Rise of the salesmen, Death of the artist

[Andrew Reid]

Although I can be a bit negative about the current states of camera releases and so on, I just want to say how much I appreciate this forum. A daily fun read and fun to participate in.

You folk have created a creative haven with a good technology knowledge, and this is very rare these days. I just provided the platform for it and a blog. It's striking how far it has gone thanks to you lot...

I think there are cycles in human history, eras when good wins, eras when bad takes over. No guesses as to which era we are in as a world today. The camera community is a microcosm of reality. Go back 10 years ago and we had a camera community as a whole led by artists, photographers and filmmakers. Now we are in a different cycle, and I look at who is leading it with disdain.

We have a bunch of gatekeepers who are all salesman cosplaying as journalists and artists because that's what the industry rewards and priorities with access. Client journalism has taken over from filmmakers and artists.

How proud I am that this community is so different.

In the face of such mainstream BS on YouTube.

BTW - Do you remember when Jordan of DPR/Petapixel threw a big tantrum on this very forum and left for 2 years at the peak of the DSLR revolution / video, before returning with a nicey nice guy attitude like nothing had ever happened?

It was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of EOSHD, from his side.

On 3/9/2016 at 5:35 AM, Jordan Drake said:

Hey Andrew,
After all the dumping you've been doing on every reviewer, I was surprised to see my video at the top of your blog post. But hey, we all need content right?

I think when a filmmaker features your "content" on their blog it's a compliment and a good thing, not a leeching, or theft, right?

But he was feeling insecure... attacked by my previous posts about the rise of the shills on social media.

In order to feel targeted you first have to believe you are the victim.

But if he stops to think about it and genuinely deep down considers himself the artist/filmmaker he always cosplays as, he would not have felt like a victim at all of anyone's push back against the shills and their excessive gatekeeping.

Had he sympathized a little bit why I was "dumping on every reviewer", he wouldn't have had a problem with it.

So in the end this tells us something important about influencers like Chris and Jordan - that they themselves sees themselves as defacto salesmen whose job it is to sell. It's their whole identity.

So of course he felt particularly personally attacked. Even though I wasn't targeting him. In fact back in 2016 Chris and Jordan hadn't come to mind in my criticism at all.

As creatives we need to push back when we see the over-commercialization of a space, or an online community.

Don't be afraid to call these guys out.

[eatstoomuchjam]

To focus on Jordan/Chris for a second, in one of their recent videos (I can't remember which), the sponsor was a memory card maker (I think OWC) and the ad spot was them comparing that company's V90 SD card to a competitor's V30 or slower SD card and talking about how much faster it was.  You could just about see on their faces how much they disliked themselves for doing it since they knew perfectly well that a comparable V90 card from a competitor would probably be about the same in performance.

Chris also is always going off on how much "better" modern mirrorless lenses are than older DSLR lenses - which, y'know, for some things, maybe - especially if you have a camera that corrects certain aberrations in software...  but the whole thing just seems like a play to steer people toward spending money on spending money on shiny newer lenses vs just buying completely acceptable (and in many cases beautiful) older lenses.  Like, is the RF 50/1.2L sharper and better-correct in some ways, especially wide open, than the EF 50mm f/1.2L?  Probably.  On the other hand, I've had my EF 50/1.2L for about 15-18 years and any time I see something that I've shot with it, I'm not thinking "Man, if only that lens could be 10% sharper..."

Anyway.  The sad part for me isn't the existence if big-name YouTube personalities acting as a third-party marketing division for the camera companies.  The part I find sad is that people who devour everything they say hook, line, and sinker.  They'll show up on camera forums and lament that the company won't give a free company to their favorite influencer so that they can see "what this camera can really do."
For the cameras that influencer does receive, they make a nice-looking video that looks... basically like all of their other videos with other cameras and they talk in glowing terms about the bullet points in the press kit that the manufacturer provided them.  They declare that this camera is the one, the gem in their filmmaking crown, and that they will use it for all of their work henceforth.
And two months later, there is another video about how they are switching to the next camera that they were provided.
"R5 Mark II, why I switched"
"Goodbye Canon, Hello Z9!"
"Pyxis, the camera that will finally replace my Z9"
"I'm moving on from Black Magic!"

