00:00:00
There was a camera called the Canon. I cannot believe I can't remember
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the name of this camera. What? The the You have to look this up. No. Okay, I'm going to describe it to you. I have two
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I have two of them in my office. It's the most beautiful [Music]
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camera. What is going on, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're
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your hosts. I'm Marquez. I'm David. And if you're watching the video version, you've already noticed that David is
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next to me, which means on the other side, we've got two new hosts for this bonus episode. That's right. You're not
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seeing things. It's not Friday. You can still do dishes, but we have some extra fun stuff to talk about in the world of
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YouTube creators and their camera choices. So, without any further ado,
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Eric and Rich, take it away. Hello. Oh, that was pretty great. Yes. So, uh, so
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I'm Eric. I'm one half of the studio channel. Rich and I are regularly confused in the studio. Pretty much
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everyone thinks that we are the same person. That is a good thing. Um, so
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hello, I'm Eric. Many people refer to me as Rich. That is okay. Hello, I'm Rich
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and no one refers to me as Eric. That is not true. That happened 10 minutes ago. Adam called you Eric.
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That's true. Yeah. Thank Rich, what do we do for a living? Um, yeah, me and
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Eric, uh, we're the studio producers and we make our behind-the-scenes videos here at, um, MKBHD. So, our last big
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behindthe-scenes video, we got a lot of feedback that it just didn't feel super attainable, that there's only so much
00:01:42
about behind the scenes at MKBHD that can be actionable for people. So, we had an idea to do pretty much the biggest
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behind-the-scenes video in history. Yeah. So, we decided to talk to some of our favorite creators, ranging from
00:01:55
20,000 subscribers all the way up to 20 million. And well, you know, almost 20
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million any day now. Subscribe to the MKBHD channel. Marquez needs more subs. Um, and our goal is to not just
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understand what cameras these creators really like, but really to answer the question, does gear even really matter
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in YouTube in 2025? The answer is a lot more nuanced than I think we were
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expecting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I feel like in the world of what camera do you use on YouTube, there are some
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trends. There are some historical trends. There are some current modern-day popular options, but there
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isn't really like any one standout number one that I can think of as far as a single model. Don't know if I agree
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with that, but I do think there are standout brands that are dominating. Okay. Well, there's evidence there's
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evidence for and against that. Okay. So, the first camera brand that we wanted to start with is a camera brand we're very
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familiar with here and a lot of people aren't very familiar with. Um, Mr. Red Marquez Brownley Red. A lot of creators
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see Red as this sort of aspirational brand. Oh, maybe one day I could shoot on a Red camera. So, we wanted to bring
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in one creator who actually shoots all their videos on Red and another who bought a couple RED cameras but isn't
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really using them anymore. Why? Why do you shoot your videos on Red? Let's start there. We talked to other You mean
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Nikon? Well, they got bought by Nikon, but I do shoot Red. I do shoot Red. I
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can really give you I can break it down to basically two main reasons why I shoot Red. I was shooting Canon for a very long time up until around 2015, I
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think. Wow, it's been a decade. Um, yeah, I know. But the two reasons that I
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switched to my first ever Red camera, which was an Epic W, I believe at the time, were really what it was called?
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Oh, yeah. It was called the Red Epic W. Oh, man. M or maybe it was a Scarlet W before the Epic W. But one resolution,
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two color science. So, one resolution was I was shooting 1080i on a C100 and I
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was looking for my first 4K camera and uh I skipped right to the the Red Raw 4K
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camera and it was plenty sharp and that was like one of my criteria for a new camera. The other was it had this
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amazing color science and I could change the white balance after I shot which was this this neat little thing called raw
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video and the colors looked amazing. I could really make videos look the way I wanted them to. So So for people that
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don't know uh when your camera when you take video generally your camera is compressing that video. It's applying
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basically a L or lookup table effectively to it by compressing it into an MP4 or something like that and it's
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making a bunch of decisions about color. Raw video is just a lot of the information, most of the information is
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taking in. It's not completely real raw raw, you know, video. That sounds like a compressed raw. Google Gaga, Lady Gaga,
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sorry, Lady Gaga lyric. Um, but yeah, it's compressed raw. Yeah, because it takes it in and but because of that,
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it's not applying or it's allowing you to still adjust those values like white balance. So, I feel like the working
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here, working with Red is relatively easy in large part because Rich does
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most of the shooting, but also we have like great computers for like a good healthy post workflow. Yeah. Um, but we
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called with Austin Evans who actually accidentally bought two Red cameras
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accidentally. Yeah. You want to Sure. Uh, I believe Austin had Scarlet W on pre-order and then Epic W came out so he
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bought that and then they can't believe they called it that. You didn't like the W for weapon. Epic W. The W sent for
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weapon, right? Really hard to fly with these cameras. Yeah. So, before working here, I was a cinematographer and I got to work with
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our good friend Austin Evans and he had a much different experience shooting Red. Very different. But the problem was
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it was a bad camera. Like yes, if you have a whole film crew and a technical department and a whole lot of patience,
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it was lovely. But the problem was, you know, like there was one shoot where we were in Austin. So we were doing a shoot
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with Audi. We were on Circuit of the Americas, you know, an actual proper F1 track and it is Texas in summer and it
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was like 100° outside. The Red completely gave out on us 15 minutes in the shoot. Like just wouldn't power on.
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It wasn't like overheated necessarily. It just just gave up, right? Um so luckily we had like an a6500 as a Bcam
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which we had to shoot the rest of the video on. That was one of those moments I'm like this is not it. Red had up its moments, but even when we shot Red, we
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shot it in ProRes. Like we didn't we never ever ever used the AK cuz who needs AK, right? Especially back, you
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know, six, seven years ago. So, uh, we still technically have our RED and it is
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a lovely paper weight. I mean, we got we got to make something clear like Red
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cameras are studio cameras. They are shot they're used for movies, right, in
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very controlled environments. It was a It was a weird thing when Marquez and Austin and Jonathan Morrison and Lou
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went and decide to decided to buy Red cameras for YouTube videos. Like that was extremely novel. Yes, it's still
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novel. It's still novel cuz the new the newest models are still extremely expensive. You can get a Scarlet W for
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like $3,000 now, but back then that was like nobody was doing that. Even if you
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bought the Scarlet W for $3,000. That's the thing about RED cameras is like people will think that a Red camera is
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something that's like maybe something to consider as a creator. Like, oh, I'm going to work my way up and build out a
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RED ecosystem. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably not a good idea. It's it's a locked off kind of situation. Probably
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not a good idea. I would say a RED camera is the equivalent of it's a sensor in a little box and that box is a
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computer. Yeah. With fans and, you know, memory and all this other compute and
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you can attach as much or as little to this box as you want to build it out for whatever you're shooting. So, if you've
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ever seen like a Hollywood movie set, it's built out to the size of
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a dog. I'm trying to think of like a size reference. It's got multiple
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monitors and a ton of cables coming out of it. And it's got obviously the memory isn't plugged into the side, but it's got all accessories for shooting
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external memory and all this other stuff. It's not ergonomic at all. You might have two or three handles on it
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for maybe that one time they're going to do that one handheld shot for that thing they planned for that thing that next day, but it is very much not like the
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C100 I came from, which is built for one person to shoot everything. Yep. So, the single shooter camera experience is very
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different. Y that said, I've been able to build out my version of a single
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camera shooter red, right? Uh I found just the right set of handles, top
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handle, record button, monitor accessories that for me, it's just just
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light enough and just ergonomic enough that I can make it work. And it's worth it because the footage that comes out of
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that box is second to none. I have not seen anything come close to touching the
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the quality of a red image off that sensor. We're going to notice a pattern where if you're a tech YouTuber or like
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a knowledge YouTuber, you end up seeing like pretty weird camera choices because
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the environments that you're shooting in are relatively controlled. And the more that creators move into niches or spaces
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where the environments are less controlled, I think the more they all congregated around like two brands.
