Who is your trusted (youtube) camera reviewer

Woo hoo! Another Lazarus thread. A blast from the past.

This may put me on the dinosaurs list, but I also (like I suspect a fair few of us here) rarely watch YouTube videos to do with anything photographic. Old movies and old music, yes, YT is a treasure trove for these.

As another early poster has written, I too dislike swearing and manic behavior, but just as much so the terrible production standards of many YT videos. Basically unattractive presenters (and too many obvious influencers) endlessly yapyapping with little or no supporting data or interesting visuals puts me to sleep. But then I'm old, and I get much the same effect from one glass of good wine.

I realize I will again put many here off by saying this, but I enjoy Ken Rockwell. Mostly because he is surprisingly good on basic techs and I can easily find stuff for my Nikon and Fuji DSLRs without having to fight my way thru the manufacturers' manuals,.a

Also a lot of what Ken writes makes me laugh. Most of his opinions I can take or leave with a good dose of milk of magnesia, but his opinions are just that, and they are free.

As for TV, well - we have two sets at home, a huge wall-mounted plasma set my partner won at a local lottery. We watch YouTube old movies on it. In the second bedroom (aka writing, film processing/printing whenever I get the urge, not often nowadays, and junque storage room) is a portable set, German-made, gifted to me from the estate of a deceased friend. I can't recall the last time it was turned on, so yes, in time it will be a family heirloom, or maybe destined for our local charity shop. All this to say, television doesn't play a great part in our day to day lives, but given the crap passing for entertainment nowadays, this shouldn't be at all surprising to many.

I will now wade thru this thread and make notes of sites I intend to visit. In this alone I've learned or I will be learning a lot here, I reckon.

As always, many thanks to all posters who have shared information on their chosen sites they believe are worth watching.
 
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DownUnder said:
Woo hoo! Another Lazarus thread. A blast from the past.

This will definitely put me on the dinosaurs list, but I also (like I suspect a fair few of us here) rarely watch YouTube videos to do with anything photographic. Old movies and old music, yes, YT is a treasure trove for these.

As another early poster has written, I too dislike swearing and manic behavior, but more so the lousy productions of most YT videos. Too many basically unattractive presenters (and too many obvious influencers) endlessly yap yapping with little or no supporting data or interesting visuals puts me to sleep. But then I'm old, and I get much the same effect from one glass of good wine.

I realize I will again put many here off by saying this, but I enjoy Ken Rockwell. Mostly because he is surprisingly good on basic techs and I can easily find stuff for my Nikon and Fuji DSLRs without having to fight my way thru the manufacturers' manuals,.a

Also a lot of what Ken writes makes me laugh. Most of his opinions I can take or leave with a good dose of milk of magnesia, but his opinions are just that, and they are free.

All this now said, I will now wade thru this thread and make notes of sites I intend to visit. In this alone I've learned or I will be learning a lot here, I reckon.

So yes, many thanks to all you posters who have shared your information on sites worth checking.
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Agreed about Ken, I think people miss that some of what he says is tongue in cheek! His overall knowledge is pretty impressive and I like his humour.
 
I ignore camera reviews. I make purchases based on specs and capabilities. These are hard facts, nut subjective opinions, and I find that nearly all reviews are more about subjective reactions that aren't relevant to my photography. Even if reviewers point out issues of handling or ergonomics, which are worth noting, I nevertheless prefer to adapt my shooting to a camera's quirks, if it has the features I need.
 
I like Kai too. I don’t „listen“ to camera reviews but his stuff is entertaining and he doesn’t claim to be a pro but has lots of knowledge.
 
My most watched on YT for photo info is "Mr. Leica" Matt Osborne. His reviews are knowledgeable, well researched and well presented. He seems quite objective for Leica and M39 and M42 lenses We don't always agree because I am smarter. ROTFLMAOAPMP Joking. Ted Forbes, also. Not so many gear reviews but pointers on how to make what comes out of the camera something to be happy about. He encouraged me to put together a small book of photos which I must send off to him for his critique.

I watch others, too, but these two are my main viewing.
 
My favourite "most trusted" camera reviewer was Norman Goldberg....Youtube....not so much. Film cameras, printed magazines. That was an influential era. Heck his kid still services my cameras....beat that!
 
Retro-Grouch said:
I ignore camera reviews. I make purchases based on specs and capabilities. These are hard facts, nut subjective opinions, and I find that nearly all reviews are more about subjective reactions that aren't relevant to my photography. Even if reviewers point out issues of handling or ergonomics, which are worth noting, I nevertheless prefer to adapt my shooting to a camera's quirks, if it has the features I need.
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This is why I don't like impersonal, "objective" camera reviews. There is no objectivity where these tools are concerned... I prefer getting to know the preferences of someone so I know who I tend to agree with, and then seeing how they react to things I don't have the chance to try out. It's been a better way to do things.
 
