A conversation with David Imel (EP202)

[00:00:25] Speaker A: Well, g' day, everybody, and welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is. What is it? It's Thursday, the 23rd of July, and being a Thursday morning, of course, we are joined by a guest today. We are joined by David Immel. David is a writer, he's a video producer, he's a videographer, he's a photographer, film photographer as well, and he also co produces one of YouTube's biggest tech channels. Welcome, David. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Um, 9:00am for you, but 7:00pm for me. So one of the few times it works out where we can both be online at the same time. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Yeah, it's one of the reasons we went with 9am it was. It was. We were like, we want to be able to get the. The US guests, so we'll roll with that. I don't think we can really ever do Europe, but. Well, sorry. Sorry to them, but there's no good [00:01:18] Speaker A: photographers in Europe, so don't worry. [00:01:20] Speaker B: No, no, no. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Where. [00:01:21] Speaker C: Where exactly are you? [00:01:23] Speaker B: I'm in Brooklyn and New York. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Oh, well, Robert Vaughn's just joined the chat and Robert is also from Brooklyn, New Jersey. He. Sorry, New Jersey. I should say not. What did you say? You said Brooklyn. Sorry. [00:01:36] Speaker B: They're like five miles away from each other. [00:01:38] Speaker C: Yeah, but is it. Is it like one of those things where they're like, you had that, you know, you like, don't. Don't say, I'm from New Jersey, I'm from Brooklyn. Is that. Is it like that? Yeah, yeah, it is. [00:01:46] Speaker B: I mean, Robert can tell you, but I would say that's probably the case. [00:01:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [00:01:54] Speaker A: Now, before we get started into. Into the media Q and A, I just want to have a. I just want to talk very quickly about your social media presence. I don't know what the limit is for Chrome tabs to be open, but just opening all the pages that are related to you and your work. I've got a complete. I don't like having too many tabs open. It's doing my head in. But I'm doing it for you, David. I've got them all open. You've got several. You have and also work on several different YouTube channels. You were a writer for the Verge, you were a engineer for intel in a past life. You travel the world creating content, taking photos, creating videos, collaborating with a lot of people I think I saw just recently. Is it GX Ace? I can't remember his name right now. Casey. Casey. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Kevin. [00:02:42] Speaker A: You've collabed with him. He's currently building a New Film, camera, that's all Secret Squirrel business, which is amazing. It just feels like you've got this. This prevalence over the. The Internets, as my parents would call them. And. And today we want to unpack a little bit of that and learn a lot more about your creative side as well. You know, where did that spring from? But I thought we'd kick off the chat with a question about your past life and your current life. So, used to be an Intel. Used to be an engineer at intel. And, you know, now you're a content creator. How did that early experience as an engineer, from your education and your work experience, how does that influence what you do today? Creating content for online presence? [00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, so I grew up near Silicon Valley. Not in Silicon Valley, but like four hours north of Silicon Valley. And we were so close that in 2007, I happened to be at Macworld when the iPhone got unveiled. Yeah. So I saw it happen and I thought, wow, this seems pretty amazing. This seems pretty interesting. Then I was there next year for the. You know, I was there for the iPad and The I. The MacBook Air. And the year after the iPhone came out, when the app ecosystem started popping up, I sort of just felt like the world was going to change really significantly because it felt like every single day there were new apps that were just coming out and basically taking things that we did in the real world and putting them on your phone. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:16] Speaker B: You know, at this point in time, I think a lot of people are like, I want to do more things in the real world again. But in 2007, 2008, 2009, that seemed like the future. Right. Especially when Android came out, because I wasn't on the right telecom to actually have an iPhone. So then Android came out, and I could afford an Android phone. So I started developing apps on Android. And I told myself that my, like, life goal was that When I was 30, by the time I was 30 years old, I wanted to run Android at Google. That was like my. My goal. [00:04:51] Speaker C: Oh, just a small goal, then. [00:04:52] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:04:53] Speaker C: Nothing too crazy, you know, mow the [00:04:55] Speaker A: lawn, become a. Yeah, right. [00:04:59] Speaker B: But I was like, 14, so I was like, I've got some time, I guess. Um. [00:05:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:04] Speaker B: Um. So that kind of set off my path towards engineering, but I don't have a brain for engineering. That's the thing. I tried really hard. You know, I, like, got a job in engineering and I got a job at a small tech firm and then at intel, and I was, you know, I was a systems engineer. So I was really into computers, building computers. How I got into technology in general was that I was just, like, constantly watching technology YouTube channels, reading tech blogs very early on, like Engadget and CNET and stuff like that. Really wanted to go to CES so bad, which is the consumer electronic show for people that don't know about that now. It kind of sucks, but it used to be awesome. [00:05:50] Speaker C: We still want to go, but, you [00:05:52] Speaker B: know, yeah, fair enough, fair enough. But so, yeah, basically I just, like, set myself on this path to eventually work at Google, because that was the plan, right? You, like, you work at one tech company, you work at another tech company, you work at another tech company and just like, grow up this ladder. But, man, intel was like the worst possible company to start at because their version of adapting to, like, the modern tech company ecosystem, especially in the early aughts, was like, we painted the walls blue and we made the. The. And we also made the walls half as tall between people's desks or whatever. So they were still super stuck in the 80s. Regardless. I was doing systems engineering there. I wrote code to basically ping a bunch of hardware in the server centers to test computer hardware and check if it was failing and stuff like that. And it just like, I did that for a few years and I felt like I was going into work every day, and in all of my free time, I was just like, reading tech blogs and, like, watching tech. You like very, very early YouTube stuff about technology, which was like, at the time, it was like you've got your Handycam and you're just like, filming something in front of you. It was not what it is now, which is different now than it was five years ago and 10 years ago. And there's been so many. So many different eras of tech. YouTube. But it's. [00:07:19] Speaker C: It's weird, but I don't know if this happens for everyone, and it always happens, but it seems like recently YouTube's been throw. Showing me some old videos. Some, like, some, you know, keyboard cat, you know, like, like really old YouTube videos. Yeah. From, like 19 years ago with every now and then completely unrelated to my algorithm. And every now and then just throws one right at the top of the, like, recommended feed on my homepage. And I'm like, this is. I don't know, are they getting, like, nostalgic or. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Anyway, yeah, maybe. I mean, there's. There's been a lot of phases. You know, I think in any new platform technology, there's like the golden age and that it matures and evolves and, you know, everything at this point is just a form of advertising. So YouTube now is also very difficult to like. A lot of it just feels like. Feels like advertising. Like, the authenticity factor has just, like, fell off a cliff. So it's hard to watch, you know, YouTube stuff and be like, I'm excited about this new technology instead of just thinking, like, this is trying to sell me something. Anyway, not to be pessimistic, but my point is that I was working there for a while, and I just felt like I was not making an impact doing anything that felt like I myself was contributing to anything. It was, like, cool. I'm helping this mega corporation test their giant server farms to see if their hardware is breaking, and that's my life. That. That felt horrible. [00:08:51] Speaker C: So I was, like, so far detached from the tangible things that you're reading about in tech blogs where you're like, this got created. And, yeah, maybe I need to do what I'm doing for things like that to be created. But it doesn't feel anywhere close to, oh, for sure. You know, that world, especially something like [00:09:13] Speaker B: intel, it was like, yeah, we put our CPUs and computers, and that's like the. The. The bulk of it. I wasn't, like, designing CPUs. I wasn't doing any of that stuff that I think you could be considered creative. And so for. For years, I had sort of been just, like, writing on a little personal blog of mine that, you know, I was doing dumb, like, technology reviews and stuff on my blog and Keyboard review. You just mentioned, like, a keyboard channel. I used to be so into mechanical keyboards, was just building them, and I don't know if that was a keyboard channel that you. [00:09:46] Speaker C: No, no, it was actually a cat playing the piano. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Oh, keyboard, keyboard, cat. Okay, I remember. That's old Internet. That's old. [00:09:55] Speaker C: That's what I mean. It's throwing me up. Like, old stuff. Like, that's crazy. Anyway. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:10:01] Speaker C: So you became a mechanical keyboard connoisseur. [00:10:04] Speaker B: Oh, I was. I was deep in it. I was deep in it. And now just use my MacBook. [00:10:09] Speaker C: I was gonna say, can you actually. Can you explain? Cause Greg's got a mechanical keyboard. We often, like, get on to get ready for the podcast, and I can hear him just, like, clickety clacking away really loud. And I've always just used the Mac keyboards. What's the draw of the mechanical keyboard? [00:10:27] Speaker B: Well, I'm probably not the best person to ask anymore because I haven't used them for so long. But at the time, like, when I got into it in, like, 2012, 2013 there was just like this really, really tight knit community of people who were like, it was basically art. It was like keycap designs and colors and customization is if your brain works. Yeah, if your brain works in like a techie way where you just love customizing things and you love trying different combinations and combinatorics and feeling the different options, then it's just, it's like a whole world and it exploded. Like it started as a small, we had a community called Geek Hack Online that was just like a small forum of people who were into this and now it's like it's a giant industry now. But yeah, basically I was, I was writing on my blog then while I was in college. I was working until. While I was in college by the way. That was, I was like my full time job and I wasn't really going to my classes and I was trying to figure out what we learned and then I would do the tests and then. But I was like driving to intel every day and just working there full time. And anyway, someone I met in college introduced me to this really, really tiny tech blog and was like, they can't really pay you, but if you want like to be writing on a platform, you know, you can probably write for them if you just give them your resume. So I started writing for them and I was like, it was crazy. I was waking up at three in the morning, writing two articles, driving an hour and a half, two hours to work, writing two articles, working my regular job, writing more at lunch, driving home, trying to figure out what I did at school that I didn't do, do my homework, write two more articles before bed. I did that for like three, four years and it was like really awful. Um, anyway, I just like at one point, so I started writing for Android Authority on the side. They like opened me up. They, they were starting a new website called VR Source because they were very good at at the time and I think they've closed down most of them, but some of them still work. They, they had an eye for like, we need to start websites for things that are not popular technologies now, but they will be popular in the future. So if we start writing about them right now, then maybe when they actually get popular we'll sort of be the go to place for people to go to. So they emailed me and they said, we want to start a virtual reality website. This was in like 2016 or something, maybe even 2015. And if you want to write for it, you can. So I was making pennies writing for that Just like doing it over and over again. Eventually I just kept begging them to let me write for Android Authority because I was really, I was really into Android stuff. They let me start doing that and then I just started writing more and more and more, started making YouTube videos for them, had no idea what I was doing and things just kind of like snowballed until they finally offered me like a, you know, $0.25 per 100 words job. Which is like not good money. No, but I, I quit my like $100,000 intel job to like basically make like 10k a year riding in my sister's basement, drinking one cup of coffee and one banana every day and being like anorexic. [00:13:52] Speaker C: Sorry. Living the dream. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Living the dream. Yeah, yeah, exactly. To answer your question, I just like, I didn't wanna, I didn't want my life to be being in a white room doing something that I didn't feel like mattered to anything or anyone. [00:14:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:14:12] Speaker A: There's a very severance feel about that, isn't there? That you just 100%. [00:14:15] Speaker C: Oh my God, you've painted a picture. Tell me this, how much is that world? Like how like I'm an, I'm an outside observer. The closest I got to the tech world is I worked in a dev room with like five pretty handy developers and I had no idea what they were doing because I was on the. I sort of sold websites and worked on the marketing side of things. But I love these guys. So I moved my office into their room rather than hanging out with all the marketing people. Yeah, but that's like the closest I've. I've been to the tech world. But I love the show Silicon Valley. [00:14:52] Speaker B: How, [00:14:55] Speaker C: how close is that to what life is like in the tech world? [00:15:00] Speaker B: It's like when you live in Silicon Valley. Like I was living in San Francisco while Silicon Valley was airing and to people that lived in San Francisco, it was just a documentary. Like it was not. This is what's why it was so good and like why like Mike Judge was. Did such a brilliant job is like he wasn't really kidding. Like everything, everything that happens in that show is like things that happen and really. Oh, for sure. [00:15:26] Speaker C: Wow. Like the group bicycle ride meetings and things like that. Oh my. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Everything. And especially at the time, like in the mid aughts, Google and they were called Facebook at the time, not meta. But like all these companies were trying to recruit so much that they basically turned everyone's jobs into like adult daycare, you know what I mean? And there's still elements of that. But like, I think after Elon bought Twitter in 2021 and went like ultra hardcore or whatever, a lot of these companies have reverted to, like, you actually have to work kind of mode now. [00:16:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:01] Speaker B: So it's a little bit different than it used to be. [00:16:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Damn. You know, maybe. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:16:06] Speaker C: Maybe they'll reboot the series with it. What it's like to work under Elon. [00:16:10] Speaker B: It's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. I think it's hard to write parody about the United States anymore. [00:16:17] Speaker C: It writes itself what it is. It writes itself now. [00:16:20] Speaker B: It really does. [00:16:22] Speaker C: Maybe we should take a quick pause, Greg, and, And say hello to some people in the chat and do our. You mentioned, David, that YouTube, everything's just trying to sell you something. We should do our ad read as well before we dive in. And I promise everyone, we are getting. We're getting to photograph. We just need to. We need to set the stage first. [00:16:39] Speaker B: No, no, no. [00:16:39] Speaker C: Don't be sorry. [00:16:40] Speaker A: No, no, no. I asked the question on purpose. Don't you worry. [00:16:42] Speaker C: It's the backstory. [00:16:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:45] Speaker C: Who's here? Good morning. Philip Johnson, first as always. John Pickett. Good to see you, Felicity. Great work on all those awards. Too many awards. [00:16:53] Speaker A: David Moscaro again. [00:16:54] Speaker C: Hello. From the Bay Area. He would get it. He gets it. [00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah, he understands. [00:17:00] Speaker C: Rodney Nicholson. Good to see you. Lisa Leach. Stuart Lyle. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Who else? [00:17:05] Speaker C: Well, Robert Varner, of course. He's right near David. Phil Thompson's from Geelong. Good to see you. Bruce Moyle, as usual, listening between jobs. Well, enjoy. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Interestingly, Bruce adopted podcasting very, very early in Australia. [00:17:19] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:17:19] Speaker A: Before it was even a thing. He was setting up. He's a videographer and photographer and he was. Yeah, he was hosting us, too. [00:17:26] Speaker C: Old school. Old school podcaster. Lucinda and Sam Olson. Hey, everyone. If you're. If you're listening, drop something in the chat. Good to see you. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:38] Speaker C: And an ad. Luckystraps.com go there. If you'd like leather camera straps and you'd like the greatest leather camera strap ever made, we make them. They're quick release. They're beautiful. Crafted here in Bendigo, Australia. Greg likes them. You can use Code Greg for a discount. [00:17:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:54] Speaker C: And that's about it, really. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Camera straps are underrated. Underrated accessory. [00:17:59] Speaker C: Underrated. [00:18:00] Speaker B: Do you. [00:18:01] Speaker C: Do you use a camera strap? [00:18:02] Speaker B: I use. Yeah, I use a lot of different camera straps, but I've had a lot of artisan camera strap, like maker people reach out to me and just want me to try a lot of their stuff and it's so when you have a good strap, it's. It's so good. It's just amazing having something. [00:18:19] Speaker A: It changes shooting experience completely, for sure. Comfort, safety, confidence, all that stuff. We'll send you one. We'll send you one. No obligation. [00:18:28] Speaker C: We can be another one of these. These companies asking you to try our straps. No, no, we. We have always aimed to make straps that the whole goal was, like, back in the day when people shot film cameras for, obviously for work and things like that. Photojournalist. They would have their bodies for so much longer than we have them now. You know, like a. A Nikon F3 or whatever. They might. They might shoot that thing for a decade, for sure. Photojournalist now. It's like two years in the next one. [00:19:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:03] Speaker C: So I'm sort of like, hopefully, because our straps will last a lifetime at least. There's something that feels familiar when you change over to your new camera. Doesn't feel like you're just constantly not attached in any way, so. Which is why I've kind of got the slogan, the connect to your craft slogan. Anyway, that's enough of the. [00:19:22] Speaker B: The ads. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:24] Speaker C: All right, cool. Oh, Yes, I have 2005. You started the podcast, Greg. [00:19:30] Speaker A: That's early Brucie. Showing your age. Was Bruce's birthday this week, too? Yesterday or the day before? Anyway, happy birthday, Bruce. So, David, let's. Let's roll back the clock a little bit. I'm really keen to understand two key pivotal moments which I'm imagining for you. One is what were the influences to get into tech? Were your family tech savvy? Were your folks into technology? Where did that come from? And then at what point did photography or videography enter your life? And I know they're two very different timelines, but let's start maybe with the tech question. [00:20:06] Speaker B: Tech thing is interesting. I sometimes will source it back to when I was a kid and maybe in, like, first or second grade. My best friend's dad, also Australian, by the way. They moved back to Australia fairly recently, so they live in Sydney, I think. But his dad basically built computers for movie companies because there was a. The. The area I grew up in, in Northern California, like, invented the television switcher. They're called Grass Valley Group. And so there was, like, a need for a lot of these, like, very fast computers to run these news stations and stuff like that, and also movies and things like that. So in his basement, he had, like, all of these computer parts and computers. And I was over at his house, like, every weekend mostly, so we could have like land parties and play Star Wars Battlefront. But, but I think there was a lot of like tinkering and he was, he would show us a lot about the computers and how they worked and how they sort of work like people and things like that. And. But I think probably the main pivotal moment was the iPhone coming out and the apps and everything like that. And I was already into tech. I don't really know why. At my middle school because we lived fairly close to Cupertino. Apple donated a lot of their stuff to our school. In sixth through eighth grade we had this before school program that was like free. And my mom was a teacher so we needed, she needed something to do with me. And it was called Gilmore News Network. And every week we would basically produce a live TV show every Friday to like tell the school about what was going on around the school and things like that. And we, you know, would produce hosted segments that were pre recorded. So Apple donated IMAX and Final Cut seven. And then we used the Grass Valley Group cameras and switchers and we did live switching. We did all this stuff. And so a lot of it had to do with production, but production and technology are sort of in the same vein kind of category. So thinking about using the computers, being around when YouTube came, came around and kind of like seeing the inception of the Internet and how everything like just evolved, I think for me it's, it was less a tech thing and it was more of a, like I'm obsessed with the idea that we can move information around the world really fast. Like that was what it was for me. The Internet was more interesting to me than, than like hardware, but. [00:22:57] Speaker C: Right. That's amazing that you were producing a show when you were what, like 14 or something? [00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah, like 11 to 14. Yeah. [00:23:08] Speaker C: And that was cool. It's kind of what you do now. Yeah, that's crazy. You know, like you kind of went on an arc away and then you ended up back right there at 11 year old. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I always, I never really, I kind of took it for granted for a long time and almost only really recently was like, it's cool that we got to do that. Like, nobody got paid for this. You know, like the teachers that did it were just really into Apple. They were really into, you know, tech stuff. So they're the ones that brought me to Mac World, like as a, as a little field trip in, in a, the back of a Honda Civic. You know, it was like not, it was not like a school trip. It was like it's my math teacher and we Want to go to Mac World, you know? [00:23:50] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:50] Speaker C: Wow. [00:23:51] Speaker A: So that's, that's awesome. That's really cool. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Before we get on to photography, I wanted to ask, do you remember what sort of apps you were trying to develop when you first started making apps for Android? Like what you were like, I'm going to make something that does this. Do you remember? [00:24:05] Speaker B: I, I made an app, I made a game that got bought by Microsoft to get, to get put on the Windows Phone store because they. [00:24:16] Speaker C: So that's a shame. [00:24:19] Speaker B: Well, you know, Android had come out and, and Microsoft was so badly trying to make a Windows Phone work and it just like wasn't really working. And they literally like held a hackathon near me and so I, I built a couple of games, very stupid games. Like there was one where you're a turtle who like you swims around and shoots pellets out of your mouth at sharks. And then you collect different, like you. It's sort of a level up type of thing. I think at the time, like tower defense games were like very popular and sort of like these repetitive like dungeon crawler games. So I built a lot of those. I never, I never got crazy into like utilizing the Google Maps API because that was like extremely new. Right. Like the idea of Google Maps was already very new. So there weren't a lot of like hooks that you could develop into other things. The popular apps at the time were like the beer app that, you know, you could pretend to drink beer. [00:25:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Or the shotguns. [00:25:18] Speaker C: And the apps would just kind of go, they'd go viral for a minute and then they just disappear. And it would just be. Yeah, it would be just stuff like that. Trinket apps kind of thing. Like. [00:25:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I was developing a lot of trinket apps. I definitely not anything utility. [00:25:34] Speaker A: My favorite app back then, back in the early days was. Was it Jetpack Joyride. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Do you guys remember that one? That was, that was so addictive. Just one more go. Just one more go. Yeah, it was like. More. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like a precursor to like Subway Surfers. It's like after, after Fruit Ninja, but before Subway Surfers kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. [00:25:56] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:25:56] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay, cool. [00:25:58] Speaker A: I do have one more tech question. Now you produce YouTube videos for Marquez, Brownlee, now Marcus. For those that may not know in the, in the audience, can you just give us a quick. Who is Marcus and, and why is he so popular? [00:26:14] Speaker B: Marquez is Marquez. [00:26:16] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it's okay. So he's like the person who defined what a technology oriented YouTube video is. He started on YouTube like only a couple of years after the platform started, which is a big deal considering the platform was originally a dating website. You know what? Yeah. YouTube started as a site where you were supposed to upload like a dating video about yourself and someone could like really? I never really. Yeah, it only. [00:26:48] Speaker A: About what we do now. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it only turned into what it is because like people kind of naturally just started making videos about other stuff and then they realized that it was a way better option. [00:27:00] Speaker C: I had no idea. [00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of. It's a kind of crazy. It launched on Valentine's Day, actually. What? Valentine's Day? 2005. Anyway, yeah, Marquez, like Marquez is so wild as a per. Because he. I've never met someone who has the level of just like unwavering drive as him. And he started making YouTube videos in his, you know, room when he was like 13 or 14. And it was just at the beginning it was like, you know, little, little tutorials on how to use free software on your computer. And then it was like, oh, he got his first laptop. So he made a review of the laptop and like the craziest thing I've. I've just never met someone who's like started doing something and then 25 years later they're still doing it every single day. Like it's just crazy. And I remember like watching, you know, I had made some videos and put them on YouTube here and there. But then I, I randomly came across one of Marquez's videos in like 2012 and I was like, whoa, this kid is really good. And we're about the same age. But by that period of time he was like, he was like setting the bar for quality there just weren't. Journalism was not on YouTube yet at the time. And he started doing like tech journalism in video format before anybody else did. Eventually the Verge, sort of like they were his channel and the Verges channel were sort of the two channels that were produced producing the highest quality stuff. But then the economics of the Verge being a giant publication eventually caught up with them sort of, you know, they still make videos sometimes, but their long form stuff has kind of gone away. But Marquez is still at it and he's just the most consistent person in the world. Like that's. And he's a professional Frisbee player and like one of the best Frisbee players in the world because he's won the world championship like multiple times. [00:28:59] Speaker A: I just feel like he's showing off now. [00:29:01] Speaker C: Now that that was. It's ultimate frisbee, isn't it? [00:29:04] Speaker B: Not. [00:29:05] Speaker C: Not disc golf. I'm sure you can be epic at disc golf too, but it was ultimate frisbee, which is like, you know what that. Do you know what that is, Greg? [00:29:13] Speaker A: I've seen some stuff about it. I mean, I know that you do the disc golf stuff. I've seen you do that on videos, but. Yeah, tell me the difference. [00:29:21] Speaker C: Ultimate Frisbees, like sport. [00:29:24] Speaker B: It's like. Yeah, it's like American football with a Frisbee sort of. Yeah. [00:29:28] Speaker A: Nice. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:30] Speaker A: I feel like it would be one of those sort of sweaty oil body shots from Top Gun. [00:29:35] Speaker C: That's slow motion. Yeah. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Slow motion on a beach, disc flying, dogs chasing, all that sort of stuff. [00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Now, just for reference, Marquez. Is that right? Marquez, his YouTube channel, his main YouTube channel, because there's multiple. Has 21.1 million subscribers with 1.8 thousand videos. That's bananas. But it's not quite as bananas as your YouTube channel, David, your YouTube channel. I don't know how this happens. Eight videos in total on it, and you've got 74, 000 subscribers. What is your secret sauce? [00:30:13] Speaker B: My secret sauce is that I make like one video every like three years. And I knew it's. Yeah, it's hard to say. [00:30:22] Speaker C: One a week. And I'm like, I don't think that's it. I think it's one every three years. [00:30:25] Speaker B: They. That's. It's all lies. Like, they all. Everyone that tells you that you're. You have to be consistent. You have to do like, it doesn't matter. Like, the only. The thing that the YouTube algorithm has gotten really, really, really, really good at optimizing for is quality. And I think what's happened to a lot of YouTube and like YouTube channels in general is that people feel like they have to be on this sort of hamster wheel and they start making content that they don't want to make. They start, you know, they get sponsorships and then the sponsorships want four videos a month out of them. And so they have to like, force out a video that they don't care about. Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest. Like, probably most of the reason why I have 75. I don't even know how many subscribers I have. 75, 000 or something is because like half of maybe half or three quarters or are for. From the actual videos. And I can see that in my statistics. And luckily, like, a lot of those people don't even know who I am. But I've been making YouTube videos for other people and being in them and like hosting them and like when I worked for Android Authority, I ran their YouTube channel for like three, five years and I was the host. So like people see repeatable faces, you know. [00:31:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:51] Speaker B: There are two or three YouTube videos I've made where I gained like 30,000 subscribers on like. That's crazy. One or per video. So. [00:31:59] Speaker A: Shut up. You can stop talking now. The interview's over, folks. [00:32:03] Speaker C: Well, I mean, okay, this probably a good, a good way to pivot to photography. [00:32:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:09] Speaker C: Your podcast, your, your review of the X106. What do we call that thing? Six? [00:32:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:19] Speaker C: V. Something is that's on the studio channel, I think not on your channels. Yeah, yeah, you have to get. Actually at some point. Yeah. You need to piece together for us just the. How all of that fits together or how they checked out like all the different channels. But because it's a waveform podcast and [00:32:36] Speaker B: all sorts of stuff. Yeah. [00:32:38] Speaker C: But yeah, it's got almost a million views. I think that's crazy. [00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I knew that, that, I knew that that review would do well just because the X105 was like unbelievably popular at the time. [00:32:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:52] Speaker B: So mostly due to tick tock. But yeah, it was fun for a while. I made like a lot of camera videos on this. So the studio channel, for people that don't know it's our like spin off channel from MKBHD that is like everybody that works on MKBHD stuff works on these other videos. It's like our, you could consider it our like 20 project channel where like when we have a little bit of free time, we work on something else and there's like a lead producer for that channel specifically. But at the time one of the producers had left and the channel was like a little bit empty. So I was like, I'm going to make camera videos. So for like a year in between, when they didn't really have a producer, I was just like making camera videos. But the way that I like to make camera videos is I don't really just like making a review. I like sort of like helping people understand a technology or a fundamental thing, physics thing by doing the video because I wanted to. I like edutainment, you know, I don't, I don't really care about just like, oh, has these specs and these specs are better. It's like I want people to understand why this new technology is actually going to be beneficial. Or you know, I did like a review of the Leica Monochrome. Eleven Monochrome. And like you can talk to people about like, what do monochrome sensors actually do? How do they actually work? Like, how do the photons like hit the sensor and how are they different? I think it's a lot more valuable to, to teach people. And so that's also the reason why I don't review every camera. Because there's a lot of cameras that come out and it's just like they're very iterative. They're not really a good example of a new, either a new technology or like a physics thing that I can teach people about, you know. [00:34:52] Speaker A: Yep. [00:34:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I noticed that like, yeah, you talked about the Bayer arrays and stuff like that in that video. And it's, and it's in quite a, it's a, it's in a way that's not too slow for someone who's familiar with the concept, but it's also not so high level that if you don't understand that, you just lost. It's, it's a perfect like, level of. You could explain it to, you know, a five year old. [00:35:19] Speaker B: I think that there's a lot of, especially in the YouTube, like photography and videography space, there's sort of a lot of like photographers talking to other photographers, trying to impress each other. And that's what this show's about. [00:35:32] Speaker A: That's what we did. It's a whole premise. [00:35:35] Speaker B: If you were making a photo, a dedicated photography show, I can see why that would, you know, but like there's like a lot of people who they're looking. I get like six emails a day from people asking me like, what's, what's the best camera I can buy as my first camera? Yeah, we get that a lot. So many people like just have no idea what they're looking at. And so I think making content and like reviews, but also like edutainment in a way that doesn't talk down to someone but sort of helps them like understand just how things work a little bit better. Like that's what I enjoy doing. So. [00:36:11] Speaker A: Yeah, because then people can make those choices for themselves. You know, if you're educated then you're already equipped to make decisions about that subject. It's as simple as that. Switching to photography, I can't think of a sloppy segue. But you know, we talked about your engineering journey and then moving into the world of tech. When did photography enter your life? When was the, when was the first time you picked up a camera, went, [00:36:36] Speaker B: oh, actually I can do something with this 2017. So it's actually more recent than you probably think. Yeah. [00:36:44] Speaker A: And yet he has 74,000 followers. That's just disgusting. [00:36:47] Speaker B: Well, it's like, technically I bought my first camera because of a recommendation from Marques, but I, but I like used it for early, early YouTube stuff and I had no idea what I was doing and everything was super overexposed and it was like insane and I didn't even. But it was like a Sony. It was like the. I didn't remember what it was. It was, it was the zoom point and shoot Sony. [00:37:11] Speaker A: Oh, like the RX1 RX. [00:37:13] Speaker B: It was RX100 Mark III. That's what it was. [00:37:14] Speaker A: Y. [00:37:15] Speaker B: But I, but I didn't. I don't really consider that my first camera because I didn't care about it. Um, and what happened was in 2017, so I was working for Android Authority at the time and I really wanted to travel for work. Like, I wanted to go to these events, I wanted to go to ces, I wanted to, you know, make more videos on the YouTube channel, et cetera. And they were like, they, they could only justify sending me if I could take photos for the website and potentially make videos for the YouTube channel, because I was just a writer at the time. And they, they were like, well, you can write from home, you don't really need to be there. So, you know, I, I convinced them to let me go to CES that year and the Panasonic GH5 got announced at CES in 2017. And that was a camera that, like, at the time when I was like, I was heavier into like spec oriented stuff because, I don't know, I was like, I was, I was doing more engineering and I was, I just liked computers more. That was a camera that was like, all the specs are higher and bigger than everything else, you know. It was the first camera to do internal 4K60 recording. It did 422 or 420 something internal 10 bit. It had like 5 axis stabilization like the previous one didn't have. And it just had like all of these specs where everyone was like, oh my God, this is like, you know, we were very used to this, like sort of iterative year after year. Oh, it's 5% better. But this was like way better. So as like a, you know, computer nerd, I was like, well, I don't know anything about cameras, but these numbers seem really big. So I bought it and then I hated it. I, like really hated it. I tried to teach myself how to use it and it was like, there's so many menus. There's so many things I don't understand. You know, there's dial, there's. There's like dials, but not the right kind of dials. So I just, I was determined to learn photography, but I didn't want to use that camera. So I went on Instagram and I just, like, looked up the photographers that I followed, which at the time I was just using Instagram to, like, because I just enjoyed photography, but I didn't know anything about it. And I noticed that a lot of the people that I really liked their work were using Fujifilm cameras. [00:39:44] Speaker A: Yeah, they were. [00:39:46] Speaker C: Calm down, Greg. Calm down. Craig's a big Fujifilm fan. [00:39:50] Speaker B: Well, the XT2 had just come out and this guy, Jonas Rask, who's now like one of my closest friends, he had put a review out on his blog. And I watched all these reviews of this camera and I was like, I really like the photos that are coming out of this. And, you know, at the time, I didn't understand that, like, the photos that come out of a camera are not the same as how good the camera is or, you know, things like that. Like, there's elements to it. But I was like, okay, I'm going to return the GH5. I'm gonna buy an XT2. They're about the same price. So I bought an XT2 and, like, my life completely changed. It was like, it was so insane. And I. I think it's because, honestly, I really attribute it to the fact that Fujifilm cameras, or at least the XT series, have dedicated ISO shutter speed dials. And then every Fuji X lens has a. Has an aperture ring. [00:40:55] Speaker C: Yes. That's nice. [00:40:57] Speaker B: It's so, so important to me to understand the exposure triangle and like, when you're actually out taking photos. And it probably helped that Jonas's photos were really high contrast. Like, a lot of the stuff he does is like a lot of pops of color with a lot of like super high contrast and light. And that's what I was sort of inspired by at the time, time. And in order to do that, you can't use auto mode because auto mode is just going to expose for middle gray. Right. So I basically was just like, I was. From that day on, I was outside every single day in San Francisco just like taking pictures, trying to replicate things I saw online. Like, and it helped that that era of camera YouTube was like a lot of tutorials. Like, Peter McKinnon was just blowing up and he got to start doing tutorials. So Stuff like that was like really abundant at the time. So I just felt, you know, when I was like 19 or 20 or something, so like the. I think my brain was still a little spongy and it was, I was able to learn fast. I can't really do that as much anymore for, for as many subjects, which is annoying. [00:42:10] Speaker A: It only gets harder, my friend. It only gets harder. Jonas Rask. You mentioned Jonas Rask. He's a bit of a hero of mine. He, he's, he's been heavily involved with Fujifilm and has done many of their product launch, lifestyle and product images. And I've replicated my own product photography after much of his work. I just love the way he creates those images. [00:42:34] Speaker B: Yeah, he's very. [00:42:35] Speaker A: Yeah. For those of you. For those of you listening or watching, if you haven't looked at Jonas Rask's work, I highly recommend you take a look. He's, he's got a magical eye for light. [00:42:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:45] Speaker A: And, you know, he's been doing a lot of work around. He photographs all of his travels. But even recently I stumbled across some of his images where he's done double exposures in camera. [00:42:55] Speaker B: He's so good at it. It's so good at it. [00:42:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:58] Speaker A: Incredible. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah. We do, we do one or two trips together a year actually. It's me, him and GX ace Casey Cavanaugh, which you were mentioning earlier. The three of us like to travel together a lot. And whenever we're in like Japan or something, and he's just doing those in body, like double exposure shots. I'm just like this. Watching him work is crazy because he is just like, he gets in people's faces. He doesn't really care. He just. And then his eye, he just like spots these, like specifically the color matching. Like he'll see a girl in a red dress, like walk right by this giant red polka dot or something on the wall that I would have never even noticed. But he's, he just like instantly understands, like the way that the colors interact together and. Yeah, he's, he's amazing. [00:43:46] Speaker C: Let's get him on the pod. Greg. [00:43:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we'll add him to the list. And I'd love to get Casey on too, so if you can put in a good word for us, that'd be great. Thanks. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. [00:43:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:55] Speaker A: No pressure, no pressure. [00:43:56] Speaker C: See how it ends. See how it goes. Yeah, yeah. [00:43:59] Speaker A: We'll wait till the end before we make any promises. Yeah. Incredible. And so as you were saying, Fujifilm is the best brand on the market. Where, Where Are you at now with gear? What, what are you, what do you, what's your daily. What's your daily carry like? [00:44:14] Speaker B: Okay, so I really don't, I don't shoot much digital anymore. I transitioned, I don't want to say like I transitioned over to film in 2018 or whatever, but also Jonas's fault. Jonas posted a blog of the Fujifilm TX1 on his website, which for people that don't know is like a. It's a panoramic 35 millimeter rangefinder camera that Fujifilm made in the early 90s. And it's like, in my opinion, the most beautiful camera ever made. I, I have a lot of different articles about it. I have a, I have a dumb little short video about it on my YouTube channel. It was the first video I posted on my YouTube channel. And I like went. I, I was working in China at the time and I flew over to Japan and bought one because I found one at a market, like unused brand new. And it's, it's not that it, like, it's not that it made me stop shooting digital because of any particular reason. It's just like the process of film for me. And like film cameras are so different. Like if you, if you're a person who likes customizing things and having different options and like, oh my God, like there are so many different types of film cameras. You know what I mean? So my daily carry now, like what I shoot mostly with. Okay, this, this is going to be a little weird, but probably my most shot film camera is this. It's a props 3D printed 6 by 17 camera. So it uses a 4x5 lens. And then you just like slap your phone in here and you can use that as a viewfinder and a light meter. And the inside is just like a box. [00:46:12] Speaker C: So much film. [00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah, you only get, you only get four shots per roll, which is a little, a little rough. [00:46:19] Speaker A: I've never seen anyone do that with a, with a smartphone to use that as a rain, as a viewfinder and light meter. [00:46:24] Speaker B: That's, it's surprisingly really, really good. Phones are just good light meters. Like it's, you know, a lot of. And I have dedicated light meters when I want to do spot metering and stuff. But like, because I Also I shoot 4 by 5 and like you kind of need to do spot meeting with four by five. But I would say like my, my daily kit that I bring to pretty much every trip that I do because I'm working on a book right now, like a landscape photography book. And what I bring on Every trip is 3D printed 6 by 17 Mamiya 7 2, which I think is one of the best cameras ever made. And then my tx1, I have three tx1s now. [00:47:05] Speaker C: Where are you getting [00:47:08] Speaker B: the original? So the original one I. I got in Japan, brand new for ungodly cheap. It. Yeah, it's like a whole thing. But the second one I got because my friend was moving to New York City from San Francisco, Chris Chu. I don't know if you know him, he's like a. He's an amazing documentary photographer. He's done like so much cool stuff, but he didn't really. He wasn't really using it. And he was like, I need money to afford my, like, rent payment. And I was like, look, I'll buy your camera. And as a backup. Because these things, the tx1, by the way, for people that are just Hasselblad Xpans, like, they're the same camera. They're also kind of ticking time bombs in some way because they were in this weird era near the end, near the end of film photography, like cameras being made, where they're computers in a way, but they're also film cameras. And if the chip breaks in it, they're like fully automatic. They're not mechanical cameras. They're not like a Leica. So they. Yeah, they're just kind of ticking time bombs. So I bought his as a backup and I bought his at market price because he actually needed the money at the time. And I said, if you ever want to buy it back from me, I will sell it back to you for the same price. So that was sort of our deal. The third one is an xpan, so it's the hospital version. And the way I got that was that a listener to my podcast, which I didn't really mention. I have an. I have another podcast. I'm gonna have a third, another podcast soon, but the one that I have right now is called Waveform, which I co host with Marquez. That's a weekly show that we have [00:48:55] Speaker C: on YouTube and stuff just quickly on that people should. So it. It's a tech podcast which covers all sorts of stuff. But there is regularly. And I want to talk to you more about that soon. There's regularly photography related stuff in there, for sure. It seems like everyone. [00:49:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:49:13] Speaker C: There's. There's. I think there's. I've seen segments on like, everyone's favorite cameras. What else? Oh, you did the iPhone versus Leica. [00:49:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:23] Speaker C: On that podcast and stuff like that. So it's. Yeah, it's it's one of those things that if you're into tech, but it does, it's pretty heavy on photography for a general tech podcast. [00:49:33] Speaker B: So it's good. Yeah. But yeah, so I mean the only digital cameras I have right now are. I have a X100VI because I. Okay, here's a, here's a fun story. When I was in our studio one day and this was like 2020 or something. Marquez sort of collects good looking objects and like colorful objects and we have a room that is just literally stuff that looks cool that we can use as background props or as like, as top down stuff. And I guess Fujifilm had like sent him an X100V like right when it came out and he was using it as a prop. And I. And right as it came out I was like, you can't do this. Like you can't use this as a prop. This is like an amazing camera. So I started using it because a long time ago I bought an X100F but it was like, it had a problem where like the, the viewfinder was really blue and I couldn't change it back. So I returned it and I just like never bought it again. And then I started using the X100V from the studio and I just like fell in love with it. I started shooting on it like as a daily camera. It's like so amazing. So I have an X106 and I have a GFX that I use for like, I don't know, I do like random studio work and stuff. Like I did a campaign for Ford and I've just random. [00:51:01] Speaker A: Working for Ford. [00:51:02] Speaker C: Just random, random campaign. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah, just like, just, just random stuff. I don't know. Sometimes I have to do studio work, sometimes I have to do this. And yeah, like right now I'm doing. I'm working for the Verge for a little bit just as a little side thing and just for like two months. And I have to have a digital camera to do, you know, this kind of work. So I have a GFX for that. But those are basically the only digital cameras I have is like an X106 and a GFX100 Mark II. So yeah. [00:51:32] Speaker A: Yeah, incredible. [00:51:34] Speaker B: Actually right now I'm filming on the GF. My webcam is the GFX100 Mark II with a Xpan 30 millimeter Hasselblad lens. [00:51:42] Speaker C: Really? [00:51:43] Speaker B: Wow. [00:51:44] Speaker C: That might be the most unique webcam we've had on. [00:51:48] Speaker B: The 30 millimeter is really rare. Just to be a little bit nerdy. The only Reason I have this camera is because a guy reached out to me from watching my podcast and he said, I know you really like panoramas because I'm really, I'm really into panoramas. If you haven't seen a lot of my work, mostly either 6 by 17 or Xpan, I just love panoramic photography. And a guy from SoCal reached out to me. He's like, I'm an ex professional photographer. I retired. I offered my brand new like unused xpan that was my backup and my Hasselblad Flex Tight scanner, which is like a. It's a virtual drum scanner. It's basically the best possible scanner you can get outside of a real drum scanner, which is a different technology. And I've been working on a video about this technology for like two years that I just need to get back to at some point. And he was like, I. I offered it to like Photo Pro or something, some like, I don't know, photo retail shop in the US and they only offered me $2,000 for everything and it pissed me off. So if you're willing to pay $2001, I'll give you everything. So what from him? I got a brand new unused Xpan with the 45 mil, the 90 mil, and the 30. And the 30 alone on eBay goes for like 5, 5 to $6,000. [00:53:12] Speaker A: That's amazing. [00:53:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the Flex Tight, which is like, oh, oh, right. I'm not using my webcam. This, that scanner right there. [00:53:22] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:53:23] Speaker B: I have a 2008 Mac Pro that I'm running it on because it software doesn't run past High Sierra. So I have a dedicated old computer I run. [00:53:33] Speaker C: Old. Yeah, that's part of the issues with a lot of the film gear. Like I went recently to. Well, actually it was a long time ago now, last year to. At one of our local labs, Lumina Labs, which is just a guy now runs out of like the back of his house. But it's a pretty professional set. Like he's got. I'm pretty sure he's got one, a scanner that looks very similar to that. I don't know. [00:53:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he might have one. [00:53:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it looked, it looked almost the same. I don't know if they make various models, but. And he had. [00:54:02] Speaker B: It did. Yeah. Imicon was the. The other one. [00:54:06] Speaker C: That's it. [00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Hasselblad licenses names a lot. [00:54:10] Speaker C: Okay. [00:54:10] Speaker A: The. [00:54:11] Speaker B: The XPAN is actually a Fujifilm camera too, but it's just licensed under Hasselblad. [00:54:16] Speaker C: So crazy that it's more popular. But you know, the other way. [00:54:19] Speaker B: Yeah. It was sold in, it was sold globally. The only slight tangent, but like Hasselblad went to Fujifilm, they said we don't know how to make rangefinder cameras. We only know how to make sleep slr. Like not slrs but like box cameras. [00:54:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:32] Speaker B: And they were like, can you make us a camera that's panoramic and SLR 35, 35 millimeter rangefinder camera and Fujisil? Fujifilm said sure, but only if we can sell it in Japan as, as a Fujifilm camera because they have a lot of national like pride. And so they sold it under the tx1 in Japan only, but globally it was the Xpay, which is probably why it's more popular. Yeah. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Yep. So and so the GFX100RF, I think you reviewed that? [00:55:05] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I reviewed the rf. Yeah. [00:55:07] Speaker A: How did you find that? For doing panoramic shots for those, especially those beautiful wide formats, the RF is very fun. [00:55:14] Speaker B: In the video I made of it, I was a little bit rushed and I made it at home instead of in our studio. So it was like not really the same quality. But I think what was really cool about that camera is that they took their heritage really seriously. Like they, they have a lot of formats in that camera where you're where I think people in the modern day would be like what is 6 by 17? What is 65 by 24? You know. Yeah. And it's because these are Fujifilm formats. Like the, the TX1 was 65 by 24. The, the G617 and the GF, the GX617 were 6 by 17. There's the Fuji GA 645 which was their like point and shoot 645 camera. They basically just took every format that they'd made in film and they stuck it into a GFX like rangefinder, Range Rover style camera. And it's cool. I mean it's super cool. Like I think the, the aspect ratio dial that they have on that camera is so awesome. I, I think aspect ratios are more important than people, than people are willing to believe. Like yeah, a lot of people say oh you can crop and post and it's like yeah, but framing and like seeing differently is like, is really, really a core part of what photography is and like doing photography, you know what I mean? So when you're out in the field, you know, being able to frame the way you want to frame when you're there, instead of just like I'm just going to take this super wide photo and then I'm going to like make creative decisions and post like that. That's a totally different ball game. And I try to like, I try to get everything pretty much the way I want it to be in camera. So with that camera, you know, I really liked a lot of things about it. I think the aspect ratio dial is amazing. I didn't love, love the camera as much as I wanted to. It is a Gen 1 of a camera so I think if they continue with it it'll get better. But you know it has an F4 lens which was a little bit tough in like low light conditions without any IBIS on a medium format, on a 100 megapixel medium format sensor. It's like you see shaking easier on a camera like that. So without, without ibis it was a little bit difficult for me and I, I like, I go on these photography road trips with different friend groups. Whether it's like Casey and Jonas or sometimes I, I have a group with his YouTube channel is grainy Days, Jason Kummer Felt and Caleb New Evan who has bad flashes and we go on like national parks road trips all the time. And if I'm testing a new digital camera I'll text them and it'll be like we need to go to a park and we'll fly out there. So for the GFX100RF we went to Utah and again like the aspect ratio dial was so cool. But when I wanted to do like portrait work I was like, okay, well a lot of the magic of large format or medium format comes from a fast lens on, on a large sensor because otherwise it looks basically the same and that lens is f4. So I was like, okay, well you're not get really getting crazy depth of field here. And then without ibis it was like this is kind of hard to like use as just a daily carry. Unless you have a tripod. If you have a tripod. Totally. But you know, I don't know. I also think that different people use different cameras differently and like Jonas Rask for example, that's like the perfect camera for him because he really knows how to use it for street and how to just like utilize the aspect ratios to like get in people's faces and do all this stuff. And for me it just like didn't click as much for me. [00:59:08] Speaker A: But it is interesting because Justin is a Canon shooter and we all make mistakes. But he often complains that Canon haven't added some of those wider, wider crop factors or you know, in camera it feels like it should be such a simple firmware update. [00:59:25] Speaker C: It's. It's. Yeah, it's some code. Like, just. Just because we've got 16 by nine and, like, square and, you know, like, put a few more in there, it's not that hard. And because I agree with you compositionally, and especially now that we've got electronic viewfinders, we're not using optical viewfinders. You can mask it out and show us exactly what we're composing. Just give us a couple more options, please. It's not. [00:59:47] Speaker B: I think a lot of it comes down to, like, heritage. Like these. These companies like Canon and they. They've been through so many cycles of history, and they're totally different people working there. And they just, like, you know, they care about the fact that they made film cameras, but they also never made weird film cameras. Like, Fujifilm has always made weird film cameras. Canon was like, we make sports cameras. That's what we do. We make sports cameras and we make telescopes. And especially because most camera companies are Japanese, like, they're always like, this is what we do. We have heritage. We stick to our heritage. And Fujifilm has always been the weird company. And so I think they were willing to take a risk on, like, this, like, funky camera, which I think is cool. And, like, all of their cameras are. Are funky in a way. And it's been interesting for me personally to see, like, the growth of that company, because when I bought my XT2 in 2017, nobody was using Fujifilm cameras for video. I. I was shooting all of my Android Authority YouTube videos on a Fuji XT2. And, like, at the time, nobody thought about Fuji as a video company. They released an update to the Fuji XT2 a year and a half after it came out. They gave it 4K video. Like, yeah, it didn't have it before. They just were like, here's a Firmware update for 4K video. [01:01:14] Speaker C: Yeah, even for photography, it was like Jason here says. Kevin Mullins, wedding photography is what first attracted me to the Fujifilm files. But even so, like, in around when that there was people using the X Pro one a little bit. But then the XT2 I saw pop up. Obviously, here in Australia, we saw James Day was a wedding photographer who switched his whole kit to that. Russell Ord is one of the greatest surf photographers, certainly in Australia, but worldwide, he's insane. And he stopped shooting Nikon and started shooting surf photography. And he does, like, not, like, long lens hiding on the sidelines like, like, [01:01:54] Speaker A: like, probably in the way. [01:01:55] Speaker C: Yeah, you're about to get destroyed off the coast of Western Australia by the massive wave. And he switched everything to XT2S and. Because that was kind of like this breakthrough camera where that series suddenly became usable for professional photography. And then, yeah, video seemed to follow sort of shortly after in the. Yeah, in the subsequent series. Yeah, it was really interesting. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd really like to. [01:02:21] Speaker A: Sorry, I was just gonna say I'd really like to bring up David's website in a moment with his images. But before we do, just another question for you. You know, you live and breathe cameras. That's part of your. It's part of your job as well as what you do for fun and, you know, catch up with different groups of friends and, you know, you're name dropping like nothing else. You know, Jonas Rasky, Casey Kavanaugh, like, sorry. No, no, they look, brag away, please. Brag away. You know, when you guys get together and chat, do you talk about the future of camera technology and what you think is. Is around the corner and what are some of those predictions that. That you think are plausible or, you know, very much doable? [01:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah, we talk about it sometimes. I would say that we talk more about. All of us are big film people, right. Like, Jonas is a big film. Is like, loves film cameras. Casey mostly runs a film photography YouTube channel. Like, that's mostly what his channel is about. And I think, like, for us, we just. We love the tangibility of these things so much that whenever we're talking about the future of cameras, we're talking about, like, oh, do you think that they're gonna, like, add a grip here, like, make it more, like, retro? Like, are they going to add another dial here or what's this? And blah, blah. But I will say in terms of, like, the technology, the things that have been interesting for me to, like, observe not happen. Because I specialize a little bit in computational photography, too. I studied under Mark Lavoy, who invented computational photography at Stanford, and he, like, smartphones were the first things to start utilizing computational photography because their processors were advancing way faster than camera processors just because they were selling 800 times more units, you know? [01:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:17] Speaker B: And there need. There was more competition and they needed to do more things, you know, so when they invented computational photography, it was like, oh, you have the viewfinder open, you have the camera app open, and it's sampling, you know, thousands of times a second to, like, show you the stream of video anyway, so why don't we, like, use the gyroscope that's in the camera and we can like composite. Like the difference between a 1/1 1,000th exposure, 1/750 exposure, 1/500 exposure to you is not like they're all the same photo, but to the camera, that's the difference of, like, multiple stops of light. So you can, like, just start making everything as a composite. And that's why in the. In the tech world, we have this joke, like, what is a photo that we say every year? Because as AI, you know, editing and just like weird editing stuff becomes, you know, the things that your smartphone is doing. At one point I'm like, are you still capturing reality? Like, what is going on now? So sometimes when we talk about cameras and like, the future of, like, photography and cameras, it's mostly like, when are these camera companies going to start adopting some of the technologies that smartphone companies have adopted? Primarily just like being able to do HDR at all, which is interesting. I mean, Hasselblad sort of did like, they have like an HDR mode in the new camera that they have, but it only really applies to the highlights. It's not doing a lot of stuff with like, shadow dynamic range. So it's most of that. It's mostly like, do we think it's going to have. It's going to be usable like this? Will it have a grip? We'll have these dials. But then it's like, why haven't we seen, like, this speed increase and like, why haven't we seen this feature yet when smartphones have had this for like, 10 years? You know what I mean? [01:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:06:11] Speaker C: It's weird, though, because it's. It's like, that's a great point. Like, where what is a photo? And. And also how much control over the image do you sort of see when. And. And where is that line? I know we had Peter Coulson on the show, who's a. A really great. I don't know what you call him. Fashion photographer. [01:06:32] Speaker A: He calls himself a fashion photographer. [01:06:33] Speaker C: Fashion photographer. Lots of studio work. Insane body of work. And he is like, he. He said he's seen them. He's like, these brands are working on cameras that he said they don't want you to make decisions. They're trying to take your decision making away from you. [01:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:50] Speaker C: Put it inside the camera more and more so that you just press the button and it does the work. And he is, like, dead against it. Yeah, yeah. How do you think that's an issue? Or is that just something that we kind of. We. We're like a resistance to change? [01:07:10] Speaker B: I don't like it like I have never used burst mode ever. I'm like, I'm like a single shot mode only type person because I have like, I appreciate, it's fun. I don't know. I appreciate, and I appreciate entropy, you know. So I like, I like the fact that I don't know if I'm going to get this picture or not. And I'm going to try to, you know, and then I'll get things that I don't expect. And it reminds me of like a couple of years ago, Canada invited me out to some like thing in Southern California and I went and it was, I don't know why they invited me, to be honest, because it was a bunch of working photographers, like an NFL photographer and an NBA photographer who like are there doing the work every night. Those are working people. And what was so wild was the, it was for the R1 and then the R5 mark two. [01:08:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:08:06] Speaker B: And what was so crazy about the R1 and like, you know, the way that they were presenting it was they were like, yeah. So the buffer is like 15 seconds of non stop one over 1000 raw files and you're just like. So you're, you're just doing a stream of video and it happens to be raw. And then they're like, oh yeah. And then now we have like 5 GHz WI FI. So you can send, you can instantly send all of the files that you're taking like back to an editing bay and then they can choose the photo that they want out of the stream that you took and then they post that on social media instantly. And it was like, okay, like I, I see from a usability perspective how, from like a business perspective, you're like an NFL photographer, you're an NBA photographer. You need to get like the, it's all about the speed. It's all about like how quickly can we like turn over this. It's more information, right? Like a photo for them is not a photo, it's information. And that's so antithetical to the way that photograph photography as, as an art form. So I don't, I don't like, you know, all of these things where it's like we're gonna make all these decisions for you, we're gonna do this because for me like photography is like a little, a little bit like painting, but you're discovering something as opposed to it coming out of your brain. And yeah, I don't, I don't think I would ever use any of these features but for like working photographers I can see why it would be useful. So I think we have to separate the difference between photography as an art form versus photography as like a job. Those are very different things. So. [01:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, agree. And, and what about, you know, we, we saw a couple of years ago pentax drop the 17, which was a half frame film camera. Obviously Leica has their film cameras. [01:10:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Nice. And we are seeing more and more film cameras being developed. You know, Jeff Bridges has just, has been working on a pro long term project