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Okay. M um but let's wait until we hit those brands because Red was recently bought by Nikon
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and we were not really thinking about bringing Nikon in to this video. Nikon hasn't really had a rep especially in
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like video for creators. But when we hopped on the phone with Becca Versace, who's like the goat, um she said like um
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I think this will come as a surprise to most that I actually use predominantly Nikon systems. Now, we asked like, "What
00:09:47
do you like about it?" And she described the image as like describing color is weird, but there's something about it
00:09:55
that feels like homeier and cozier, whereas Sony I feel like is very sharp,
00:10:02
a little bit punchy. And yeah, Nikon just naturally right out of camera, I can have something that I'm really
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pleased with. Yeah, Nikon has had a bit of a renaissance in the last like two or so years. Uh, primarily because they
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were pretty late to move to mirrorless. Yeah. Uh, so a mirrorless camera is a camera where it takes in the image, it
00:10:19
goes straight to the sensor and then you see what the sensor sees. Whereas a normal camera, DSLR has a mirror that
00:10:26
you see what the mirror sees, which is not the actual image or exposure. While everybody else, well, not everybody
00:10:31
else, but most of the other brands were on these like second, third generation mirrorless cameras, Nikon was just
00:10:37
releasing their first camera, their first mirrorless camera. Yeah. No, we were all all the kids in like the
00:10:43
YouTube cook groups I was in back in the day. That's that's what we called them instead of group chats. Um we would
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pretty much everyone switched to the Sony ecosystem around this time and like
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never looked back cuz Sony was really the first manufacturer to bring cheap mirrorless. I like I guess Panasonic
00:11:02
like kind of beat them but micro four thirds. Yeah, exactly. We we'll get into it. Do you have context, David, on why
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Nikon was so slow to switch? Um, I think that it's not too dissimilar to why
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Kodak was so even though they invented the digital camera, they just were like,
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"No, they were just having so much success." And like Canon and Nikon are
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the two they were two the two biggest camera brands, right? They were making all of the money and they're making all
00:11:30
the money on SLRs and DSLRs. And so they were like, I don't really think there's a huge benefit to this technology. Our
00:11:36
photographers are super used to using DSLRs. Yeah. I don't I think people had just gotten really in their way about
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it. Also, the Nikon crowd tended to be either uh older people who were shooting
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like bird photography or like wildlife photography. Nikon is famous for bird photography.
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You will very rarely meet any other uh brand that photography. They're the one with the cheetah on the box, right?
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Yeah. Sense. Uh and then they also are very popular for concert photography. So, cuz their low light used to be well,
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it still is very good, but for that reason as well. So, I was talking to Becca about like where Nikon goes in the
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future. Like, are we going to see a Nikon come back, especially with like the red kind of acquisition? Acquis.
00:12:21
Yeah, I guess acquisition. I have no knowledge of what's going to happen, but
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I think Reds are very expensive systems. Um, not only is the camera expensive,
00:12:32
but the amount of footage that you're going to shoot is going to take up a lot of hard drive space. Hard drives are expensive. And I wonder if Nikon, who
00:12:41
is, you know, really affordable cameras. They they price their cameras very competitively, um, coming together with
00:12:47
RED means that we're going to get something that's more affordable with the RED logo on it or in a Red camera. I
00:12:54
wonder. I don't know. I can only hope. Do you guys think that the future of this acquisition is like more and more
00:13:00
people could buy Red camera? Like maybe because it sounds like Nikon is relatively accessible now, but no one's
00:13:06
just thinking about it. Maybe people are going to start thinking about Red cameras. I think there is some level of
00:13:12
cache attached to the Red name from the Red Epic and the Red Mysterium Dragon. And back in the day, they were very big
00:13:19
in the cinema world and the directors that shot with Red like they have that cache. So, weirdly, I feel like it could
00:13:25
be Nikon or as they actually said it to me when I talked to them recently, Nikon. It could be their way of going up
00:13:33
into that cinema world. Yeah. Nikon. I believe that's the correct pronunciation. Nikon, right? Really? Yeah. No, don't say that. I know none of
00:13:41
us have said it like that. That's apparently how it's said. But yeah, it could be the other way around as well. could be some of RED and bringing their
00:13:48
technologies down in price and more accessible into Nikon Nikon cameras if
00:13:53
they get there. So, just about two weeks ago, uh so Red makes a camera called the Komodo. Uh they which is by the way
00:13:59
their most affordable camera. They actually made that camera in response to all of these mirrorless cameras being
00:14:05
more and more affordable for creators. They wanted to offer like this in between spot where it's more expensive
00:14:11
than a mirrorless camera, but it's like still a cinema camera. Sure. Yeah. So, just about 2 weeks ago, they started
00:14:17
selling one with a Nikon Zmount, which is the lens mount that the Z series Nikon mirrorless cameras have. So, now
00:14:25
they sell both on the Komodo as well as I believe on the newest one. Um, that
00:14:30
what is the one that you have? Vap. Vaptor. Yeah, I think they also have a mount for the Vraptor now that uh Nikon
00:14:36
Z lenses can go onto. So, it is very early by the way in the acquisition. It only officially went through like quite
00:14:43
recently and it's quite surprising that they're doing this. They did that. The other thing that they have done in the
00:14:49
last month or so is Nikon can shoot ZRAW internally. And there's all of this or
00:14:55
NRA, sorry, NRA, not Z-Raw. There's all of this lore as to Nikon and Red suing
00:15:01
each other over internal RAW video. Compressed RAW. Compressed RAW video. Eventually, Nikon just bought Red and
00:15:08
they dropped the lawsuit. Uh, but convenient. Convenient. I wonder if these two unrelated factors are
00:15:16
connected. But the NRA that the Nikon Z6 series and Z9 and whatever can shoot,
00:15:22
uh, Red, they just announced a bunch of LUTs with RED that try to give it the
00:15:28
red sensor look on these Nikon cameras. So, it's clearly not going to be exactly
00:15:33
the same. It is a L is a lookup table. It's not the same as the sensor technology, but they are working
00:15:38
together in ways to bring the Red Cache to Nikon and to bring the Nikon accessibility to Red. Yeah. Okay. So,
00:15:46
speaking of accessibility, we dove into Blackmagic with two creators who are
00:15:51
cinematographers by day, Michael Tobin and Britney Jane. Um, and also have their own YouTube channels about
00:15:57
cinematography. Rich, could you give us like context on black magic? How do people think
00:16:04
about Blackmagic? I feel like people think about Blackmagic as the accessible Alexa in the sense that the color
00:16:10
science is beautiful, easy to work with, great menu system. Yeah. The only thing they're lacking autofocus, which is a
00:16:17
big thing. It is. Well, but like it's it's deeper than Okay, so when we talked to Michael Tobin, he gave this great
00:16:24
analogy. He said, I think the easiest way to put it is they're very similar to Apple that they have their own kind of
00:16:30
walled garden, right? They make the camera, they make the codec, they make the software, they have the best color
00:16:35
grading software on the planet. And so you just have this beautiful like workflow throughout the whole way. You
00:16:41
can actually get Da Vinci Resolve Studio when you buy a Blackmagic camera. This is the only camera brand you buy where you also get like a full stack
00:16:48
professional grade video editing software thrown in there. Yeah. Um in unless you account Red Cineex, most
00:16:55
people don't. are like but no one shot no one shot but so his whole thing is
00:17:00
like you can build like a full workflow with blackmagic when we talked to Britney he was just like wow the image
00:17:07
quality is so beautiful it's such a beautiful sensor that comes out the blackmagic and I think you know a lot of
00:17:14
times like with social media it's really hard to explain characteristics of a camera and the differences of why you
00:17:19
would go for different cameras but for me when I had the Blackmagic 6K it was
00:17:24
when I wanted to get into actual film making, so shooting short films. And I think that really the image quality
00:17:30
really set it apart. Um, because you were getting this beautiful uh cinematic
00:17:35
image for like such a low price. Um, and it's one of those things where like I know we all talk about like what
00:17:41
cinematic is, but to me owning both cameras, the FX3 and the Blackmagic, I
00:17:46
don't have to put diffusion on the Blackmagic glass. It's automatically a softer look coming out of the camera
00:17:53
itself. It pairs really nicely with a lot of lenses because of like the image quality that it has. Um, it has false
00:18:00
color, so it has certain aspects that you would use in film making that makes it easier for you on set. And if you
00:18:07
want to grow from just, you know, like doing like the everyday content to being a filmmaker, it's just a good transitional camera. She was using her
00:18:14
Blackmagic for YouTube and then she stopped using it for another camera brand. there like some pretty clear
00:18:23
downsides to shooting Blackmagic that we were able to get into with them. Have
00:18:28
either of you guys shot black magic? Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten very close multiple times, but always got scared
00:18:34
away at the last second. Yeah. Whether it was because of the workflow, I don't want to have to use Da Vinci Resolve or
00:18:39
if it was because of, you know, I've seen a lot of So, you say the sensor is beautiful and the color science is
00:18:45
great. I've watched and maybe this is from the beginning, early days. I've watched a lot of test footage that I didn't like from the Blackmagic cameras.