It also gets annoying because they will harp on how some feature of the camera/sensor is the most important thing for making a "cinematic" image (don't get me started on the useless term "cinematic") - and then their followers will start showing up to any discussion to declare that whatever camera is being discussed is unusable because it doesn't have that feature.  When the Pyxis was announced, I made some joke about the specs of it - something like "Glad to see that BMD finally came out with a camera in 2024 that matches the specs of the Z Cam E2-F6 that came out in 2018."  The response: "Does Z Cam have OLPF?"

Just as long as the preorder pipeline is filled, the YouTube influencers have done their job.  It's all about building the hype.

It's kind of crazy how good a job they've done of making that a thing and how many people don't even wait until the camera is in the hands of real users before they start lining up to preorder stuff!  I generally prefer to wait until real users get the camera - there are exceptions - the last time I did something like that was the GFX 100 II - since it was all but guaranteed that I'd get it.  My GFX 100 was pretty beat up after years of travel, I have a lot of Fujinon glass, and the new one was small enough to travel with me.

[MrSMW]

10 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

"R5 Mark II, why I switched"
"Goodbye Canon, Hello Z9!"
"Pyxis, the camera that will finally replace my Z9"
"I'm moving on from Black Magic!"

Is exactly the type of reviewer I neither trust nor follow. Or even bother to watch.

Or non-working people, ie, folks whose only work appears to be reviewing shit on YouTube, but never actively using it for paid jobs. Or even fun.

Reviewing for reviewing sake. Nah, not interested.

Much more interesting reading folks opinions here!

[ND64]

I love that their positivity/negativity is relative. An exact same feature in brand X that they called "game changer", they call it "good to have" in brand Y, even if the release date between the two is just 3 months. A cripple hammer limitation in brand X is "unfortunate" and the same thing in brand Y is like "if its important for you maybe this camera is not for you". 

[Andrew Reid]

49 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

To focus on Jordan/Chris for a second, in one of their recent videos (I can't remember which), the sponsor was a memory card maker (I think OWC) and the ad spot was them comparing that company's V90 SD card to a competitor's V30 or slower SD card and talking about how much faster it was.  You could just about see on their faces how much they disliked themselves for doing it since they knew perfectly well that a comparable V90 card from a competitor would probably be about the same in performance.

Yet they are happy to do it... They can't say no.

They have to trade that little bit of credibility and trust each time to keep the megabucks rolling in.

Far better to be an artist.

Your store of worth is in the exchange beauty and creation of cinema, rather than in the negative slight of hand of a salesman... whether they are boxed into this position or don't have a choice is neither here nor there, it's what they are, and what they have chosen to be.

The sad thing is all these influencers will have to keep on trading credibility and respect with every advert until there's nothing left in reserve and people's patience has simply run out.

They are dispensable transient commodities whose ultimate destiny is at the whim of an online economy.

Maybe they think it doesn't matter, that people will understand that it's just an advert and that the bills have to be paid.

But one day they will end up on the trash heap, discarded and replaced by someone newer.

Besides I really don't see the satisfaction in being this kind of influencer.

It must be fucking horrible.

To have to always sell yourself on demand to whoever is dangling the cash...

Must feel like being a fully-clothed prostitute.

 

[Ninpo33]

I've been trying to use Reddit more lately and explore different communities but wow... makes me really appreciate our group here. You can see the different age groups represented in various social media platforms and it sure is eye opening to hear from Millennials and Get Z as opposed to Facebook Groups. Instagram is useless now at this point. Youtube and Reddit really show how strange the industry and marketing have become. It is great that we have more transparency and technical knowledge as buyers. I feel for people in sales these days when the average consumer can come into a location, (If there even is a brick and mortar store anymore) and already know the specs and sale prices of everything. But the power of Youtube shills is pretty abhorrent and how quickly the younger generation is swayed by certain people for better or worse... I'm so tired of the clickbait thumbnails and "Why I'm Leaving X" videos. It's like walking unto a used car lot or a cheap department store. 