to fulfill, you know, a dream of his to have his own style of camera. You know, Casey's, you know, hinted that he's developing something special, just so you know. Oh, his is digital. Okay. I wasn't sure. [01:10:25] Speaker B: I don't know if he's announced that yet, but it's digital. [01:10:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:28] Speaker B: Which to me is even cooler because it's way harder to do. [01:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [01:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:33] Speaker A: And there's some other, there's some other smaller brands, you know, that are crowdsourcing to, you know, basically cnc, create their own bodies and all of that sort of stuff. But what do you think is the future of film cameras? And do you think that Nikon and Canon and Fujifilm particularly will eventually step up and release film cameras of their own? [01:10:52] Speaker B: Pentax made the 17 and then they exited the market. So I think that kind of tells you everything you need to know. It's. It's unfortunate. And I live in a bubble in New York City because I, I host a club called Beers and Cameras. We're international, we have clubs everywhere. So I don't know where in Australia you guys live, but there's probably one in Sydney and one in Melbourne maybe. [01:11:19] Speaker A: Why aren't you part of that, Justin? You like? [01:11:21] Speaker C: No, I love both of those. [01:11:22] Speaker B: I know, I do too. This is why we do it. [01:11:26] Speaker C: Cameras, Melvin. [01:11:28] Speaker A: Cameras. Because I don't drink beer. Is there a or flat? [01:11:32] Speaker B: I try to, yeah. I mean it's, it's not like exclusive or anything. Right. Like, we just start to. I run the New York chapter of Beers and Cameras. [01:11:41] Speaker A: Didn't that start in Canada? [01:11:43] Speaker B: It started. It did. It started in San Diego. [01:11:46] Speaker A: Okay. Because I remember Big Head Taco. [01:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:11:50] Speaker A: He was, he was a big supporter of it and he would often go to the events and record them. [01:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I met him in Canada though, the same day that I met the guy that started Beers and Cameras and randomly at an Airbnb. But now I run the New York chapter. And like, you would think if you lived in New York City, you would think that Film photography was more popular than digital photography. Like it's, it's actually insane how popular film is here. And we have so many labs like you were talking about the lab that you have, that's just like one guy that's sort of like, you know, running, running this little lab here. We have like, we have like 30 to 40 different film labs and they're doing crazy volume. They, they're getting backed up, they can't keep up. And I went to the Kodak factory a couple of years ago and at the time they're like, you know, we're seeing this influx of popularity with film and it's very like intense and real and there's a lot more demand than supply. But we don't know if it's a fad and we don't want to invest like hundreds of millions of dollars in new machines and cutters and stuff if it's going to take us a couple years to build them and then people realize that it's like not worth it, you know. [01:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:14] Speaker B: So I don't, I, I, I think there's always going to be like a community oriented like small population of people who want to keep film alive. But, and, and that are making. The cool thing about cameras and film cameras in particular is that they're so mechanical and they're so physics based. Right. Like you don't need to like buy a hundred thousand circuit boards from China and like make enough money to like buy them in bulk. Like you can 3D. I, you can 3D print a film camera and it's like you get the, you know, when I scan this on my scanner, the images are 22, 000 resolution. Like it's crazy. Like there's not a problem there. So is that a future though that [01:14:04] Speaker A: people will 3D print their own that, you know, and maybe there's a market opportunity there for Canon or Nikon or Fujifilm to put out 3D print files at their own design. [01:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:15] Speaker A: You know, and replicating maybe some of their more retro bodies. [01:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah, there's definitely. I, I do think that the future of film cameras is going to be 3D printed cameras. I think that's gonna. Because there's so many. Oh my God. Like I made a video about this like in 2022. I don't remember when it was, but I felt like immediately after that I started seeing so many 6 by 17 3D printed projects. Yeah. A lot of people are just getting really into it. They're 645 people are making their like homemade xpans you know, so it's a thriving community for sure. And Kodak actually did end up investing and making more of the film cutters. And then there's a bunch of drama with Kodak Alaris and Kodak Eastman where they sort of split now that we have coda color versus, like, versus Portra. And it's. That's a whole separate world that, you know, you should only care about if you're into film. But the film supply is, is growing significantly. And I also think that big, you know, box office movies like the Odyssey and, and things that are in 70 millimeter are gonna entice people to like, think more about the medium that they're capturing stuff in. [01:15:35] Speaker A: So it's interesting. And I wonder if film will become more of a phase as well for just everyday shooters. Like, I know at the moment I've got adult and almost adult children, and they love nothing more than a cheap compact with a, with a flash that casts a huge shadow. That's, that's their whole vibe at the moment when they document friends or they go to parties or they hang out. Yeah, it's all of these sort of grainy, you know, poorly exposed images. But yeah, love it. You know, and I wonder. [01:16:03] Speaker B: I think people don't actually want a representation of reality. They want something that feels like a mem. Like a memory, you know, I mean, it's, it. It's just like cameras have gotten too good. Even smartphone cameras, like the way they do hdr, they lift the shadows and they crush the highlights. And nobody wants everything to be a mid tone. Like, everyone wants the shadows. They want the graininess. They want. They want to feel like how they felt when they were at that party when they were hanging out with their friends. They don't want just like to use, you know, to use like a 4K camera to like capture their pores. I mean, the amount of softening filters these like that teenagers put on their shit now, it's like, why would you, why would you want something good? Which is funny. There's a, there's a, there's a strong irony to like, let's make a market out of things that are worse. But that's. That's how it is. [01:16:55] Speaker C: Well, you did. You mentioned right at the start of the show. I think like, people have a yearning for real world stuff, you know, like, it doesn't. Apps are super helpful for daily life, but, you know, it would be nice to have a music player. That's a music player. And, and, and there's. There was a whole resurgence in the last few years of people doing that sort of stuff, like ipods, kitting things out and then being like, yeah, and just, I didn't use my phone for anything but a phone for 30 days. And they, you know, all that sort of thing. And I think, yeah, that there is definitely a shift back that way and an opportunity for brands that want to make just great products that do one thing so that might help fuel the camera industry. [01:17:40] Speaker B: I think the key word that you just mentioned, there is a yearning because unfortunately in these videos that I used my phone as just a phone for 30 days. It never lasts. But the reason for that is because we allowed our society to be interwoven with technology. You can't get away, like it's, it's almost impossible to get away from it. I know a couple of people who just use flip phones and like have done it for a couple years, but like, oh my God, it's hard. And I, I love that idea. Right? Because everyone, every one of us has gone on vacation, gone to a national park where there's like no service and you're like, is this what it's like to feel happy and free and like without the chains of, of interconnectedness and technology? And it's funny. It's funny. [01:18:33] Speaker C: Here's a good example. I'm packing. I'm packing for a flight at the moment. I leave tomorrow morning just to brag on a last minute trip to Africa to video people doing a wildlife safari. [01:18:44] Speaker B: That's pretty awesome. [01:18:45] Speaker C: Yeah. So instead of capturing the animals, I'm capturing photographers that are capturing the animals. [01:18:51] Speaker B: Animals. Yeah. I hope that my camera didn't die. [01:18:58] Speaker C: I'll continue telling you my story. If you can hear me do that [01:19:00] Speaker B: and I'll work on it. [01:19:01] Speaker C: See what you can figure out. Anyway, with flights, you know, like they're slowly, more and more of them are getting WI fi, whether it's included or you have to pay extra. And that is the one thing that I love about flying is to not have WI fi and airplane. [01:19:16] Speaker B: Oh yeah, totally. [01:19:17] Speaker C: I like to just be like, I guess I have to watch movies and listen to podcasts for 16 hours. I like it. I don't know. What do you guys think? [01:19:26] Speaker A: You know, I like that switch off too. [01:19:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you go for it. I'm trying to figure. [01:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, sorry, I, I do like that switch off flights. Sometimes when I take, you know, I go on train journeys, like when I go to BEFOP or I come out to see you guys, I'll turn off, you know, just for Just for an hour of it. It's just so liberating. But it is interesting. It reminds me of a story a few years back. I'm pretty sure it was in Australia a few years back. A guy who had been working for a company for a long time. The company had finally migrated to online banking. So they didn't issue cash in a little yellow envelope as we used to do here in Australia for a long, long time. And this guy just flat out refused to get a bank account. And you know, and so he wanted to continue being paid in cash and the company said, well, no, we can't. And I think he won the case that really, you know, he was refusing to be bullied into having to set up an account online, you know, have it. Have access to his money digitally. When he didn't want that, he just wanted his pay, which he was, he was entitled to. And so the company, I'm pretty sure they had to backpedal and, and start paying him cash somehow. [01:20:32] Speaker B: But that's fair. I mean, you, yeah, you shouldn't have to be like forced to use these apps and things. But a lot of it's, it's tough. I mean, there's been a lot of movement in like these dumb phones that have come out. Like, there's the minimal phone and there's like a light phone and they're the [01:20:53] Speaker A: folks that make Commodore 64. They've just, they've just announced an in between phone. It's not a smartphone, it's not a dumb phone. It's kind of, it's in the middle. [01:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And like, I love that idea. You know, I love the, the idea that you could like have a phone for the weekend that you can get away with and be a little less connected and things like that. But it's difficult. I mean, we've all, as tech journalists, we've like reviewed these things and they just end up getting annoying for the people around you, you know, like, oh, I can't call an Uber. Oh, I can't venture. I can't like pay you for the dinner we just had. I have to do that on my computer at home. And I'm gonna forget. [01:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. [01:21:37] Speaker B: And then. Yeah, it's just, it's just sort of unfortunately the way that I think about it is like, the phones aren't the problem. The problem is the fact that these like the apps that run on the phone have been like built to be addictive because that's how capitalism works. You know, we need more screen time, we need more of your attention. We're selling your attention because we're selling ads. And the technology of what smartphones have enabled is, like, amazing. Like, everything that I dreamed as a kid could happen has happened, but all the bad things have also happened. You know, it's. It's tough. It's tough. And when I go on these national parks road trips and we don't have Internet and stuff, I feel so happy. And that's why I'm making my. My photo book that I'm working on is about mountain ranges, because I feel most sort of at home when I'm under a giant mountain range. So. [01:22:35] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, that's really interesting. [01:22:39] Speaker B: I do live in Brooklyn. I know. [01:22:41] Speaker C: It's a mountain ranges. [01:22:43] Speaker B: No, it sucks. The east coast sucks. I'm like, being from the west coast of America, where, like, you just have the most absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, sweeping vistas and different things, it's. It's tough to live here. The only reason I live here is because I was in. I was living in China, and then Covid happened, and I needed somewhere to live, and I just randomly flew to New York. [01:23:06] Speaker C: Really? [01:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And I flew here, and I just, like, got an apartment randomly, and then I didn't expect to stay. Are you gonna turn off, too? Oh, my goodness. Okay. [01:23:17] Speaker A: Oh, no. [01:23:17] Speaker B: I hope you guys don't mind. I'm just gonna switch back to my face. [01:23:20] Speaker A: No, no, go for it, please. [01:23:23] Speaker C: Makes us feel better about our level of podcasting. [01:23:26] Speaker B: Well, yours is. Yours is great. So I don't know. [01:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. This isn't our first rodeo, David. [01:23:31] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough, Fair enough. But I was. I was fully planning on, like, moving back to the west