00:18:51
And so if I were ever to switch cameras, I would want it to at least match what I thought I was getting out of my current
00:18:56
camera and I never thought that Blackmagic was doing that. Maybe it's much closer now. And I know there's a Ursa 8K and all sorts of other stuff,
00:19:02
but I haven't seen test footage that tempted me. So well, ironically, so Blackmagic is like the generally like
00:19:10
the cheaper version of a RED in that it allows you to shoot RAW video. This was like it was one of the alternatives that
00:19:17
gave you that raw capability. And generally when you're shooting RAW, we are different because we have extremely
00:19:23
controlled lighting where you just want the highest quality image at a normal look. But most of the time when you're
00:19:28
shooting RAW, you're actually shooting RAW because you want to stylize your your image or correct for it. We just shot or correct for it. We just shot the
00:19:35
uh the Pixel 9a hands-on in New York City. Rich and I were we Yeah. weird
00:19:41
lighting like spot lights with these orange lights and then go outside for a few minutes and shoot out there and then shoot in the hallway and then come back
00:19:47
inside. It's like I don't want to have to do some sort of manual white balancing every time in post. We can
00:19:53
nail every single shot with perfect white which by the way when I worked at Android Authority was the most annoying
00:19:58
freaking thing. There would be like 50 of us reporters in one room and all of our videos look horrible cuz the
00:20:04
lighting was terrible, super yellow and then we'd all watch Marquez's video and it would be perfect. Yeah. feel like
00:20:10
that's the advantage of red, right? That's the red. That's why she red. It's dude, it's so funny talking to you guys
00:20:16
about this because I think like when we talked to creators, their take on why they didn't like Blackmagic had like
00:20:22
nothing to do with color or Yeah. Like the big the big reason is like up until
00:20:27
the Pixis, the body style on the Pocket series is a reason a lot of people hated it because it was like this DSLR vibe
00:20:34
but also cinema camera components that just didn't make a lot of sense. battery life is rough. Um, that's definitely you
00:20:41
need a lot of those. I'd say the biggest downfall is people like autofocus and there's no Blackmagic
00:20:48
cameras that have any autofocus to it. It's just more to the workflow than just being able to put a card in, shoot it,
00:20:54
take it out, and put it in in your in your computer. So, it's just the fact that I still have to use Vmounts, get
00:21:00
all my cords out, all of those things. It's just like, all right, chill. And because it's not autofocus, I have to
00:21:06
use a monitor on it so I can see myself and make sure that I can try to manually focus to make sure I'm in focus. So
00:21:12
there's no autofocus. Yep. If Yeah. On the more affordable, especially if you're a single person shooting, like
00:21:18
you just want to have autofocus to know that you're in focus. It's I get it. Yeah. It makes sense if you're like a
00:21:26
proumer, I think, and if you're like making a lot of YouTube videos. I think if you're a DP
00:21:32
or you're saying like the solo shooter if if you're like a young DP, right? Yeah. I think a pocket 6K could be in
00:21:40
your universe, especially if you have a crew and like you're in controlled environments for
00:21:45
lighting. Yeah, like a relatively small camera crew. It It's There are certainly better cinema cameras. Well, maybe not
00:21:52
certainly. I guess it depends on how much you really like Resolve. Yeah. Because so much of this is like, can you
00:21:57
dial in the right postworkflow with Resolve to feel really confident that, you know, everything you shoot with
00:22:03
Blackmagic, you can get a unique image. Yeah. The thing about Blackmagic, especially a number of years ago, was
00:22:11
that they they were like the cheaper red in that the bodies were made of like a light plastic. They were also sort of
00:22:17
just a camera brain computer, but in a much cheaper body. They didn't have any sort of like flip out screen or anything
00:22:23
that you where you could see yourself. They were very much like we took the parts that you need and we put some
00:22:30
stuff around it and here just like shoot the raw video, do it all in post. And
00:22:35
because of that, they didn't include the things like autofocus and like these other capabilities. They were also adapting to like everyone else's lenses.
00:22:42
Uh so they didn't really have the control that like a native camera brand that has their own lenses can do either.
00:22:48
So, so one one last I guess kind of quote on Blackmagic. We talked to Brandon Lee who was the like head of
00:22:56
cinematography for Lionus Tech Tips and they briefly shot every video on Short Circuit uh which our boy Jonno Yeah. was
00:23:04
responsible for at one point. Thank you Jonno for providing the money for my
00:23:09
employment. Um, anyways, um, so short short circuit was short circuit on LT
00:23:15
was all black magagic for a little while and Brandon said they ran into some
00:23:20
pretty frustrating technical issues just in terms of like how they manage I think
00:23:26
it was like mostly like codec management and there were a lot of things that because Blackmagic is proprietary, you
00:23:31
have to build out these workflows that in theory could be better but you almost need to be like a Blackmagic domain
00:23:37
expert in order to get these cameras to be like excellent excellent cameras. I
00:23:44
think it takes time for mastery over these. You could say that about a lot of cameras, but Blackmagic especially because of its relationship with
00:23:49
software. Yeah. And the hardware. So yeah, Blackmagic has this software called Da Vinci Resolve that they acquired uh quite a long time ago in
00:23:56
2009 or so. And it used to mostly be a color a color editor. You would just you
00:24:04
would bring your footage into that software just to do the color. But over the last like four or five years,
00:24:10
they've updated it over and over again, and now it's like a quite strong nonlinear editor. So, a lot of people
00:24:16
have left both uh Premiere and Final Cut over to here, especially if they have a
00:24:21
Blackmagic camera because it is a lot different. It's a lot better for that footage. Um, and it also uses these
00:24:28
things like nodes and whatever. But yeah, I think if you invest in the Blackmagic system and you commit to it,
00:24:35
commit to it. But it's probably a little bit tough to do that with in like a studio like Linus Tech Tips where you
00:24:40
got to teach everyone a bunch of new things and like teach everyone a specific workflow, especially if you
00:24:45
have an old workflow. If you build from the ground up with Blackmagic in mind, it could actually probably be a very
00:24:51
efficient stack, but you need to like take the time to understand the tech. Sure. All right, David. I would take a
00:24:58
quick sip of Red Bull if I were you because we are about to talk about Fuji
00:25:04
cameras and Mr. Al. Yes. You in many ways to
00:25:09
much of the internet, to much of the world. You're the you you're an introduction to
00:25:15
a lot of the the science and a sort of an understanding for how Fuji cameras work and what makes them special. Oh
00:25:23
yeah. Oh, that's perfect. Bring the Fuji. Sure. I'm bringing the Fuji. So, I
00:25:28
guess I guess to start here in terms of a Fuji image, why are so many people
00:25:34
gravitating to it? Why are Fuji cameras becoming this sort of like viral phenomena? What is it about these
00:25:40
cameras has enabled them to kind of like leak into the social fabric? Tik Tok.
00:25:46
No, not just Tik Tok. That's why I bought mine. No. And did you? Oh, it was trendy. I think I know. It's true. It
00:25:54
was kind of trendy. Yeah, it was popping up. Yeah. Okay. But it was trending not necessarily. Okay. There's a lot of
00:25:59
things uh a lot of the answers to a lot of the questions you were asking me. The
00:26:05
answer is the democratization of something. You know, when we're like we're move creators are picking up this
00:26:11
brand because this brand has finally brought this feature that used to be on these inaccessible thing to an
00:26:17
accessible thing. Right. So Fujifilm democratized color because it
00:26:25
is it takes a very long time to get really good at doing good color. Yeah. Uh in 2016 or 2017 or so I bought my
00:26:34
first Fuji camera. It was a Fujifilm XT2. It was my first camera at all. I
00:26:40
didn't knew nothing about what I was doing at all. I started making videos and everyone on YouTube was like, "Oh,
00:26:46
what's your color workflow?" And there's all these videos talking about like how I grade, how I grade. And I was just
00:26:53
like, AIA, by the way, AIA is a film stock.
00:26:58
Fujifilm, if you do not know, they have all these film stocks that you can choose to shoot with. They are color
00:27:04
profiles on the camera. You do not only have to shoot with them in JPEG, you can also apply them to video. Video. Yeah.
00:27:10
And so I literally was not color grading at all. I was just choosing the one that
00:27:16
fit what I was shooting the best. Yeah. We So, we talked with this creator named Colt Kurwin who is like I don't know if
00:27:22
you guys have seen his stuff. his his videos are just like so charming and fun. And we asked him about Fuji and he
00:27:30
said like but yeah, instead of competing with the big camera brands, Fuji has had
00:27:36
a different experience where um your JPEGs magically look really good and you
00:27:42
can kind of customize within camera versus throwing it into Lightroom and having to do that already. Um, so I feel
00:27:48
like Fuji has really gotten a cult following in the past couple years because of their specific film
00:27:56
emulations in that, oh, you don't have to shoot RAW anymore. I just shoot JPEG, blah blah blah. Um, and it's it's nice.
00:28:03
I think it's uh a breath of fresh air when everything is like competing on the
00:28:08
technicalities. It's like, okay, we don't have to be perfect. Let's just make something fun to use. Yeah. And
00:28:14
that keyword fund came up over and over and over again when we talked to people.
00:28:20
So Fuji is the the nothing phone of of uh camera. I think nothing is more
00:28:27
utilitarian. Really? I because I would buy my mom.