Thanks for this space Andrew. I came here to buy your "Anamorphic PDF" years ago and have been a fan ever since. This forum helped me Learn to adapt my Kowa and Elmoscoppe II, decide to get the GH4 and metabones speed booster combo and then the GX85 as a little B cam. I've sold at least 5 other people on those devices after they saw my footage and didn't believe it was m43. This shift in Panasonic and the industry in general has been sad, I agree. I miss the old days. I wish they would just listen to us and give us the camera everyone wants. Even if Sony is holding out on the better sensors I still feel like there is a way to come up with products that are better thought out. 

Honest reviews and opinions aren't rewarded in this world like they used to be so I know it's been a long and hard road. 

[Ninpo33]

1 hour ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

To focus on Jordan/Chris for a second, in one of their recent videos (I can't remember which), the sponsor was a memory card maker (I think OWC) and the ad spot was them comparing that company's V90 SD card to a competitor's V30 or slower SD card and talking about how much faster it was.  You could just about see on their faces how much they disliked themselves for doing it since they knew perfectly well that a comparable V90 card from a competitor would probably be about the same in performance.

Jordan always hates on Lumix too. They think they are slick and coming across as being informative and objective but they slide in little comments here and there and tiny little digs. In the latest video Jordan tried to throw shade at the S1Rii because it didn't have the 8k open gate ready at launch. He reviews a beta test camera with pretty insane specs for the price point and then takes points off for extra free features the camera will get later with a firmware update? WTF?

Gerald does it too. He really changed the whole perception of the S1Rii with his decision to focus so much on the rolling shutter right at the start of the video. I'm not saying the RS is good but it's not that far off from the S1h/S5ii open gate and it's better than the Sony A7RV 8k, another photocentric camera with 8k video. If you read the comments on other videos everyone is just referencing Gerald and why the S1Rii is "dead on arrival" for them due to the "unusable" RS. Other reviewers showed real world use of the camera and didn't ignore the RS issues but they included it in a fair and unbiased way. Gerald opens with the camera with the Dynamic Expansion Mode turned on in 8k and went straight to the slowest readout speed of 31.7 and talked about how bad that is... "One of the worst of most cameras he's tested". But if you turn DRE off you get 23.5ms in 8k 24. "But dynamic range suffers". Again... Panasonic gets dinged for added features like DRE and those "extras" are seen as compromises and coming up short as opposed to a feature they generously gave us.

A lot of it is the fault of LUMIX and their terrible marketing department who have a decent product but keep loosing time and time again in the popularity contests. It's not enough to just have a "good" product anymore, you also have to convince everyone who are being sold a "decent" product and being told its "amazing".

Ed Prosser and Media Division along with Zach Mayfield and others do a great job. Some of the shills could learn a thing or two from the YouTubers that just use the gear and report back, instead of trying to "INFLUENCE" gag,\.

[Andrew Reid]

The thing with narcissists is they will voluntarily add themselves to any hitlist like Jordan did, it's all about them, it reveals how they see themselves as pretend-artists in an industry that prefers to reward the grifter over the creative at every opportunity.

I think he has an insecurity complex because there's no visual talent to justify him being anything but cosplay.... no artistic substance, stubbornness, or interest behind the eyes... these people lack the self-sabotage ability to speak out like an artist would about various topics and issues.

That's because any sane person would put their career first, well a career psychopath would anyway.

It takes a certain amount of eccentricity and weirdness to buck the trend doesn't it?

What's good about the current forum here... all this talk we do it because we consider it relevant and worth talking about or debating... We are not thinking about our careers and attention economy. Whereas the masses don't push back, they don't debate, they're mainly just are fed things for popular consumption, and there's a lack of appreciation that it's the art of cinema and photography that's the whole point of it all... no point in such powerful cameras and tools existing for any other reason, who the fuck needs 8K to shoot advertorial content for the web?

And maybe the insecurity of people like Chris and Jordan or the Northrups comes from the fact that it isn't important what some fucking ex-camera store salesman thinks... not important enough to justify their celebrity status anyway.

Eventually they will get tired of pretending to themselves.

They're not important enough to justify earning more than a teacher, nurse or psychologist.

Not important enough to make them a gatekeeper of public opinion and online content.

Certainly not important in the grand scheme of things where art is remembered, cinema is remembered, camera reviews filled with mediocre shots of frozen landscapes, very quickly forgotten.