coast, but then Marquez called me and, like, asked if I would just, like, be his writer and help him out. And so I was like, well, sure. And then our studio is here, so I kind of have to. I had to stay here, so that's why I'm still here. Otherwise, I'd not be here, even though I like it, but I don't like it as much as I like nature. [01:23:55] Speaker C: So you'd like to pick the studio up and everybody and relocate it to somewhere? [01:23:59] Speaker B: I would love to go back to San Francisco or thereabouts. San Francisco, I think, is one of my favorite cities. So. Yeah, it's very, very city. [01:24:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so close to. Obviously it's a. It's a pretty big city, but it's. It's what, a few hours from how far from there to, like, Yosemite? And it's like. [01:24:22] Speaker B: It's like three hours. [01:24:23] Speaker C: Three hours. [01:24:24] Speaker B: It's. It's crazy. You. There's so much insane nature around there. Yeah, yeah. And I grew up like three and a half hours north of San Francisco, so. [01:24:33] Speaker A: Well. [01:24:34] Speaker C: Oh, north. Okay. So that's like heading up towards Oregon. Yeah, yeah. We did a road trip. I did a road trip. We did like three months in the States. Was it a year ago, Greg? Two years ago? [01:24:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:24:50] Speaker C: Went from like LA up to Yosemite and then back sort of down and around through Vegas and up to Colorado, basically. [01:25:01] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Yeah. [01:25:02] Speaker C: Loopy loop. Yeah, we did, but we would have been nice to go higher, but we were just, we were running out. Like, there's so many. [01:25:09] Speaker B: There's so much stuff to see. Like, it's, it's difficult to do. Like, we're. I'm doing like a just California road trip with my film photography crew, like early next year, so. [01:25:21] Speaker A: Nice. [01:25:22] Speaker B: So much stuff. Yeah. [01:25:24] Speaker A: Speaking of photography, Jay, can we bring up some of David's images from his website? Let's do our photo. [01:25:31] Speaker B: I do have to say, unfortunately my website is not very updated. But. [01:25:34] Speaker C: But it's a common. [01:25:36] Speaker A: It's a common thing. [01:25:38] Speaker C: You fit in perfectly with some of the most amazing photography we've had on this podcast. Because it's all pretty similar. [01:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like older, a lot of older work. [01:25:47] Speaker C: But it was the panoramic work really, that caught my eye to try and get you on the show. [01:25:57] Speaker B: Oh, cool. [01:25:58] Speaker C: For sure. So I was interested as to. How. Did we talk about that before? Or did I lose, like, how'd that come about? Like, how did you. [01:26:04] Speaker B: The panoramic stuff? [01:26:05] Speaker C: Yeah, like, what, what drew you to. [01:26:08] Speaker B: Was the. The X, the TX1, the XP, the TX1. I. When I saw Jonas's review of, like, his TX1 that he put on his blog, I just never seen photos shot in like, that format before and I just felt it was like, so interesting. And I actually have, like, I have like, what is the right, the right phrase? Like, I get self conscious about my panoramic work sometimes because in a way it's like overly technical. Like the way that you frame a panoramic shot is like generally you're like rule of thirds or you're centering something or you're doing this. And like, obviously, like any kind of photography, it's just because it's panoramic doesn't mean it's going to look good. But sometimes I think, am I making this too scientific? Like, this too technical? But I think I just love, like, nature so much that panoramic photography for me sort of helps me capture like the sweeping vistas and the way that things feel inside, you know. [01:27:14] Speaker A: Yep. [01:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:16] Speaker A: I like to look at it that, you know, I'm a street photographer. I typically shoot at 35 miles, full frame equivalent on my Fuji. But you know, the wider I tell people when I talk about street photography, the wider the lens or the wider the, the image that you're capturing, the more context you're adding to the story you're trying to tell. [01:27:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:34] Speaker A: You know, and these ultra wide panorama vistas really draw in that context that it is vast. There is a lot of it out there, you know. [01:27:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:44] Speaker A: And it celebrates, especially when you, when you do those like, you know, your images of the, the Golden Gate Bridge. Yes, it really celebrates that. The scale, you know, of those, those elements that. [01:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:58] Speaker A: You know, some people take for granted and don't really see. [01:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, totally, you know. Totally. I like to be able to sort of like give more context around what you're looking at. [01:28:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:09] Speaker B: And it's, it's just good for that. It's very good for bridges obviously because bridges are in that format. But yeah, you know. [01:28:16] Speaker A: Yep. [01:28:17] Speaker B: But yes, the panoramic stuff has just sort of been my like bread and butter. But I have some other stuff that's. That's 6 by 24, which is even wider. I'll show you this camera. I found this, found this in Japan. It's. [01:28:37] Speaker C: Oh. [01:28:38] Speaker A: What? [01:28:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:39] Speaker C: Hold on, hold on, hold on. There we go. [01:28:43] Speaker B: Three shots per frame with this made of steel and it's crazy. [01:28:48] Speaker C: It looks heavy. [01:28:49] Speaker A: What camera is that? [01:28:51] Speaker B: It's The Linhoff Technorama 61624. [01:28:58] Speaker C: Wow. [01:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:59] Speaker B: Linhoff Art Technoroma 64. So I don't use it very often, but there have been some really interesting scenarios where it's been useful actually. Like this is sort of my two worlds colliding a little bit. But like the Apple Vision Pro recently released an update that allows you to use your own panoramas as your environments that you're like existing in in the Vision Pro. And so I have all these hyper high quality panoramas so I get to like live inside of my photos, which is like so cool. It's like really. [01:29:34] Speaker C: That is amazing. [01:29:35] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:29:36] Speaker C: Yeah, we, we need to talk Apple Vision Pro or, or headsets just for a second and then we'll get back to your photography. But I get laughed at a lot on this podcast for my prediction. A lot. My prediction is that vertical format for video obviously, but also for images as well is, is not going to last. It's, it's the most popular format right now, but it's only because that's the shape of it. Our stupid little phones and the apps that we use them. And we're going to head back towards what we naturally want to view things in, which is, you know, a horizontal format. And the thing that will take us there is something like the Apple Vision Pro. Have you got any thoughts around that? That sort of topic? [01:30:21] Speaker B: I like that prediction. I think that's cool. I haven't really thought about that before. But yeah, the Vision Pro is so interesting because it's, it's simultaneously like the most advanced piece of technology I've ever used in my life. Like, I don't know if you guys have used it before. [01:30:37] Speaker C: We're in Australia. They won't be here for another six or seven years, I don't think. [01:30:41] Speaker B: Probably I feel the same way. I felt, I felt the same way using it for the first time as I did using my first, like, touch screen and like pinch to zoom on on the first iPhone where I was like, oh my God, this is, I already know how to use this. And it's weird, like, because how you use it is you, you just look at things with your eyes, but you don't have to like move your head. You just, you just like look at things and then they highlight and then you just like snap your fingers and your, your fingers can be sitting in your lap. They can be over here. Anyway, I sort of have this universal theory that things that are strapped to your face that take you out of the real world world are never gonna make it. Because when I, whenever I think about, like, is technology going to work? I always think, does this enable you to be more social in the real world with real people? And if it does, then, like, it has a chance. Right. So the, the reason why smart glasses, I don't love the direction smart glasses are going in right now because I don't like this, like, oh, you could be being recorded at any time and you just have no idea. Like, at least with the smartphone, you have to like hold it in front of you and it signals to everyone around you that you're recording. Whereas smart glasses, it's like, it's so low key that you just don't even know. [01:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:03] Speaker B: But the reason that they could work is because it's an existing form factor that you can still be talking to your friend and it's on your face, but they don't even really notice because. Because we already have glasses in our lives. But the reason I think that like AR and VR aren't really long for this world in general, or at least they have like very, very fine use cases, is that they take you out of your environment around other people and they make it. I think that as humans we like deeply just want to connect with each other. And that's part of the reason we're addicted to our phones is so in social media is that we're just trying to connect with each other over like messaging apps and like things like this. And I have this whole video I. The videos on my YouTube channel are almost all about technology and social connection. So like I have one about how World War II led to the development of imessage and a big part portion of that is just about like we stripped all of the emotional context out of messaging when we invented computers, you know. So with Vision Pro and things like that in the form that it's in right now, I don't think headsets are going to be the thing. I think like Apple's really good at taking a risk in spending a lot of money to invent a technology that they don't end up using for a long period of time, but then they use that technology and other stuff down the line. Right. And the technology they've invented for the Vision Pro is genuinely amazing. And I think once they make their glasses, which they're working on easily, I could see that being popular. As far as video consumption and stuff like that, I think the jury's out for that. I really have no idea what, what direction that's going to go. And I think that screens that you can hold are like the ultimate form. Like the smartphone is kind of, in my opinion like the ultimate consumption device just because it signals to other people you can use it. We've like maxed out the screen to body ratio so that like it's basically just a big screen that's very powerful and very fast and you get to decide like when and where your attention is going. Right. Like something I am always nervous about is I just don't trust meta in general because they, you know, they just want to sell you, they want to sell more attention so they have to keep you on their apps more often. And I just, I don't want glasses where they have access to my attention all the time. [01:34:39] Speaker C: Right there. [01:34:39] Speaker A: It seems insane they can see what you're specifically looking at and market to that, market that. [01:34:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, I don't know, I still, I just, I feel very apprehensive about screens that are strapped to your face. I think. I think being able to decide when you want to look at a screen is like the only form of sovereignty that we really have left. [01:35:05] Speaker C: But do you. Do you think we as a society can resist, though, when it. If it's. If it's so much more convenient or something? I don't know, like, whatever they can do. Do you think that people will continue carrying a screen in their pocket when it can just be like, right there? [01:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's hard. I. It's hard. I have no idea. I think the jury is out on that too. I think right now because of. There's such a big backlash against sort of. There's a. There's a really big backlash in technology in general. Right. It's like it started with AI, but right now, like, in general, like, people hate metaglasses. At least in the United States, there are apps that people use on their phones that will alert them if there are any metaglasses is nearby. [01:35:46] Speaker C: Really? Wow. [01:35:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. How does it do that? [01:35:50] Speaker C: That's crazy. [01:35:51] Speaker B: It just like looks at the white. The Bluetooth signals, and when it sees one that it matches the type of UUID that it will, it doesn't block it, but it tells you that. That somebody is wearing them. Wow. So there's a big backlash to them in general. I do agree with you though, that, like, there's what people say that they don't want to use, and then there's what people will start to use because of convenience purposes, you know? Yeah. Like, if you. You could say there's a huge AI backlash, but then you look at ChatGPT's like, like weekly after user chart, and it just does this. So like, you know. [01:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:36:33] Speaker C: It's really interesting that you're. You're so on the cutting edge of tech, obviously, because of what you do for a living and you just your general passion about it, but you and a lot of the people that you work with into still photography and even film still photography. Like, why do you think that is? And where does still photography fit in in the future of our society? Like what? You know, with video so easy for everyone to shoot video, why is there still photographs still compelling? [01:37:09] Speaker B: That's a good question. Something