00:28:34
I think so. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, I guess the fun aspect of like we're not going to have the craziest specs, but
00:28:41
when you use it, you will feel you will feel things. So, so Brandon, who is like
00:28:46
the chief cinematographer at LT, I'm keep resume. Um, he said like Fuji is
00:28:52
probably the most fun in terms of all the brands because if you've never owned a camera before and you're just starting out, I think that they allow it that the
00:29:00
tactile feeling of the lenses, the way that the cameras are built, the button placement, the shutter angle, the way
00:29:06
that dials are used on the cameras, it's all very well thought out. And especially if I think back to myself as
00:29:12
a beginner, like that used to be kind of the appeal of Canon is Canon was very approachable and it wasn't super like
00:29:18
difficult. You don't have to think about a lot of stuff. You just start learning. And that's the thing, too, is I find
00:29:23
that what what Fuji picked up that idea from Canon is that they pushed it
00:29:28
further by saying, "Well, let's not just make it easy and accessible. Let's make it like an experience that feels good."
00:29:35
So, fun and colors popped up over and over again in our interviews. But if you
00:29:40
want to buy a Fuji camera specifically to make videos, we talked to a creator named
00:29:46
Joshua Deaf Victoria. Yeah. who does um he's a touring guitar player and he'll
00:29:52
shoot like guitar videos either teaching people guitar or just like doing cool covers and he needed like a compact simple easy camera to shoot and then
00:29:59
using the Fuji I kind of fell in love with the photography side of it cuz I mainly bought it for video and then I
00:30:05
was like oh this thing also shoots awesome photos of course it made it made photography really fun in a way that I
00:30:11
think other cameras don't I think that these are probably still still cameras
00:30:17
There's there's a whole era of this happening. This may be around the same time that so I remember also getting
00:30:23
into still cameras getting good at video like yeah Canon 5D kind of was the
00:30:29
beginning of a lot of these trends where oh snap big sensor shallow depth of field looks like movie I can make movie
00:30:37
with still camera and if you put the right lenses on a 5D and a 5D Mark II you can get this incredible beautiful
00:30:43
video and then I think around GH2 or GH3 people started like hacking them and
00:30:48
putting the the Magic Lantern software on them and getting higher bit rates out of them and doing the same sort of stuff with those cameras. And there was this
00:30:55
little mini era of this is actually a camera for photos, but I can make videos
00:31:01
that look pretty good with it. A big thing for me was I started doing more like work for clients, like photo stuff
00:31:08
or video stuff for other people because like I guess um I had somewhat of a
00:31:13
distinct style that other people kind of wanted. So then I was starting to do some freelance stuff and I was having a
00:31:20
lot of trouble with the the Fuji did not have any kind of image stabilization and I didn't want to
00:31:27
invest in like a huge rig or like a I don't like using gimbals. I find them really annoying to use and the autofocus
00:31:34
in the Fuji was horrible. So at one period of time all of a sudden the processor got fast enough the sensors
00:31:41
got good enough readout speed where every camera could be a hybrid camera. So with the person you talk to, it is
00:31:48
understandable that they would have switched off of Fuji because Fuji still is geared towards the photography
00:31:54
workflow. But I would argue But I would argue that if you shoot manual Yeah. for
00:32:00
everything and you control everything, you want that, they're still very good for that. I think that makes a lot of
00:32:05
because I think the big things that we heard for why people maybe don't like Fuji for video are uh often times
00:32:12
there's a 30-minute record limit. It's not like a hard and fast rule, but often times depending on which Fuji camera you're shooting on. Yeah, that that used
00:32:18
to be import it was an import tax rule because uh basically if it if it could
00:32:24
record for over 30 minutes, it was taxed as a video camera which was a much higher tax and it would have jacked the
00:32:30
price of the camera up by a ton. So most of the cameras, a lot of cameras from that day had a 29minut fix. Exactly. It was very dumb.
00:32:38
Ridiculous. And then the other thing is autofocus isn't fantastic for Fuji
00:32:43
cameras. Like there's a lot of stuff where like if you're if you're run gun, uh you just have to like figure out
00:32:48
which settings would be good, but if you really like stylistic color and there's not a lot of like intense movement in
00:32:54
your videos, it's like it's a real contender. I would agree with that. Also, just side note, yeah, uh the Fuji
00:33:00
XT series cameras, they use APS-C sensors which are smaller than
00:33:06
fullframe. Yeah. Uh and then they also have this GFX series which is larger than fullframe. It's medium format. They
00:33:12
never wanted to compete in fullframe because San Canon Sony Nikon are all in
00:33:18
this space. So they were like we can dominate the APS-C space and we can dominate the medium format space. So
00:33:24
they they never even competed with fullframe which I think is another reason that people didn't start using
00:33:30
them for video either because people wanted that full-frame experience for video. Okay. So, speaking of sensor
00:33:35
size, I want to talk about Panasonic because I even though Panasonic does have full-frame cameras right now, I
00:33:41
largely associate Panasonic and their brand with they do a lot before everyone else. They often times don't get good
00:33:48
credit for it. Their color science is a little weird and they do and they have micro four third sensors which have I
00:33:54
would argue more downsides than upsides. Mhm. But what are your initial
00:33:59
impressions on Panasonic before we dive into some of the conversations we had with creat I'm like making smartphone analogies in my head they're like the
00:34:05
OnePlus like people who are really really into specific sets of specs and things they want to get out of a camera
00:34:11
like the Panasonic move. Yeah. So understandable why some people gravitate towards it but why they might not become
00:34:17
like a mainstream huge option. I also note uh because they were micro four
00:34:22
thirds the sensor size will dictate what you can do on the camera because you have to have so much data readout.
00:34:28
Panasonic was the company that brought a lot of features to the camera industry because they had the smallest sensor. So
00:34:35
it was easier for them to move. They could add the features because uh they
00:34:41
didn't have to move as much data in order to allow things like log recording and things like that. Right. So it the
00:34:47
way it always went was it was like oh we got five axis stabilization in in micro
00:34:52
four thirds and now it comes to APS-C and now it comes to fullframe. So yeah. So I I guess for for those following
00:34:59
along if you're still listening but you're also confused. Thank you so much. I know this is not our normal waveform
00:35:06
conversation. Thank you so much. Um no no but essentially like Panasonic uses smaller sensors right and that that
00:35:13
leads to on paper more advancements. Yes. But a lot of their I guess a lot of
00:35:18
the reason that Panasonic has historically been able to be ahead of the game because they use smaller
00:35:23
sensors. Correct. A series with computational photography. Okay. Okay. So, we were only able to we
00:35:31
were only able to find one creator who regularly shoots on Panasonic. His name is Stuart Hicks. He's an architecture
00:35:37
professor in Chicago and he makes videos about architecture. Shout out Chicago, greatest city on earth. And
00:35:47
What is it? New Jersey. Better Jersey. Hoboken or no? Top 10. San Francisco. Best San Francisco. Okay.
00:35:54
All right. Well, delusion aside, it's right there, guys. Um, so we asked him like, "Why do you
00:36:02
shoot on Panasonic? Your videos are gorgeous, but why did you do that?" So, I still use the very first camera that I
00:36:08
ever purchased uh for doing this stuff and it's a Panasonic GH5 from the year
00:36:15
2020. And he goes, you know, he still uses the first camera he ever bought. He bought the GH5 in 2020 and he kind of
00:36:23
immediately just went into things he didn't like about it. I mean, one question is um are you going to be in a
00:36:31
studio or out in the world? I think that that makes a big difference. In the studio here, for instance, the autofocus
00:36:37
doesn't matter. I can set it and it doesn't um become a problem. GH5 has notoriously awful autofocus. It is
00:36:45
unusable. Um you know, I made videos of the or the way I learned that was I made
00:36:50
a video where I used autofocus and I thought it'd be fine because I was just sitting there and a viewer commented
00:36:56
about how um it was unwatchable because of the focus breathing. He's like, "The GH5 has kind of notoriously awful
00:37:03
autofocus. He's frustrated with a lot of aspects of micro four/ thirds." And then he's like, you know, he'd love things like shallower depth of field, stuff
00:37:09
like that. And so, in addition to like the actual sort of uh marketing
00:37:15
advantage of Micro Four Thirds, we also asked Tyler Stallman, who's like this excellent camera creator. So, he's like,
00:37:21
"There are three basic reasons." When we called him, his video was like gorgeous. And we're like, "What are you shooting us on, bro?" He's like, "He's he
00:37:27
shooting on a GH7. He was shooting on Panasonic." Yeah. and he said there are three use cases that I think micro four
00:37:33
thirds is is actually the best for um because in many ways you know less depth of field less dynamic range noise isn't
00:37:40
as good but there are some things it does better at one that we're looking into right now is we're quoting on a
00:37:45
client that we currently do their vertical social media but we might want to do the same campaigns in horizontal
00:37:52
and a micro four third sensor is as close to square as you get so if you
00:37:57
need to shoot for both formats at the same time. Um there's there's really no
00:38:03
better sensor. Like you get almost a square. So when you crop both, they both look good and are not compromised. And a
00:38:09
new firmware update actually lets you move multiple markers around. So for me, I would say that like I want to use the
00:38:15
bottom 16x9 uh of the image for YouTube and then I want to use the center 9x6 for
00:38:23
Instagram. And you can see those markers as you're shooting, which I think is is pretty amazing. And you can only do on
00:38:29
something like the GH7. This is usually like referred to as like open gate. Open gate recording shooting.