I just think we can do better and here on this forum we sometimes prove it.

We are not uncritical.

We are not being spoon fed.

We don't particularly look up to prominent and famous influencers on Tik Trump, or hang off every word Fro Knows Shit All says, and we are capable of judging the ex-stock photography models. No talent behind the lens... you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

This is why I wish the camera companies would wake the fuck up, it is not selling cameras.

If anything it is an unappetizing circus of shit.

Off-putting.

These fucking marketeers have been to some of the most beautiful and cinematic places in the world only to come back with nothing but mediocrity.

I think it's really bad for sales, really uninspiring marketing.

It has come along as a new thing, had some success and now it's time to move on.

At the moment it seems to be all the camera companies want. The rise of tame client journalism, and creative mediocrity.

They look down on us. They think mediocrity as a gold standard is what makes the normal guy on the street think he can be an artist too!

I just think we need a much tougher push back against the camera companies and their marketing idiots.

I am going to start myself. A message will go off to key Panasonic contacts soon, and point out that they're doing it all wrong.

I don't care if I am ever invited or given access again, I think the push back has to start with me.

It's not going to be Northrup doing it is it?

They have completely undermined, rejected and neglected what really sells cameras... art, artists, people who can actually shoot, like you guys.

[Ninpo33]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I am going to start myself. A message will go off to key Panasonic contacts soon, and point out that they're doing it all wrong.

I don't care if I am ever invited or given access again, I think the push back has to start with me.

It's not going to be Northrup doing it is it?

They have completely undermined, rejected and neglected what really sells cameras... art, artists, people who can actually shoot, like you guys.

I'll sign that manifesto.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

But one day they will end up on the trash heap, discarded and replaced by someone newer.

This for me is where I think so many of the so called ‘influencers’ have got it wrong and that is short term gain with zero medium, never mind long term plan. Other than rose tinted spectacles.

I have no idea how much folks really make from YouTube other than unless you are pretty big, it can’t be too much surely?

And whilst you can maybe sell free gear on a for a profit, if you don’t use it, you will have to because you can’t eat it or use it to pay your electric bill or mortgage.

The other thing that makes me laugh is the folks who maybe were in the industry…but for 5 minutes and then decide to jack it in for 5 minutes of fame.

And for the vast majority it will be 5 minutes and the ‘fame’ is not much more than a temporary shallow ego boost.

I have far more respect for those for whom YouTube etc is a sideline hustle, ie, they make the greater proportion of their income from having a real paying job that has a little more stability.

Or maybe I’m just an ageing fuddy duddy who is out of touch. Possibly…

The bottom line is I like and support folks who make content because they feel someone else might be also interested.

I dislike folks who make content for content sake because they either make money from simply making content or think if they make enough content, they will eventually make money.

The reality though is I suspect somewhat grey and the more ‘artistic’ types sharing for the right reasons get swept away by the masses spouting garbage.

In a fair and just world, the cretins would all lose in the end, but it’s not a fair world is it? 

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

1 hour ago, Ninpo33 said:

Jordan always hates on Lumix too. They think they are slick and coming across as being informative and objective but they slide in little comments here and there and tiny little digs. In the latest video Jordan tried to throw shade at the S1Rii because it didn't have the 8k open gate ready at launch. He reviews a beta test camera with pretty insane specs for the price point and then takes points off for extra free features the camera will get later with a firmware update? WTF?

FWIW, I'd say that if Jordan is grouchy about Lumix, it might be more in the category of being more critical to the ones that you love.  He's a long-term Panasonic shooter and he and Chris have been doing most of their videos with Panasonic for years now.  I can't remember if Jordan's main camera is currently the G9 II or the GH7 - I think it's the latter.

 

1 hour ago, Ninpo33 said:

Ed Prosser and Media Division along with Zach Mayfield and others do a great job. Some of the shills could learn a thing or two from the YouTubers that just use the gear and report back, instead of trying to "INFLUENCE" gag,\.

I'd be cautious with even putting faith in those folks, though - they're in a different categories than the straight-up shills, but I also can't remember a time that Media Division didn't like a camera that somebody gave them - and a company who gives them a camera for review can also be relatively sure in most cases that it'll be used to film some slick footage, often with a robot arm, that will look great for their marketing.

