steady 9-5. But I love the work, most of the projects are my own creations, so videos I can get somewhat excited about. My salary is modest, but steady. We drive a 14 year old vehicle and live in a 900 square foot house in the country. No debt other than the mortgage. Most of my work is from home in a small mini barn I converted into an office/studio. It's amazing the peace you can find from living a simple lifestyle. Our income is pretty small compared to many these days, but we live really comfortably. Owning things in cash, buying used, and not trying to keep up with the Jone's can go a long way in building a comfortable life.

This conversation feels like it's about freedom, debt, and burnout. Debt traps us, stealing our freedom and leading to burnout. Sometimes, you don't even realize you're caught in this cycle until it's too late. Societal norms, the pressure to consume, and the desire to 'keep up with the Joneses' often play a bigger role than most will admit. The only way out, for some, is to simplify their lifestyle and buy back their freedom by escaping debt. I've done this myself—it was hard, but worth it. I'm not in video creation beyond family videos, but I see parallels in education. Educators often start out wanting to make a difference, finding meaning in their work. Yet, burnout looms. Many students seem uninterested in learning or disrupt others, reflecting the challenges of our current society. Ultimately, no job is meaningless, but life itself can feel trivial if we lose perspective. We take nothing to the grave. What endures is the relationships we build—primarily with family and friends. Occasionally, you might be remembered for something you've done or created, even if you never know it. So, enjoy your time. Treat others with respect. Honor those who came before you, and perhaps you’ll be honored in return. Reaching retirement is a gift—not everyone gets there.

Exactly this! I don't want to come off as though I am trashing my friends in the industry who complain or who had to move back home after moving to the big city with big dreams, but they all had the same things in common: leasing vehicles that were way too expensive, getting apartments that were too big (and expensive) for them, didn't want to take jobs that they didn't think they'd enjoy, constantly spending money (often on credit) to purchase new gear they didn't need, etc. Just unnecessary spending. They don't fully understand or appreciate the freedom this job can give them if they just changed their outlook. I too would love if every job I took was interesting and tickled my creativity, but if I'm pretty lucky being able live comfortably with low living costs and no real boss. I'll take it over office or labor work anytime!

