YouTube was a sanity-saver for me during these dismal Covid times. Five lockdowns in my (Australian) state were made bearable by old movies, endless segments of What's My Line? and reviews and how-to videos of/for the cameras I own - Rollei TLRs, Nikon digital and film/Nikkormats, Contax G1s and old German folders.
There was, I discovered, a seemingly endless supply for all these, so I was kept amused and entertained - and often irritated by poor video productions.
I discovered there are a few truly good photo gear videos on YouTube, but I soon got bored with the (far too many) badly-produced videos with crappy visuals - the self-impressed geeks flapping their arms about and yap-yapping, notably that Asian shooter/plugger for a renowned German camera brand. For a while I kept a list of the review and how-to videos I'd seen, to log the good ones and also avoid repeats, but eventually the list got too long and I gave up.
Also too much misinformation and/or far too many wrong opinions offered up as fact. Youtube, I decided, is much like its word (wordy) counterpart, Wikipedia - much of what is presented is opinion and to be taken with a full salt shaker.
I learned a few new photo tricks, but I also realized much of what I was watching consisted of somebody restating the obvious. Eventually I dug out all the instruction booklets for my cameras and went through those - even the 400+ page manuals for my Nikon digitals. I'm elderly, my brain is slower and at first I had difficulty trying to follow the endless streams of data, but I diligently typed detailed notes in my laptop and after a while it all made sense.
I learned as much or maybe even more from the manuals than I did from all my Youtube watching.
After about four months of all that, I went back to old movies. Much more satisfying. I'm surprised I lasted so long watching all the photo crap, but the good ones were worth all my effort.
I still watch movies, and also occasionally look up new YouTube videos about photography (not so much gear, I have more than enough of that and I won't be buying new cameras for a while), but I've not watched an episode of What's My Line? so far this year. WML overkill. Enough was enough. Arlene Francis sure was a stunner in her time. If she had been plugging Leica, I would've been a Leitz shooter in the 1960s.
PS Some excellent recommendations/suggestions in this thread. Thanks to all who contributed!!