This is why I'm much more a fan of getting a general pulse of real end user feedback vs putting too much stock in what YouTubers say.

Gerald Undone is also the one who made a huge deal of Z Cam leaving a file in an unusable state (though you could send it to Z Cam and they'd fix it for you) if the camera lost power while filming and how it was completely unusable on a professional set for that reason, etc.  His followers got so obnoxious about it that Z Cam finally had to invest engineer time in building a tool into the camera to recover the files instead of building features that 99.999% of the users actually cared about.  By that point, a bunch of us had been successfully using our Z Cams for at least a couple of years without the dreaded power loss problem (partly because it supports redundant power - plug a V mount into the DC in and put a small NP-F on the camera, no danger of power loss).  That and, y'know, just about anybody I know who shoots isn't a complete idiot and swaps the battery when it gets down to 20-30% (or at least gives the heads-up that after this shot, we need a swap - sometimes you let it get a bit lower so you don't break the flow).
At the time, a few other vendors that he reviewed favorably also had problems with potentially-corrupted files if you yanked power while the camera was recording.  He just didn't think to try it because most hybrid cameras don't make it easy to do that, vs an exposed np-f on the back of the camera.
That whole thing was really similar to what you're saying about him preloading the complaints about rolling shutter.  I can't remember, but if he treated that like the battery problem, he then went on to mention it every 15 seconds for the rest of the video, even when talking about unrelated stuff.

In the case of Z Cam, he also then went on some big thing about how people felt "attacked" because they were Z Cam fanboys - which might have been true of some people, but the rest of us were just irritated that every time we mentioned our camera, some zombie would lurch out of the shadows to moan "what... about....  power.... losssssss??????"
 

[eatstoomuchjam]

3 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

I have no idea how much folks really make from YouTube other than unless you are pretty big, it can’t be too much surely?

From Adsense, the CPM depends on the genre and I doubt it's a ton for cameras.

However, those ads that they read to you inline, where 1 minute out of an 8 minute video is an ad read, are potentially tens of thousands of bucks, depending on the audience size and the sponsor.  Apparently online gambling and VPNs just print money and are willing to throw piles of it at influencers.

[MrSMW]

Right, I am getting myself sponsored by NordVPN and Bingoplus.com because whenever I am on Bingoplus.com which is the only on-line betting platform I use for all my on-line bingo needs, it is always whilst using NordVPN and I wouldn’t trust anyone more for my on-line privacy than Nord.VPN

Thanks NordVPN!

Thanks Bingoplus!

[Emanuel]

@MrSMW So I got you now! (into this online world we live all in... and where you're coming from ; ) you're an Asian EOSHD member in disguise to be a Franciú* shooter, after all! LOL ;- )

* Franc[ês] ("French" in Portuguese language) + Mons[iú] (abbrev. of "Monsieur")

[PannySVHS]

3 hours ago, Ninpo33 said:

Gerald opens with the camera with the Dynamic Expansion Mode turned on in 8k and went straight to the slowest readout speed of 31.7 and talked about how bad that is...

Slashcam tested the S1RII with 22.8ms in 8K without dynamic boost. Latitude and dynamic range was tested being the same with DRE mode on and off.

S1RII in normal mode comes close to the latitude of the impressive C70 and C300MKII DG sensor, making it best of all Dslms in latitude. 15.6ms readout in full frame 4K/6K 60p btw. Idk how professional testers can get it so wrong. Shills without thrills is what i call this kind of youtube reviews.

 

[Ninpo33]

2 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

FWIW, I'd say that if Jordan is grouchy about Lumix, it might be more in the category of being more critical to the ones that you love.  He's a long-term Panasonic shooter and he and Chris have been doing most of their videos with Panasonic for years now.  I can't remember if Jordan's main camera is currently the G9 II or the GH7 - I think it's the latter.

 

I'd be cautious with even putting faith in those folks, though - they're in a different categories than the straight-up shills, but I also can't remember a time that Media Division didn't like a camera that somebody gave them - and a company who gives them a camera for review can also be relatively sure in most cases that it'll be used to film some slick footage, often with a robot arm, that will look great for their marketing.

