The Gerald Undone Challenge

[John Matthews]

20 minutes ago, stephen said:

2. Cameras are not used only for artistic work. TV, sports, reportage, corporate, personal and family even some commercials and weddings videos are not art. Would say that people using cameras for artistic work are minority. So what? People using cameras in all those mentioned areas are not qualified or entitled to have their opinion?  Or don’t have knowledge and experience with cameras ?

I'm all for opinions from all different likes, as long as they're genuine; otherwise, it's just propaganda. Sadly, Youtube is seemingly full of that and it's becoming increasingly difficult to discern honest opinions from promotional content. Would you disagree?

[Andrew Reid]

Nice find with the FAQ.

Maybe it's my misconception about Gerald.

I can agree with him about corporate work not being all that interesting enough to share (and often there's no permission for that anyway) and I can see why he wouldn't want to do any more of that when he's got a successful business with the YouTube channel.

It's not a personal thing, only an observation, a suggestion that I'd enjoy his channel more if it had visuals, images, photography, short sequences to set the mood and cinematic moments.

We are too eager to see the binary Me vs Them, when the point I am making is more about the consumerism and the dubious creative need to switch cameras so often. I watch a YouTube channel about headphones. I ended up with an addiction and 20 pairs of expensive ones.

I am also a nerd that also likes playing with cameras as much as I like shooting with them. When EOSHD started the snobby pros were constantly asking searching questions of me - where was my pro work, paid work, client work? All mine was my own creative projects, self funded, I travelled the world under my own steam to make my own stuff and practice the art of cinematography and photography. I was pretty much attacked by the Cinema5D crowd about this all the time - if I wasn't a professional making money from commercial clients - I was nothing. An amateur, a fool, a "tester".

I still think there is a Canadian manager though 🙂

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

 

1. I see a clickbait thumbnail.

I don't click on it in sheer point of principal.

Unless it's a very nice looking lady with limited clothing in which case I overrule myself.

But if it's one of the camera reviewer crowd or anything else I might be interested in, making a mock shocked face with a caption, "you won't believe this shit!", I don't even bother to click on it and thumb you down. You just don't exist to me other than as another clickbait cretin on the internet.

And even if you don't have a clickbait thumbnail, but every single frigging time it starts with you riding around on a one wheel or walking aimlessly about staring off into the distance... well look forward to getting past puberty.

I'm off to make a video now about me making coffee.

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

 

1. I see a clickbait thumbnail.

I don't click on it in sheer point of principal.

Unless it's a very nice looking lady with limited clothing in which case I overrule myself.

But if it's one of the camera reviewer crowd or anything else I might be interested in, making a mock shocked face with a caption, "you won't believe this shit!", I don't even bother to click on it and thumb you down. You just don't exist to me other than as another clickbait cretin on the internet.

And even if you don't have a clickbait thumbnail, but every single frigging time it starts with you riding around on a one wheel or walking aimlessly about staring off into the distance... well look forward to getting past puberty.

I'm off to make a video now about me making coffee.

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

 

1. I see a clickbait thumbnail.

I don't click on it in sheer point of principal.

Unless it's a very nice looking lady with limited clothing in which case I overrule myself.

But if it's one of the camera reviewer crowd or anything else I might be interested in, making a mock shocked face with a caption, "you won't believe this shit!", I don't even bother to click on it and thumb you down. You just don't exist to me other than as another clickbait cretin on the internet.

And even if you don't have a clickbait thumbnail, but every single frigging time it starts with you riding around on a one wheel or walking aimlessly about staring off into the distance... well look forward to getting past puberty.

I'm off to make a video now about me making coffee.

[MrSMW]

Talk about getting your point across, why did that post 3 times?! 🤪

[Andrew Reid]

15 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Unless it's a very nice looking lady with limited clothing in which case I overrule myself.

Found the Matt Grainger fan 🙂

[EduPortas]

14 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Will Gerald ever pick up a GH2 from years back and show us his images with it? I'd love it if he did so. Perhaps there is not enough views or not enough affiliate link money in it? Ask yourself why hasn't he done something like this yet in all these years, or gone into classic gear like vintage lenses? Why has he never been an EOSHD reader or even acknowledged that we exist as a community of 11 years, or that Magic Lantern exist, all that history of the DSLR video revolution he has just kinda glossed over like it never existed. Fucking poor, man.

 

 

Absolutely. We glossed on this same subject a couple of months ago on another thread.

These "technical" reviewers on YT are very capable individuals with a keen sense of money. They are wicked good with the telepromter and have loads of charisma. Any mistakes are swiflty dealt with 100 cuts during editing.