This guy has talent... This is shot on the Sony a1 and an RX100, and it's very nice. But then a funny thing happened... I discovered his Super 16mm stuff and liked it even better, although you have to appreciate it on a big screen for the texture, and not a phone. Film, being film has an imperfect nature. So more emotive. Now in the current digital camera landscape, full frame is king. And for a good reason. But what if you could have both Kodak Vision3 Super 16mm and full frame in one camera... Now, I considered the OM-1 as a Super 16mm 4K camera, because I very much liked the E-M1 Mark II since forever. The OM-1's OM-LOG however has a bit of a thin tonality, and is it a bit tricky to get looking right. Lovely ergonomics and EVF though. Now the Sony a1, has the resolution to do a 4K Super 16mm crop (close to, it's actually Micro Four Thirds at 2x-ish which is good enough for most c-mount lenses longer than 25mm like the Kern Switar 26mm F1.1, work of art that it is). The a1 I had but ended up selling to somebody far richer, because I feared it would depreciate from 5 grand to something like £1. This hasn't happened yet, as the new one is 7 grand. Anyway, sod Sony and their pricing... Doesn't shoot internal RAW anyway. Now N-RAW, BRAW, Canon RAW, I have tried them all, and to my eye at least they all look like H.265. There is just something so smooth and perfect about the modern faux RAW that it kinda defies the point, RAW should be raw and not processed. Those codecs are heavily processed and the file sizes are ridiculous. There's only one RAW format that has come close to FILM to me and that has always been Cinema DNG. Starting way back with the original BMCC and Ikonoskop, uncompressed 2K Cinema DNG. Following on from that the miracle of Magic Lantern RAW video, with the 5D II going from some very dodgy 1080p H264 to the best ever looking 1080p Cinema DNG RAW which still stands up today for tonality, grain, texture, micro contrast, motion cadence and colour... you know, all that stuff which gets chucked away in N-RAW! Then the 5D Mark III upped the ante to 3.5K RAW eventually, at 24fps in 10bit. The drop to 10bit didn't hurt it much. A little noisier in the shadows, but worth it for the huge resolution bump from a 1:1 sensor readout, which did away with the moire or aliasing without the need for a Mosaic Engineering AA filter. Then the Sigma Fp came along, but the first model has two drawbacks. The first is that it doesn't have the resolution for Super 16mm crop in 4K. The second is that the 4K RAW appears to be binned. It's a bit funky looking. Now the Sigma Fp-L has a 9K sensor instead... a whopping 60 megapixel. But I have not used it much... the reason being, I haven't quite found a lens that really suits it... Then I thought, well it has the best crop modes of any camera, and stays in those modes when you cycle the power or switch between stills and cine... Perfect for C-mount, Super 16mm stuff? It has a nice oversampling in these modes, from 1.3x crop to 2x... Sampling upwards of 7K down to 4.8K, which makes for some very finely textured UHD Cinema DNG footage, superior indeed to that of the first model. (It also adds into the mix phase-detect AF but it doesn't work very well) Now the Fp-L I thought could work well with my C-mount stuff and indeed, it fucking does. But I also think of adding a Panasonic OIS lens to the mix, for handheld run and gun Cinema DNG. So the 28-200mm looks attractive and yes, slow aperture but it's absolutely tiny. This tiny-ness is very important for the Fp-L, as it feels naff with big heavy lenses. And the Fp-L is very good in low light, because the sensor is enormous - the high megapixel count doesn't really hurt it, same with the Sony a1. The 28-200mm also adds OIS... the all-important missing stabilisation on a non-IBIS camera. So I think I have found the best full frame proper RAW camera that is best able to emulate the look of proper Super 16mm film and work with c-mount lenses, and offers you a full-frame walk-round zoom camera as well... And that means best of both worlds in one small affordable tool. Pop a 28mm F1.4 on there and it will also do a very good Leica Q3 impression. We may moan about the lack of IBIS and LOG, but then a Bolex doesn't have these either. And just think about the absolute massive pain it is to shoot with a Bolex and the expense you save going with a trusty Fp-L! Food for thought. .... The 8bit Cinema DNG to SD card is actually really good BTW

I definitely don't fault anyone who decides this isn't the life for them and moves on to other ventures (like driving a train, which honestly is a pretty cool job I think!); for some it's the right move to just go back to working on passion projects and working a "real job." I guess what bums me out is that many people don't realize there are alternatives or just can't fathom living a more modest life as a means of being able to continue what they love to do. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who appreciates a more modest lifestyle in exchange for being able to continue to do what I enjoy doing for a living. I think the trade off is more than worth it, personally.

To each their own, I think. A lot of these things are really subjective. I bought both the FP and FP-l and while I felt some level of happiness using them and the 12-bit CinemaDNG looked really nice SOOC, I'd often be a bit disappointed when I started to grade them because while the SOOC colors were nice, the dynamic range was ho-hum and the rolling shutter seemed really terrible sometimes on the FP-l (in APS-C mode, it actually got worse and was noticeable even when panning slowly). I ended up selling mine because I was getting to have too many cameras (there again!) and if I pushed myself on it, I needed to agree that aside from a positive emotional response to a lot of things about the camera, there was nothing that it really did "better" than any of my other cameras, including "be small" since the EOS R5 is effectively smaller if you want to shoot in anything other than an 8-bit codec or have a screen that you can see without holding the camera at eye level (the DPL mod helps with that, at least, but I never bought it). Heck, even adding the EVF made it pretty close to the same size as the R5. I'd really love to see a next generation FP with a better/faster sensor, the ability to record 10-bit internally, and either/both of an integrated tiny EVF (small enough to make YouTubers cry in rage is fine) and a screen that can at least tilt up a bit. Add those things, keep the body the same size, and keep uncompressed raw internal recording and it'll instantly be my favorite travel/carry-around camera.

The second picture I assume is the Three Wise Men. Clearly confused as to where to find the stable block.