00:38:35
What's open gate? Generally when you have you have a sensor and you project the light over the sensor and generally
00:38:42
you're not using the whole sensor because displays are usually 16x9, 2x1,
00:38:47
whatever. When you're recording on that sensor, you're only recording a certain amount of it. Open gate recording just
00:38:54
like the throughput thing that we were just talking about with micro four thirds where they advance faster than other companies is where you use the
00:39:00
entire sensor and you read out the four sensor which is normally four a 4x3 aspect ratio. Reason number two that
00:39:07
Tyler said micro four thirds could be useful is as an overhead camera like
00:39:12
like just like a simple top down because micro four/ thirds traditionally you're not going to get a super shallow depth
00:39:17
of field. So it's just clutch so you can get like everything in focus more in focus. Yeah, exactly. Um, and then the
00:39:23
third reason, uh, is because it's a smaller sensor, so generally stabilization is better. Yeah, smaller,
00:39:29
lighter body. Totally. Also, really cool bonus that 99% of people wouldn't care about, but people would yell at us if we
00:39:36
didn't mention. Tyler was using Ari colors on his Panasonic camera because
00:39:42
Panasonic has like, I guess, an agreement with Ari to like optimize Oh,
00:39:47
re color science for Panasonic. So, if you wanted to shoot REI and get a bit of an REI look, I did not know that. We
00:39:52
could we just find like a really really really open wide aperture lens plus REI
00:39:58
color science and and then and then we'll and then we rent an R camera and we get to do a photo shoot of you
00:40:03
holding it. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder how much of that is similar to the red color science on the NRA because when I
00:40:10
applied those LUTs, they did not really look like red. They're very nice. Tyler spoke pretty highly. Yeah. I I know
00:40:16
Ellis has mentioned like a production company as well that like loves shooting
00:40:22
on Panasonic and has shot like these excellent shorts in here. No, they're a
00:40:28
really cool YouTube video called Media Division that does like uh like really really really intense camera stuff and
00:40:35
their whole thing is if you want to buy a cinema camera just buy a GH6 or a GH7
00:40:40
or whatever the most. Yeah. They're just like there's no Yeah, but that's them.
00:40:45
Super interesting. Also, uh I mean, what it can often be
00:40:51
easier to adapt more lenses as well to smaller sensors because you can more easily cover the sensor. You can't adapt
00:40:58
a micro four third sensor to a full frame micro four thirds lens to a fullframe camera. Yeah. Yeah. All right,
00:41:03
guys. We have one more brand before we get to our break. Yeah. I noticed the elephant in the room. Well, we have two
00:41:09
more. We're missing two. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're gonna do one more, then do a break. That was the elephant for all the
00:41:15
audio listeners. Okay. Um, good. Okay. We technically didn't do Canon yet either. Okay. So, we're on So, I want to
00:41:22
talk about Canon. Okay. So, Peter McCannon. Nice. Whoa. Too well. I just
00:41:27
made that up. We could end the video here. Okay, we can hear that Red Bull slur.
00:41:34
That was crazy. Okay. When people talk about Canon cameras, they talk about it like with
00:41:41
this in insane nostalgia like oh I couldn't like oh I loved them. Like when like so we we had Casey Neistat come in
00:41:48
because when I think about a creator who shoots on Canon I still think of Casey Neistat that daily vlog the 300 day
00:41:55
sprint insane thing that was all Canon. And so when we asked Casey to come in
00:42:01
and just tell us about the cameras he used, there was a camera called the Canon. I cannot believe I can't remember
00:42:08
the name of this camera. The HBO show Catfish. You know that show? Like be careful who you date. That that show was
00:42:15
predicated by a documentary called Catfish that my friends made. And most
00:42:22
of the documentary Catfish that was at like Sundance Film Festival, MTV bought it, put it in 2000 movie theaters. That
00:42:28
movie was shot primarily on T1. T1. Are you looking it up right now? I'm looking up. There's a few T. No, no, it was a
00:42:36
vertical form factor. It was way before that. Try Canon T1 T camcorder. Yes. And
00:42:45
it was like the first kind of point and shoot that was really optimized for video, not for stills. No, no, no, no,
00:42:53
no, no. a beautiful uh Where's my phone? I look right now.
00:43:01
If you're watching this at home, everybody in this room is on their phones trying to figure out the name of this camera. It's a stunning camera. Go
00:43:07
to eBay and try and buy it if you can find one. Not even. Is that beautiful? Yo,
00:43:13
what's the name of the Canon camera that was like all stainless steel? It's really small. It's the one Re filmed
00:43:20
catfish on. Like the flip out side. That's it. That's it. What's the name of that Mark? TX1. TX1. Van nice. Thanks,
00:43:28
Van. Yeah, I still have mine. Me, too. I have two. I have two. But
00:43:34
the Canon TX1, first of all, like that was like a that was a very fun experience getting
00:43:40
getting to talk to him. I think as a as a youth in this space, it's very cool. Being able to go and interview Casey
00:43:46
felt like a career moment for me. I don't think he knows my name. That's cool. My name is Rich. Yep.
00:43:54
My name is Earl. Um, but yeah, but like so many people would wax poetic about like Canon in the past. Like we asked
00:44:00
Cole Kirwin, who's like my Gen Z Casey Neistat, um, he said like the way I see
00:44:07
it was Canon had a chokeold on the market, if you want to be a real
00:44:12
photographer, you get a Canon camera, right? Um, and there's still that that boat. And then Sony kind of like from
00:44:20
the they were in the DSLR world and then Sony kind of took that leap to do mirrorless cameras and in the beginning
00:44:26
they're like uh Sony's color science is not good or the battery life sucks stick with Canon. And then I feel like now the
00:44:34
mirrorless market has taken over everything. So that's where Sony has kind of like quote unquote failed I
00:44:41
guess and then continued to iterate until they perfected it. Similar to Nikon, they released their first
00:44:47
mirrorless camera like the same time Nikon did. Like it took them a really long time, but they had a very strong
00:44:54
stronghold, the strong squared hold on the like proumer DSLR market, right?
00:45:00
Right. They had the 1DX camera which was like insane. uh Canon bec the reason it
00:45:06
was they're good for like Casey Neistat is because their autofocus has traditionally been the best like some of
00:45:12
the best in the entire industry. It has changed a little bit more recently but up until recently like they had the best
00:45:19
autofocus in the industry by far. It's also color science. I find the
00:45:25
advantages of the Canon in terms of color are more at the entry level. like
00:45:30
if you don't want to touch it, it's just going to give you something pleasing right away. No effort once you take it a
00:45:36
step deeper. Like for professionals, I I don't actually think it matters. I think you a Sony Sony and a Canon and a Lumix
00:45:43
and a um even you know even where Fuji is right now like everything that has a
00:45:48
modern log profile can be matched. Um which wasn't the case a few years ago.
00:45:55
We talked with a creator named Inda who's a food creator and she just like makes these great food videos and wants
00:46:00
to focus on the food and she said that someone in the comments described her videos as like a Rembrandt painting. A
00:46:06
lot of like why I do what I do is I want people to have like a better relationship with food. I want them to like be introduced to cooking in a way
00:46:12
that doesn't feel like burdensome. And so I think the lighting I use kind of want to translate to that like not just
00:46:18
like like of course I want it to feel warm. I wanted to feel comfortable, but I also wanted to feel like it's not something that's overly produced in the
00:46:25
sense of like, oh, we're in a studio and like we're going to bang through all these recipes and more just like this
00:46:30
could be an average day in your life, too. Um, so that kind of translates a little bit to that. Um, but I also think
00:46:37
like recently there was a comment that said the color was a little bit like Rembrandt style. I think my lighting
00:46:42
because because winter time it's darker now. Um, so my natural lighting is a little darker overall, but I think it
00:46:49
kind of played into it a little bit, which I kind of also like, but you know, I I think it just fits sort of the homey
00:46:55
vibes overall. It was this soft. It's always like a little bit warm with like slightly raised shadows and it's kind of
00:47:02
this like dreamy warm tone thing. Uh Canon is very very often used in the
00:47:08
wedding industry for that reason because you don't have to do as much editing if you're just like editing some JPEGs
00:47:14
because it has very warm natural skin tones. For the next bonus, I'll get married if this video hits 200k views
00:47:20
and I'll do and then I'll do my a bonus episode there shot on Canon. Nice. Does your girlfriend know about this?