Yet, it all feeds the same huge business model: newer is better. Time to spend yet again. "GH5? Bleh. Yesterday's news. Buy your S5 NOW and receive 10% off with my promo code!. Who cares if you need to spend $2,000-$3,000 on a new body and new lenses. You NEED that full frame look to be taken seriously".

This is the Gilded Age of YouTube. But that fine golden leaf is starting to show some cracks...

[PannySVHS]

Gerald is a charming reviewer. I would love, if less people would get baited into the discourse of camera testers circus. Gerald does not represent that until now. He has been doing good work in his field of work, until now.

It would awesome if we all would focus on contributing to great threads again, as we have been doing all these years.

I would love a structure of the forum to bait us more into the filming section where people post their stuff but hardly get noticed for their work in that subforum of the main forum. Then click baiting would be a great thing.

I would love more oldschool classic and classy articles like about the Canon dream lens. We never had a chance to see the trees in the beautiful photographs move their leaves in the winds, moving images.  I think this forum could become THE major place for creative and TRUE nerd content again. Right now it is a bit calm on that side.

The Gerald Undone piece is witty and right about the main points regarding the consumerism and camera hype machine but it is not on point about him, when he is presented like he was identifying himself as a "guru", which he never claimed he was.

I too find it disgusting, when youtubers steal content from this forum and dont give back nor even cite the oritinal source such as was the case with the overheating problem of the R5. I think it is a major threat to original blog journalist and artists. We can go back to the roots of this forum, cool and involving stuff and not worry about the click baiters and content appropriators.

 

[Elias]

I actually have to agree with Andrew 90% of the way (I'll explain my other 10% in a bit, below).

To start with, what I love about EOSHD is Andrew's honesty. He writes his reviews from a real-world perspective, and if he hurts anyone's feelings by telling the truth so be it (and btw, if camera manufacturers were smarter, they would pay attention to Andrew and actually provide interviews and honest respondes which would gain the favoritism of people like me).

I run my blog and social media accounts in a similar way and it's clear that being honest is not a good attention-grabber for advertisers who want you to only talk about the great things their products offer and sweep under the carpet the bad things.

I also greatly appreciate that at EOSHD I get the opinion from someone who actually uses gear to do real-world stuff. More often than once you buy stuff which sounds great on paper but when you try it it simply sucks for whatever reason (usability, quality, durability, expandability, simplicity, etc). And the problem (for advertisers and manufacturers) is that the truth is that most of the time you don't need all the bells and whistles and attention-grabbing features they advertise, they are designed to make you upgrade your gear and spend more cash.

Having said all that however (here comes the 10%) I think we need those guys who buy gear every year (and thus, also the paid bloggers and youtubers) as they provide the necessary financial incentives for these companies to continue adding features and competing in the market on a continuous basis. If that had not been the case we'd still be using cameras with technologies from 10 years ago with FullHD sensors and no image stabilization.

So bottom line, I think there's space for both sides. We need the B.S. celebrities in order to buy stuff, so that every few years the artistic community can upgrade to truly better equipment that could make a difference in their work.

[Happy Daze]

I have a channel (allthestuffwedo) which has a low subscriber count of 330-ish. I'm an Englishman currently living in France but I am considering moving to Canada to help popularise my channel😉. I can't earn anything for views and I have only ever been approached by one company (after I reviewed a lens hood that I had bought) asking for a review in exchange for them sending me free items. I considered this and decided to decline the offer not just for the sake of integrity but also for the fact that the items were relatively low value and they were trying to buy me on the cheap! If I was approached by Sony to review the A1 and I get to keep it that's probably where the conflict begins for most people. I have heard the phrase that "x company has agreed that my review is not influenced by this sponsorship" (because that is what it is - sponsorship). I can't imagine there are many people that will give a bad review on the basis that they want to remain ingratiated with the company concerned especially with the thought of free products or huge discounts in the future.

I have only reviewed a few items comparatively but I pride myself on only giving positive reviews to items that I actually like enough to keep and use, generally if a product isn't worthy of keeping then the review might not be so favourable. But herein lies the double jeopardy, a negative review means that you will never be offered products early for review and certainly not for free, also negative reviews attract a lot more negative comments and "Dislikes" because of maybe fan-boyism or the fact that they want a positive reinforcement for an item that they have already purchased. 