This is why I'm much more a fan of getting a general pulse of real end user feedback vs putting too much stock in what YouTubers say.

 

Yeah, I think he shoots on the GH7. I know his history but just feel lately like there's been 3 videos in a row where he says some weird negative stuff about LUMIX cameras in his reviews and ignores a lot of the good. He did it with the S9 video and then a follow up S9 video and now again with the S1Rii. I'm no fanboy either... I raved about how cool the S9 was from the beginning and bought the Fuji X-M5 instead once I saw the dynamic range and capabilities of 6.2k open gate/anamorphic raw. 

And yeah, I don't 'put faith" in any of them... I just take in the information presented and make my own conclusions. I've been following along for a while and mostly know where people's loyalties lie.

I thought Ed Prosser's video was pretty balanced, do you disagree?

[eatstoomuchjam]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

S1RII in normal mode comes close to the latitude of the impressive C70 and C300MKII DG sensor, making it best of all Dslms in latitude.

When you say "latitude," do you mean DR on a Xyla 21?  Or skin tones in an over/under exposure test? The C70 is fantastic on the former and a bit mediocre on the latter - cined rated it at 8 stops which puts it equal with a bunch of FF cameras.  Impressive for an S35 sensor, but not substantially better than the S5 or S1H.  That is better than the R5 or the or the A7 IV, though.

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

15.6ms readout in full frame 4K/6K 60p btw.

Is it impressive for it to have a 4K/6K readout speed equal to the 5-year old Canon R5's readout speed...  in 8K?  It's a very usable number, and that's great.  Anyway, aren't those modes line skipped or similar?

Keep in mind that I don't think that the RS numbers are nearly as big a problem as some of the reviewers said, but it's also not great to act as though they don't exist.  The camera is advertised as an 8K camera that supports 6K open gate.  Those are the modes that many operators would consider using.

29 minutes ago, Ninpo33 said:

Yeah, I think he shoots on the GH7. I know his history but just feel lately like there's been 3 videos in a row where he says some weird negative stuff about LUMIX cameras in his reviews and ignores a lot of the good.

I'd still take that as disappointment in a system he uses - sometimes we're more critical of the ones we love.

29 minutes ago, Ninpo33 said:

I thought Ed Prosser's video was pretty balanced, do you disagree?

I mentioned Media Division in my other response because they were the only one of the last group that I knew.  I have no real idea who Ed Prosser is.  I let 3 videos about the S1R II play in the background yesterday while I worked - PetaPixel, GU, and Media Division.  By then, I knew that it was very unlikely to be a camera that would be $3k worth of improvement over the cameras I already have.  There was no need to watch any more videos about it at that point.  Glad to hear that Ed did a good job, though, whoever he is!  😃

[ntblowz]

21 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Is it impressive for it to have a 4K/6K readout speed equal to the 5-year old Canon R5's readout speed...  in 8K?  It's a very usable number, and that's great.  Anyway, aren't those modes line skipped or similar?

 

 

S1RII 4k60p is supersampled, only 4k120p is lineskipped, so for it to have same rolling shutter as lineskipped R5/R5ii 4k60p that is quite impressive. And DR on R5 is really nothing to write about.

I can have more DR in nature profile than R5 with clog3, that one thing I really noticed when I change from S1 to R5 years ago.

Panasonic is really pushing for the DR rather than speed like the competition which used stacked sensor at expense of DR hit.

I hope the next one will be more on speed though, as after using R5 for 4 years I kinda get used to the crappy DR 

[Ninpo33]

31 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I mentioned Media Division in my other response because they were the only one of the last group that I knew.  I have no real idea who Ed Prosser is.  I let 3 videos about the S1R II play in the background yesterday while I worked - PetaPixel, GU, and Media Division.  By then, I knew that it was very unlikely to be a camera that would be $3k worth of improvement over the cameras I already have.  There was no need to watch any more videos about it at that point.  Glad to hear that Ed did a good job, though, whoever he is!  😃

I wonder if you mean to come across as snarky as you generally do. Tough to read tone on here so I think I'll just move on with my day. You seem to have it all figured out, many times I wonder why you even reply to people.