Retro-Grouch said:
I ignore camera reviews. I make purchases based on specs and capabilities. These are hard facts, nut subjective opinions, and I find that nearly all reviews are more about subjective reactions that aren't relevant to my photography. Even if reviewers point out issues of handling or ergonomics, which are worth noting, I nevertheless prefer to adapt my shooting to a camera's quirks, if it has the features I need.
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Me too. Which sort of explains why I'm now looking at a Nikon D600. With all of 432 actuations on its odometer.

For AUD $400 it's a steal. Will look great sitting next to my two D800s and two D700s, my Fuji XE2 kit and all the others.

I try to avoid Leica web sites and posters. If I really let myself go, I would have a Q2 and that would kill my pensioner's budget. So I make do with a Leica LTM, and suffer. Kudos to those who have made it to Leica digitals, I'm envious...

And BTW, Ken Rockwell happens to write some pretty good user guides to cameras. His articles on how to set D700s and D800s have been a great help to me. He is also good at lateral thinking about many things, check out his archive of past articles and see how perceptive he was on many photo-related topics.

As for his photography, well, the kindest word I can come up with for that is - meh. But in many ways he is far smarter than I am, so.
 
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arseniii said:
Just wondering what Youtube channels RFF members follow?

My two favorites are:

1. Theoria Apophasis (very technical and direct)

Theoria Apophasis

2. Three Blind Men and An Elephant Productions (Entertaining)

Three Blind Men and An Elephant
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While I often like what Theoria Apophasis has to say about lenses well enough, I find it hard to watch him. His constant manic giggling and intense and constant use of gratuitous profanity bores me. Swearing is fine if it has a purpose, but when every second word is a swear word it just becomes an annoying affectation.

EDIT: (oops, I now see that I have written something very similar to this in a previous post on this thread. Well, at least I am consistent! 🙂 )
 
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My favorites are:

- Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake, now at PetaPixel
- Kai W
- Ben Fraternale (In An Instant and Brooklyn Film Camera)
- grainydays aka Jason Kunmerfeldt
- Nick Carver (mostly not gear focused, though)

Ben was working the counter when I visited Brooklyn Film Camera and he was as kind as kind can be. I also hit into Jason/grainydays in a camera store (you can see me in the background in the video he was making) and he was very friendly too.

I occasionally watch and enjoy:

- Benj Haisch
- Mat Marrash (seems to be on a break lately)
- Samuel Lin Taro/Samuel Streetlife
- Ben Horne (seems like a lovely person, too)

Some that I can’t watch:

- Analog Insights (good content, I just find his voice grating)
- Almost all the other film photography YouTubers. They’re mostly annoying and bad photographers.
 
peterm1 said:
While I often like what Theoria Apophasis has to say about lenses well enough, I find it hard to watch him. His constant manic giggling and intense and constant use of gratuitous profanity bores me. Swearing is fine if it has a purpose, but when every second word is a swear word it just becomes an annoying affectation.

EDIT: (oops, I now see that I have written something very similar to this in a previous post on this thread. Well, at least I am consistent! 🙂 )
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I used to watch his channel but it became very repetitive, although it was entertaining and very informative for a while. The profanities... well, some of them are quite a hoot, to me at least, and that wasn't why i stopped watching. I also found Kai became a bit shallow and repetitive, and his immature jokes wore a bit thin as he got older.
 
I don’t tend to check out gear reviews, but I do watch photography-related videos from time to time.

My favorite channel for inspiration is Alan Schaller’s channel. This London-based photographer’s videos never fail to help me look at things differently. I find his black & white images to be fantastic. He’s also a pretty funny guy.

I’ve also enjoyed a number of Paul C Smith’s videos over the years. Paul, who is based in New Zealand, really manages to tell some good stories through his videos.

More recently I have watched a few of Nick Carver’s videos. Nick primarily concentrates on architectural and landscape photography. I have found him both informative as well as entertaining. A few months back he took some photos of an old Sears store at sunset. His subsequent discussion about how the lighting changes during the course of the sun setting and the scientific reasons behind why those changes occur was pretty interesting.

As others have mentioned, “Nico’s Photography Show” is a good source of information about the latest developments in film photography (no pun intended).

Another recommendation for film photographers in particular is the channel “Smarter Every Day”. Though it is not specifically a photography-related channel, the content creator’s extensive three part series shot while he toured Kodak’s film production facility in Rochester was a great watch. He covered everything in great detail (each of the three videos was around an hour in length).
 
I use YouTube when there is a feature on a camera that I want to turn on, but that isn't covered by a camera manual in a useful way. Recently, I needed to turn on the Nikon Z8 's eye focus tracking for a one-off wedding I was photographing. But that "feature" is really a collection of features (e.g. setting the right focus zone setting AND subject matter detection with the right parameters). And Nikon gives you a lot of info about individual features, but not reasons why you might choose one type of setting over another, OR what settling play well together for particular applications/ end results. Youtube works ok for finding that information, although actually getting to the moment that the secret sauce is revealed is wildly inefficient.

But video as a review method is stupidly linear. Entertainment value only, if that's what entertains you.
 
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