I reviewed the Zoom F2 32 bit float recorder and the item was a disaster, and that's what I felt obliged to put a cross in my review, some thanked me and others disliked the video. Crawling around the web I found even more comments about what a crap review it was because I believe that it did not reinforce their purchase decision, but you can't argue with the facts I put across because they were genuinely apparent on video. 

There are other reviews I have done that are not favourable to the product but the negativity in general is not appreciated by some.

I put out a video meant to be a joke about comparisons between phones and cameras (these comparisons drive me mad) but even that has received it's fair share of negativity.

So, Andrew I understand your frustrations put across in your last few YouTube videos, I was in full agreement with the chat about the  disaster that was/is the Canon R5 and find it hard to believe the defence it received from the fans, a crap product is a crap product no matter the name on it, worse still a product that is purposely not allowed to fulfil it's potential through lack of heatsinks and software crippling is unforgivable especially at these prices.

All of my reviews of lenses or camera gear are backed up with plenty of samples which although might not be to everyone's taste they do provide insight not possible within a talking head video along with a bit of B-roll of the item.

I have resigned myself to the fact that any negative review will have consequences be they small or great, I stand by the fact that a reviewer has an obligation to be honest about issues and anomalies, if not then call it what it is, an advert. 

 

[Silenkiller]

I've always found Gerald to be very transparent and unbiased in his opinions IMO.

Maybe others out there not so much but I've used his reviews of gear many times to help make large purchase decisions.

[MrSMW]

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Found the Matt Grainger fan 🙂

When are you doing an episode on him? 

I'm mostly looking forward to the Peter McCanon one though.

I reckon you have a pretty long list... 😬

[spinkscapes]

On 6/24/2021 at 6:53 PM, John Matthews said:

All the people you mention seem to be after one thing: our time, which on YouTube means money. Here's my experience:

1. I see a clickbait thumbnail.
2. I click it.
3. I sit through 5 seconds of Adobe slowware, thinking "not that sh*t again"
4. I start watching the video (now they're getting paid by my view), admittedly some nice footage sometimes
5. I watch some BS ad right in the middle of what they're trying to get to in their BS thumbnail. They're selling some BS service that no one needs (yes, they get a cut if you're dumb enough to sign up).
6. I watch to the end. Now, they ask me to like and make a comment (more of my time) about their self-promoting BS video to enrich themselves. "Don't forget to click subscribe and click on the alert bell" so can also get spammed by YouTube. Let's not forget the Amazon affiliate links they so generously added in the description section. Finally, they pinned the the first comment (oh, what a surprise, it's they saying some more BS).

Is anyone else tired of this over-produced, time-sucking, self-promoting crap? Is this what google meant when they said "Don't be evil"? At this point, I'm asking myself if I have anything better to do with my limited time on this planet.

Kinda reminds me of this scene:

[projectwoofer]

New Gerald Undone video: which cameras do YouTubers use?

A7s iii, A7s iii, A7s iii, a7s iii, A7s iii…canon something, A7s iii, A7s iii and so on and so forth…

[Beritar]

On 6/24/2021 at 1:56 AM, Silenkiller said:

I think you are confused a bit. He is a gear reviewer from a purely technical standpoint and probably the best there is on YouTube. Can't even begin to understand, what is so hard to understand, about that one.

I watched two reviews from him. The Panasonic Leica 10-25mm and the Sony A7SIII.
On the first video, he said the Sigma 18-35mm with SB had faster AF than the 10-25mm.
On the second video, he said the 4K of the A7SIII was sharper than the A7III.

Why not ...
 

[mrtreve]

The Canadians probably all do in-studio gear reviews because outside is frozen tundra for half the year. They are simply trying to stay warm.

[John Matthews]

15 minutes ago, mrtreve said:

The Canadians probably all do in-studio gear reviews because outside is frozen tundra for half the year. They are simply trying to stay warm.

In which case, a Canon R5 would be the better choice.

[Anaconda_]

It's amazing how different the view counts are when @Andrew Reid name checks people in the title, compared to when nobody is mentioned.

I wonder how far you could take that. Just give each title a different YouTuber name, with no context... and then don't ever mention them in the actual video.

[Dustin]

4 hours ago, projectwoofer said:

New Gerald Undone video: which cameras do YouTubers use?

A7s iii, A7s iii, A7s iii, a7s iii, A7s iii…canon something, A7s iii, A7s iii and so on and so forth…

It’s amazing that a lot of these YouTubers just need cameras to talk about making “content” which is just talking about consumerism! Crazy. I do understand though some people just like nerding out on gear and don’t actually want to be cinematographers or make films. To each their own but odd!