00:47:27
What girlfriend, David? It's fascinating. We're getting married, David. I will say it is fascinating to see the
00:47:34
the reasons the very very specific reasons that certain cameras and brands get selected for certain applications
00:47:40
that is like okay the wedding industry the warmth the friendliness okay Canon color works for that um I have my own
00:47:47
reason actually for red too which I've told the story before but skin tones specifically darker skin tones with red
00:47:53
color science not even close no one else is close um and I think there's there's
00:47:59
like a bunch of other reasons like people might choose use Sony, Blackmagic, RE for specific color
00:48:05
reasons for whatever projects there are. And it's always fun hearing those. The the whole like, oh, I buy this camera for color thing. The more we looked into
00:48:12
it, like we asked Tyler about this and he was like, dude, once you have 10 bit color, it doesn't matter. And like if
00:48:18
you're buying a Blackmagic, Yeah. I suppose, no one wants to go in and drop
00:48:23
a load on all their color, right? Yeah. All right. So, so we've, you know, we've gone through all of these brands, but
00:48:29
there's there's an issue. There is one camera brand that absolutely ran ran away with it. One-third of the creators
00:48:35
we spoke to either were shooting with this camera, switched to this camera, or were considering switching to this
00:48:41
camera brand, including Casey Neistat, Austin Evans, and so many others. So,
00:48:47
and us after the Yeah. So after the
00:48:54
Hey, after the break, what is the camera brand that every creator seems to want
00:49:01
to switch to? And is it overhyped? It's Sony. It's not overhyped. It's Sony. We
00:49:07
love Sony about switching. There's a lot of reasons. I'm totally keen to do the next reason. That's
00:49:14
true. So much time. All
00:49:22
[Music]
00:49:29
right, guys. Sony. We got to talk about Sony. Yeah. Wait,
00:49:35
can could we do it where I just everyone at the table just says Sony really quickly? Just like Sony. Yeah. All
00:49:41
right. Ready? Sony. All right, guys. Sony. Sony. Sony. Sony. Sony. Sony. Sony. Sony. We love Sony. You know how
00:49:48
when you say a word too many times, it starts stopping.
00:49:54
Stop sounding. Uh yeah, that's me now with Okay. Creators knee.
00:50:02
I I have to find a different conjunction. Hey, there we go.
00:50:08
[Laughter] Creators love this camera. just to list
00:50:13
off a few of the creators that we've seen and haven't seen who use it. We talked to Shua Films. He's the
00:50:19
co-founder of this like magazine studio in Chicago and he also has his own channel called the magazine studio
00:50:24
called Powder Blue. His channel's called Shua Films. You know, when I started vlogging, I the main person that got me
00:50:32
into it was of course Casey Neistat. I think a lot of us. For me personally, I
00:50:37
when the the Sony A74 came out, it was kind of the perfect camera for me at the time because it was a nice hybrid of
00:50:43
photo and video and just like the autofocus was always trustworthy when it came to to Sony's, especially like the
00:50:49
recent years. Britney, who's this DP who we talked to about Blackmagic, she switched from Blackmagic for her YouTube
00:50:55
videos to to the Sony FX3. I'm always recommending some kind of Sony camera, you know, because it's just it is easy.
00:51:03
So, I just think it's so versatile. I use it for client work all the time because people, even clients, know about
00:51:08
the Sony ecosystem. So, that is also a go-to camera for them. So, it's just one of the most versatile cameras I've ever
00:51:14
used. And I've pretty much used every brand possible. Clients know like Sony has a rep and so they actually feel more
00:51:20
confident seeing That's funny. Like people with that brand. That's true about Red in the past. Yeah. We asked
00:51:27
Colt and he said, "So, I feel like the A7S3 came out and kind of changed the game for everybody. This is everything
00:51:35
you could have ever needed." You know, we had great battery life and the color science was now 10 bit color, so now you
00:51:41
can actually color grade it and stuff. Um, and yeah, like the dual native ISO
00:51:46
that it has allowing it to basically shoot. I mean, it it sees better than we
00:51:52
can see, you know? that really made it so versatile to where you weren't kind of like subject to oh, you know, like
00:51:59
the sun went down so we can't really shoot anymore. But now you can shoot whenever. There's no more excuses. We
00:52:05
asked Austin about this and like he I mean he switched from red to a full Sony stack. He said like we shoot entirely on
00:52:11
Sony FX3, FX30, A7S3. There's no complaints I have. Like I just I like when our A7S3s die, we're just going to
00:52:17
buy another one. I just there's nothing else that we need. And maybe there's an FX4 or an A7S4, whatever, and you know,
00:52:24
they bring out 4K 10,000 or something. Cool, whatever. But like it just it has completely changed the way that we shoot
00:52:30
videos. And it's crazy to think that it's been 5 years and this camera still feels like it's absolutely badass. And
00:52:36
then we asked Casey about it and he cited a few key features for that like he just loved. It was smaller, it was
00:52:42
lighter, it felt tougher, had I think the magnesium body or metal body instead of a plastic body like the T2 series.
00:52:48
Um, but most importantly, it had a lens that fit fit around that had a hot shoe on the top, so those two were never in
00:52:55
competition with one another. And it had the touched the screen to focus, which was a gigantic leap for me. Um, there's
00:53:02
a lot of shots where I'm talking to camera and without my arm entering frame, I tap behind me and it rack
00:53:08
focuses to whatever I'm talking about. And I would often also sort of point to what I'm talking about. And I'm able to frame that in real time with my
00:53:16
sunglasses without breaking out of contact with the lens, rack the focus and then frame my finger pointing at
00:53:21
something in the background, which is a super dynamic shot. And I was able to do it by like tapping the screen once and
00:53:27
filming by myself with no assistance. And I think like Sony was the first camera that enabled me to work with like
00:53:33
that level of precision. That's like all people who use it. We also talked to like Stuart. He said that he shot one
00:53:40
shot in a video on the Sony FX3 and he showed it to somebody and they were like, "What was that specific shot?" He
00:53:47
said he saw the FX6 shot and I without knowing and he was like, "Wow, that is
00:53:52
gorgeous. How did you guys get that?" I was like, "Oh man, the fact that you could point that out without knowing
00:53:58
that it changed cameras like that that hurts a little bit." So, um I think that
00:54:03
prompted me to think, "Oh, well, you know, this is this is kind of important." The rest of the video is Panasonic and someone was like, "Oh, I
00:54:08
like that." Like people are like gravitating to the image of Sony cameras. Sony is which is a newer thing
00:54:15
to be fair. It's super new. Okay. What happened? You really You really
00:54:21
want to know what happened? Yeah, let's hear it. Sony got good. I mean, I remember thinking about switching to and
00:54:27
using more Sony in the early mirrorless camera days for them. This was A7 A7S the first ones which were like
00:54:36
super good. This was instead of like your C100 or No, this was like I I so I shoot Red and then I have like sort of
00:54:42
smaller crash cam and stuff for like R5 basically and uh you know the built-in mics for Sony's A7 series were good and
00:54:50
the color science was way less magenta and way more usable and maybe even matchable to the red stuff and I was
00:54:55
starting to get like oh maybe I'll maybe I'll shoot more Sony stuff. And even to this day on and off, we we roster some
00:55:02
Sony cameras. We don't shoot with them very much, but they're very useful. But Rich, yeah, you like trying to switch
00:55:08
us. Yeah. Wait, absolutely. Give us the pitch right now. Look, when we were at South by Southwest and we were, you
00:55:14
know, in the audience, I would have died to get some FX6s for the dual native ISO. Um, it was very dark in there. Very
00:55:22
challenging situation and our C70s and R5s could not handle the dark
00:55:27
environments. Yeah, this is fair. The less control you have over the environment, the more Sony makes sense
00:55:33
because it just makes so much of the process not thoughtless isn't the right
00:55:38
way to put it, but just like you just the last thing you think about is the camera itself. Yeah. So Sony's are kind
00:55:45
of computers with lenses attached to them. They were very early moving to the
00:55:50
mirrorless uh camera game and that gave them a leg up in the many years that
00:55:55
followed. Right. Something that's really good about Sunny is mirrorless cameras have a shorter flange distance than
00:56:01
non-mirrorless cameras. And a flange distance is the distance between uh the lens mount and the actual sensor itself.
00:56:08
This allows you to adapt basically any lens you want to it that is, you know, covers the full-frame sensor. Because of
00:56:14
that, a lot of people that shoot Sony will often be able to use like vintage lenses or all these dreamy lenses or all these different things. Uh and that's
00:56:21
the E-mount, right? And that's why everyone loves E-mount. That's why everyone loves E-mount. Um, you were also you also had five axis
00:56:28
stabilization. Newer Sony cameras, like you said, had dual native ISO. Yeah, native ISO. Uh, ISO is basically
00:56:34
electronic gain where you're taking the image on the sensor and you are amplifying that image. There are noise pixels and there are clean pixels. If
00:56:41
you're amplifying the ISO, you're also amplifying the noise. So, it makes it a lot easier to see. If you have dual native ISO, the native ISO is the
00:56:48
cleanest the sensor can be. So, once you hit that native ISO, you're back to a very low Yeah. Sony cameras very famous
00:56:56
for being able to basically see in the dark because they have a low native ISO and a high native ISO. For the easiest
00:57:02
experience to get a high quality video, it's really tough not recommending the Sony A7S3. The low light and stabilization
00:57:10
alone just make it so versatile that it's kind of the perfect camera for YouTube. But over the past few years,
00:57:18
Sony hasn't just cemented its cameras as great options, but its entire ecosystem.
00:57:23
their ecosystem is completely compatible from the cheapest like the color science on the FX3 the same because the sensor
00:57:30
is exactly the same as the the E-mount is completely completely ubiquitous. So
00:57:36
it's one of those things where it's like if my dream is to be a cinematographer on a set one day and if I go and I buy an FX30 like an APS-C cinema camera I
00:57:44
could use that glass one day when I upgrade to a Venice or I could use that footage on a shoot with a Venice as just
00:57:50
like a simple beacon. Totally. You know what I and so it just becomes this like insane like it's just kind of a
00:57:56
no-brainer if you have to buy one camera. But that's also what gave me
00:58:01
like massive uh existential dread about this video because I was like are we really going to make an hourong video
00:58:06
about what camera you should get and I was like oh my gosh like we're just going to talk about Sony. Like it was it
00:58:12
freaked me out. I don't know. There's like a lot of different reasons but they did sort of build out an ecosystem.
00:58:17
their ecosystem is amazing because again that they have the A7S3 and the FX3 and then the FX30 if you don't want to spend
00:58:23
as much money for the FX3 and the FX line is like similar to what Marquez was saying with the Red being basically a
00:58:30
brain you build stuff around it if you need that you get that if you don't need that you get the A7S3 like they have so
00:58:35
many options I I will admit I am definitely behind on my appreciation of
00:58:41
Sony as an ecosystem and as an image because most of my experience with
00:58:46
shooting Sony. I have an uh A7R. I think I've shot most of my video stuff with A7R3 and I have an A1. Uh so I have not
00:58:53
shot FX series ever. So that's obviously a huge gap. Uh and I think just menu
00:58:59
system stuff, little things like about the colors that come out of that camera and me trying to match it with a red is
00:59:05
probably unfair. It's not ever going to quite match. But how versatile the entire lineup is and how many different options they have across the board to
00:59:11
just have a camera for whatever situation we need to get an image from is admirable in a way that makes me want
00:59:18
to give another shot. And when they released the new sensor that went in the A7S3 and the um other one A7S3 and FX3
00:59:25
FX uh that sensor is way better than the old sensor used to be just in terms of color because Sony sensors used to be
00:59:32
like ubiquitous with it. I used to be able to magenta color. I could watch a
00:59:38
YouTube video, a vlog clip on YouTube and I'd be like Sony like without anyone
00:59:43
saying anything. I You could say the same thing but you could say the same thing about Panasonic. Yes, you can say the same thing about a lot of different
00:59:49
characters. I kind of felt that about that about Black Magic, uh, at least back in the day. I could see canon and
00:59:56
basically identify it right off the bat. And then, yeah, there was a little bit of red sprinkled in there and I'd be
01:00:01
like, "My people." So, I Yeah, I still feel like I have that pretty dialed, but there's a lot of
01:00:07
Sony development that's happened since then. Yeah. When we talked to Becca, something that she brought up that was really interesting is how Sony invests
01:00:15
in creators. That is also a massive she was like, "I went to this
01:00:21
Sony event." Yeah. And in her words, it was popping every like people were
01:00:26
there. You know what I mean? Kids are there. Yeah. Like Yeah. There's like this little ecosystem and like Casey switched to like there's all this like
01:00:34
clout ecosystem in addition to like the fact that these are are good cameras. Like Sony hosts these like camps and
01:00:40
these like these like projects that people can go work on together multiple times a year and they invite creators
01:00:46
from like various different levels of uh subscribers. They do this for the same reason that
01:00:53
Google makes Chromebooks. Chrome Chromebooks are not made to be sold to regular people.
01:01:00
They're made to be put in elementary schools and get kids used to Google
01:01:06
services so when they grow up they keep using the Google ecosystem. And so if you're a if you're a camera user,
01:01:12
especially because the ecosystem of a camera is glass, which is extremely expensive, accessories, of which Sony
01:01:19
makes ones that only work on the Sony hot shoes. If you're investing in this ecosystem, you're way less likely to
01:01:26
just sell everything and move out of it. So doing this outreach is like very smart. Not just because you will make a
01:01:31
sale now, because you're most likely to make many sales in the future. Marquez
01:01:36
in our interview asked me, "Do you have a dream camera to shoot on?" And I was
01:01:41
like, "I don't know. I have an in well an FX6." I kind of shrugged because I
01:01:48
was one of those kids who just like I got an a6300, I was on E-mount, I understood the menu system, and I was just like, "Yeah, I guess I guess guess
01:01:55
I just keep shooting Sony." But I've come to really like shooting on Canon, which is what we do on the studio. But
01:02:00
yeah, no, it's I can attest to it. They It worked. They got me hooked as a youth. But I think I I like I walked
01:02:07
away with like a little bit of like dread here for a couple reasons for the for the video itself. I was like, I
01:02:12
don't like this as an ending. I don't want to make a video where I'm just like, well, everyone else shoots Sony, so you should too. like it just didn't
01:02:19
like usually we'd scrap this video, but to be honest with you, like I introduced myself to a lot of these creators who I
01:02:25
really liked through this video and I was really scared that like I was going to embarrass myself in front of these
01:02:31
people that I'd spent a long time trying to build a career where I could feel confident talking with them. Um, and I I
01:02:37
think it was also just like I don't know if I like the idea of the internet just increasingly looking just like Sony
01:02:44
cameras. Like there's is something existentially scary and maybe even
01:02:49
monotonous about the idea of like well you just buy a Sony camera if you want to be like the modern filmmaker YouTube
01:02:56
stack. It was it was kind of depressing to me. Yeah. I think we all root for
01:03:01
competition in general and so since we know that mirrorless cameras are this wave and Sony is at the crest of this
01:03:07
wave it kind of feels like Sony is the only thing anyone can be using. But I think everyone is on their way catching
01:03:14
up, adding features, making new cameras, and there will be another wave in the future, and it'll be like, "Oh my god, everyone uses Nikon now or Nikon now."
01:03:20
It'll be I think there will be more waves in the future. But at the same time, it's it's way less regional than
01:03:26
smartphones. I think if Sony is dominating in cameras where everyone has free choice, that must just mean they're
01:03:32
making really good cameras. Oh, absolutely. And I got no problem with shouting out quality of product. That's fair. Like they're actually making the
01:03:37
best stuff. Okay, fine. They're making the best stuff. So, so we had one more conversation with the creator that I
01:03:44
think kind of changed my perspective on the whole like what is the best camera because like the whole take of oh the
01:03:51
best gear is the one that you have the best camera is the one you I don't I
01:03:56
don't think that that's true but I also don't think that you
01:04:01
should just buy a Sony camera. So we talked with the creator who didn't buy a camera at all. He's a part of a team.
01:04:09
that grew their channel to over a million subscribers using just smartphones using just iPhone 13s. Wow.
01:04:16
No, iPhone 14s. I apologize. That's awesome. So, after the break, this conversation with this creator and what
01:04:22
it says about making the right camera choice [Music]
01:04:40
So, after hours of interviews, Rich and I are staring at the timeline for this
01:04:47
video, and we're getting nervous because figuring out where the story is, it's getting harder and harder. Yeah. At this
01:04:54
point, we had looked at every popular camera brand and their ecosystem, and it felt like the answer was just buy a Sony
01:05:01
or that every camera brand is great and to not worry about your gear. Neither neither of those answers feel like
01:05:08
they're satisfying or that they'll genuinely help you find the right camera for your videos. So, out of a a bit of
01:05:17
desperation in our interview with Casey, I just straight up look at him and I go,
01:05:23
"Casey, gear still matters, right?" I reject the supposition that it's important to understand gear and have
01:05:30
gear. I reject it wholly. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm a I've become much more of a sort of like anti-geear purist. Like, I
01:05:37
think when someone says, "I love I love that video you made. It's a beautiful compliment. It makes you feel warm on
01:05:43
the inside." When they say, "What did you shoot it on?" It is the greatest insult you could ever say to someone.
01:05:49
It's insulting. And I take it personally. So, you know, especially when talking to
01:05:55
newer creators, newer filmmakers, my line is always the gear doesn't matter. And by deemphasizing the the gear, what
01:06:01
it does is it it puts the focus back on what you uniquely bring to storytelling.
01:06:06
Um, and I think right now, like we're at the most sort of virtuous place in that technology cycle, which is that almost
01:06:13
every camera out there, almost every phone out there gives you a look, gives you an aesthetic that is way above the
01:06:19
line of good enough to do something great with. Casey talks about how we saw our S25 Ultra video. And you know, it's
01:06:27
kind of ironic that like this is a video about how the tech and the changes in the tech are kind of minimal and small.
01:06:33
And the way that I guess do you want to describe how you differentiated that video? Um, I started by doing this
01:06:40
really cinematic uh intro where I turned around and was it an allegory where I I
01:06:48
went from the outside to the inside by going and turning around and cutting through the background and moving to the
01:06:54
inside of the set. It was a fun cinematic piece that sort of started the story arc of the video. Yeah. And in
01:07:00
Casey's words, he goes, "That one storytelling device was far more
01:07:06
interesting to me than the last 20 gear upgrades that we had at a studio." And um Marquez promptly asked him to leave.
01:07:14
Yeah, that is a joke. They get along very well. They're both very famous. Um, that
01:07:20
kind of speaks to why I think on like a philosophical level Sony catches on because Sony is all about enabling people to think about the context of the
01:07:27
story and what's on screen and stop thinking about the camera. So, you can constantly ask yourself like what do I
01:07:32
want to depict or what's the story I want or what's the context I want to be in and like I can trust that this camera
01:07:37
will capture that. To an even more sort of extreme extent, we talked with Adam
01:07:43
who's a co-host on this YouTube channel called Jetlag. He's a co-host on this YouTube channel called Jetlag. Have you guys heard of Jetlag? Have you seen
01:07:49
this? I don't show Jet. I've never heard of it, guys. This this channel is so
01:07:54
cool. So, it's a travel game show like um The Amazing Race like like The
01:08:00
Amazing Race, but the whole point of the show is like the chaos factors 10 times
01:08:05
more than any other reality TV show we've ever seen before. Like in The Amazing Race, you know, somebody might
01:08:10
end up in the wrong part of town, but you're never going to end up in the wrong country. And we wanted to make a
01:08:15
show where like maybe you end up in the wrong country. The only way that they could make that show is by just shooting
01:08:22
iPhone stock iPhone app. No color grading, nothing cuz they're chewing through tons of footage. So they need like a simple postworkflow and
01:08:29
manageable files. This got me thinking about um like shooting on iPhone in general. We asked Tyler about it. I
01:08:36
think if you're just getting started out and you you maybe you're not even sure if you're going to stick to film making,
01:08:42
if you pick up at least an iPhone 15 Pro, it's when Apple log was introduced, you can take that as far as you want.
01:08:49
You can make it look as good as those other cameras and learn all the most important lessons of film making with
01:08:56
just an iPhone. Don't add any more than you need. The most essential things are a wireless mic, um, which both Roadde
01:09:03
and GGI make great tiny ones right now, and then an iPhone clamp. I designed one
01:09:09
called the Solomon clamp that what's important to me, like whatever clamp you choose, the most important part is that
01:09:14
it is rock solid. So like when you press record, it doesn't vibrate your phone. Uh, if you're doing something like
01:09:20
transitions, you don't want the phone to like move in between. So, looking for some kind of tripod clamp that is never
01:09:27
going to change the shot uh when you're operating the camera. Dude, I get so many questions about people asking me
01:09:33
like, "Oh, should I buy this like $3,000 guitar?" And it's like, "No, it's not going to make you better." Like,
01:09:41
whatever you have, just practice on it. The storytelling is always going to be
01:09:46
more important than the video quality. And that's actually where a lot of
01:09:52
people that are just starting to get into making videos sort of like lose track. Yes% because it's really easy to
01:09:59
just look at YouTube and get obsessed with the gear. Oh yeah. I think there are a lot of people who watch a YouTube
01:10:06
video from a YouTuber who's been doing it a long time and sees fancy editing or cinematography or camera work or
01:10:12
something and goes, I want to make YouTube videos. What gear do I have to buy to be able to do that? And it's not
01:10:18
about that. Yeah. Like the video process and the I want to make videos thing is
01:10:24
all the pre-work, the writing, the the storyline, that stuff and getting people
01:10:30
to care about that thing. And then if you have more time or if you're making
01:10:35
like an amazing video, then you can focus on the other stuff, building it up instead. But yeah, that I think people get distracted by the gear and trying to
01:10:42
make a good video gear. Yeah. So, but I So, I think Adam had this really cool analogy. Do you guys know the show like
01:10:48
Candid Camera? Like the Yeah. You guys show like Candid Camera like Yeah. Like
01:10:54
OG really old. So, the thing the Candid Camera was originally Candid Microphone.
01:10:59
It was an audio show and that it existed because mics got small enough where people couldn't see the microphone and
01:11:05
that that technological innovation enabled that new format and that new
01:11:10
creative format. Candid camera, same thing. Camera got small enough where
01:11:15
people would be candid on camera and so it actually changed the contents of the
01:11:21
story and and so Adam was like that's kind of how he thinks about jetlag. You
01:11:27
know, we've done other projects since where we did use like real cameras and like lighting setups and stuff. And I
01:11:33
think it really opened our eyes to like thank god we filmed the show the way we do because you could not make our show
01:11:38
if we tried to film it a different way. Frankly, the fact that you can make something on iPhones is an invitation
01:11:44
for people to think, what can I make now with an iPhone that I couldn't have
01:11:50
made before when iPhones weren't this good? And I think that if you can come up with a compelling answer to that
01:11:56
question, you'll have a format. You'll have something that is new and interesting and that actually takes
01:12:02
advantage of this as opposed to just making the same thing but lazier because
01:12:09
you don't have to put in the work of setting up a better camera. You shoot on red because your whole thing is
01:12:17
MKBHD and like that's a part of your ethos and it amplifies a part of who you
01:12:22
are. Every day we put like clothes on to like feel ourselves, right? And
01:12:27
sometimes when we wear a certain jacket, it makes us feel like more powerful or better. And I think you can translate
01:12:34
that to cameras. Like sometimes when we hold a camera, it makes us feel like a professional. It gives us confidence.
01:12:40
Does the camera bring joy? Like does it does it is it going to enrich your life? Is it going to make you inspired to do
01:12:45
the best work of your entire life? Famously, Mr. Beast does not shoot 4K, right? Is this still the case? All Sony,
01:12:52
all I don't know if it's not 4K, but he does kind of just put any camera in your
01:12:57
hands and as long as he has coverage, that's the only thing I care about. It used to at least be the case that he didn't shoot 4K because he wanted to
01:13:04
give you that sort of home video kind of vibe. This actually happened. You you want the camera to be above a floor
01:13:11
where it's not like it's not hindering your story or your video production. And in Jimmy's case, it's funny. He also
01:13:17
wants it to be below a certain ceiling so it's not distracting. Exactly. Yeah. So, I think my big takeaway is that gear
01:13:24
is a multiplier. All it does is it makes what's great about you greater. But if
01:13:29
you don't know what that is, you can't multiply anything by zero. Yes.
01:13:35
Damn. That's bars. Bars. Yeah. So, if you like this behind the
01:13:42
scenes video, I'm sure you'll love all the behind thes scenes videos and ensemble videos that we do on the studio channel all the time. And uh with that,
01:13:49
I would like to say I think the real best camera you can get is the friends we made along the way. So, gentlemen, do
01:13:56
you feel like you learned something? I do. I I love the the multiplier. I think it's a great like bow tie on it. Like
01:14:03
gear is exciting and interesting to us because we're kind of nerds and that's where we live on waveform. We're in the
01:14:09
weeds and we love the gear and what it unlocks, but we it only unlocks the the
01:14:15
multiple of the thing that you're trying to make. You got to have the idea. Yeah, you got to have the seed. If you're just
01:14:20
watering dirt, doesn't matter how how great that watering can is, you need a great seed. So, Rich, you come up with
01:14:26
an analogy. Oh, no. Uh it's like% of my diet chula. There we go. And the
01:14:32
conclusion is the best camera is the camera in your pocket. No, it's not. The
01:14:38
best camera is a possible. That should be our
01:14:44
No, I would say the best camera is the camera that does the thing that you want to do to tell your story. Yeah.
01:14:53
That the best. It's a VRaptor XL. It's currently a
01:14:58
VRaptor XL. Yeah, that is the best game.
01:15:05
[Music]