I could say is that my mom is a painter and my sister was very artistic, and I had absolutely no artistic bone in my body. And for me, the camera allowed me to sort of be emotional and artistic in a way that I didn't realize I had the capacity. Capacity for. And so when I like. And that's. That's why I like film photography in particular too, is because I don't get the instant feedback, but I'm like, I'm in the space, I'm absorbing the moment. And yeah, being able to sort of like capture a feeling, I think is something that, like, you can do with video, but it takes investment, right? Like if I'm gonna watch a video. And this is the reason short form video is so popular now, right? Like the things that happen in 15 seconds because people don't have the time, they don't have the attention span. And photos are sort of this, this kind of thing where you can look at it, you can just. You just immediately get the emotional response because they're like a crafted, singular moment as opposed to, like, you need to build up the story, you need to give context, you need to do this. And also, I really like things that leave out a lot of. A lot of information and force your brain to wonder what's going on. You know, this is like a slight tangent, but, like, it kills me that Disney has, like, milked Star wars the way it has to the degree that it has. Because something that's amazing about Star wars or Lord of the Rings or whatever is that they give you just enough. They drop you in this little area of the universe and then they. They show you all these things that could be happening there. And you don't really know what's going on in the universe, but you can sort of. Everyone has their own personal experience in their head, right? So, like, when you look at a photo, you don't really know the context or the, the. You don't get too much information about the environment. And I think that people have very personal, individual responses to, like, visual mediums that they consume. And photos are, are one of those things where it's like, wow, I'm having, like, an emotional response over, I don't know, the, the feeling that it feels to be on a beach at sunset during, you know, with my dog or something like that. So I don't know. I think I'm not answering your question correctly because it doesn't really have to do with technology. [01:39:48] Speaker C: But you are. That's exactly. It's not so much. That's exactly the sort of answer I was hoping for. Something that's like, what is it that keeps this thing alive and relevant for us? Even though, like, for sure, you guys are playing with the cutting edge of technology, but you still will do a podcast about your favorite cameras that you're using for stills, and it's like, for sure. [01:40:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Still photography, it's, it's, I've thought about that a lot. Like, it's interesting that everyone has always been like, the camera's dead, the smartphone is getting so good. This is blah, blah, blah. But I think that we still have this desire to sort of go out and create art and feel like we like made something. And that's like. Yeah, that is a human thing where the effort is the point and when you generate the thing with the effort, you get a lot of emotional satisfaction from it. So. [01:40:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's a great way to look at it, you know, and despite, despite the advances, significant advances in technology that smartphones have brought, have brought to, you know, people capturing moments and valuing those camera sales ticking upwards still, you know, more so than ever. Yeah, compacts are really popular. Fixed lens cameras are really popular for sure. There's a, there's a, there's a glut in the market of cheap buy on Amazon. It's basically the same compact camera body, but, you know, five different brands have bought the rights to it. The people are still buying cameras, you know, and I think that's, that's really important. And it's, I think it's a good sign that despite having this thing in our pocket, that people still want a different experience. [01:41:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:41:31] Speaker A: Because I know when I take a photo with a smartphone, I'm already thinking about the edit. I'm already thinking about, am I going to put this one on social? [01:41:38] Speaker B: For sure. [01:41:38] Speaker A: When I'm taking photos of my camera, I'm just in the moment. [01:41:41] Speaker B: And you're already in the minority because people that photograph on their smartphone almost never photograph for artistic purposes. It's for information transfer. Like, this is what kills me to no end. And I can, you know, I can yell at, I can yell at smartphone companies all the time. Like, I made this video in 2021 called how the Italian Renaissance Can Fix the Smartphone Camera. And it's, it's about how smartphones basically have stripped away all the things that make photos artistic for the use of information transfer. Because 90, 95% of people are taking a photo of the menu at the restaurant to send to their girlfriend. And like the benefit, like you need the low light performance. It doesn't matter if it's, if it's smudgy, if it's got too much like noise reduction, if they're, you know, doing all this stuff that the enhancement, it doesn't matter. The, the information transfer is what matters. But I think that this smartphone camera, look where they jack up the shadows and they crush the highlights and they try to make everything a mid tone because everything being a mid tone is the best way to transfer information. I think people just really got tired of that after a long time, and they felt like this is not real life, this is not reality. And people know that real cameras will still give you more of a representation of reality. Reality where there is shadow, there is highlight, things are sharper or, you know, people are writing digicams because they want them to be less sharp, you know, but yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably the reason the camera sales are triggering it. And it. It makes me feel good. Like, I'm happy that these camera companies are still selling cameras and that sales are going up. Like, that is not something I ever expected to happen. But it's. It's great. I'm glad it's happening. [01:43:36] Speaker A: It's interesting because we talked about in the podcast a lot because, you know, only a couple of months ago, Justin's partner Elena wanted to get a digital camera point and shoot, because she just didn't want to have a phone in a hand all the time, you know, and we see a lot of that happening where, you know, and it's different shooting on an iPhone. When you think about how many apps and how many can, you know, ways of connecting to the world we have on a single smartphone, there's so many distractions coming in constantly. [01:44:03] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Yeah, that's. [01:44:04] Speaker A: You know, and being photography on a smartphone is. Is fraught with the peril of being interrupted in the moment. You know, you're about to take this shot of. Of a milestone moment with your phone, and all of a sudden, you know, you get an ad or you get a notification from Facebook or you get a, you know, your bank sends you. Oh, you're overdrawn again, Greg. You know. Yeah, just saying. That happens. [01:44:26] Speaker B: Totally. No, it. It grabs from your active attention and it doesn't allow you to focus. I mean, I think this is why all of our attention spans have been nuked, because there's just, like, little pings here and there all the time that are all fighting for your attention because they make more money when you have the app open. And I think even for me, like, this is probably cliche, but another reason I like film photography is because when I'm shooting on a digital camera, I, like, take a photo and then I immediately hit the play button. Like, I look at it and I am like, oh, like, maybe I could do that differently. Or this is how I'm going to edit it and I'm already thinking about the way I'm going to edit it. Whereas on a film camera you just. You're just there like there's nothing else. Yeah. You're just taking the picture and moving on. [01:45:12] Speaker A: Yeah. On that point, it is interesting that some digital cameras are starting to avoid putting the screen on the back. [01:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:19] Speaker A: Cheap point and shoot kind of style ones. But there's a couple called Likers. All the light. Yeah. The not so cheap point style ones [01:45:26] Speaker C: either end of the spectrum. [01:45:28] Speaker A: And you know, like the Fujifilm X X Pro 3, they put the screen so that you can have it shut, you know, and all you see is the little E ink screen with your settings or your film sim. Like just such a clever idea. Yeah. I love that camera. Wish I had one. [01:45:42] Speaker B: If only they didn't break so easily. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:45:47] Speaker A: Beautiful piece of technology that. There's a comment that I just want to read in the chat that just came through from. [01:45:53] Speaker C: From. [01:45:55] Speaker A: From Jason. Is that right, Jay? Jason. [01:45:57] Speaker C: Yeah, Jason. [01:45:59] Speaker A: I think the photo links us to the past and we are all grounded in the past. And every stills photo depicts a moment that is now gone and humans identify with who we were collectively. That's a beautiful way to put it. [01:46:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so too. I think that there's. Everyone has nostalgia for various periods of their life or for parts of their life that felt simpler or ways that we connect with each other and. Yeah, when you're just taking a picture, you're sort of like getting a better sense of. Of humanity. I was thinking about this during the World cup, this like last couple of weeks because we hosted the World cup in the US And I read this Reddit post a couple of days ago where someone said, how do you think the US did with the World Cup? And every comment was from someone not from the US saying like, wow, like, people in the US Are so nice. I. Based on what I read in the media, I. You would think they're horrible people. And like this, this, that and like when you strip away. And again, sort of, sort of going back to my like World War II iMessage video, like when you strip away the contextual information of actually feeling the emotional identity of a person in front of you, hearing their voice, the. Their timbre, like you can feel the vibe with them and being there in person with them, it's horrible. But when you add that information back, in which I think is what photos sort of do in a weird way, like they show you humanity in a way that we're not used to seeing on a daily basis. Like when we're taking a photo as an artistic endeavor, you're trying to make people feel an emotional feeling that is generally like wistful or, you know, positive or. What I usually do is I try to take, I mean, I don't try to take wistful photos, but that's sort of the energy that I take in my pictures. A lot of people tell me that, they say that my photos are quiet. And I think it's because I feel most at home when I'm like in a mountain range just being disconnected. And so if I can transfer that feeling to other people, I think that's what's so cool about still photography. So maybe that's another reason why it's still around. I mean, it really connects with people. [01:48:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's really interesting about, you know, how a lot of people say that your images speak of the quiet. And I, you know, someone, someone I heard say something along the lines of, you know, if you go out to take photos and you're feeling your photos are going to be, you know, because you, you will put into that process what your, what you're to. About emotional experiences at the time, you know, and if you're feeling it, then your photos will feel it. [01:48:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:40] Speaker A: You know, if you're feeling that moment of what's going on in front of you and, and you know, like, you. It's the sort of stuff I try to capture in street photography about documenting, you know, what is before it becomes. What was that. That's how I see the role of stills photography. It's about. It's almost like we have an obligation to document now so that right in, in the future people can understand us better as to why we, why we are where we are. You know, it's like when we look back at photos from the, you know, from the, the end of the 18th, 19th century, we gained so much knowledge just from looking at images and seeing those stories in. In picture. [01:49:17] Speaker B: So right now I think there's a reason why. Why like very famous portrait photographers will get to know their subjects for like a couple of days before they take their picture. [01:49:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:49:31] Speaker B: There's a. You, you're able to see a relationship through a photo of a person. [01:49:37] Speaker A: That's true. [01:49:38] Speaker B: And people will say, like, if you're a photographer and you're, you're married or you've got a partner, like, it's very easy to see the, the love in the photograph as opposed to just like photographing a stranger, you know, yeah, yeah, [01:49:52] Speaker C: that's a good point. [01:49:53] Speaker A: Very good. [01:49:56] Speaker C: Yeah. I was a wedding photographer for 10 years or so, and one of the. And I'm trying to think whether it was Jerry or someone that I used to follow a lot. He actually always used to talk about every day, every wedding day, he would fall in love with the bride just for the day. [01:50:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I love that. [01:50:14] Speaker C: That was the mindset. He had to get in. He had to. Yeah. Like, try and see her in that way. To document her in the way that her new husband would see her. Yeah, for sure. [01:50:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:29] Speaker C: Yeah. That was his. That was his sort of mindset. [01:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:50:34] Speaker C: I've got a few topics written down. I know we're probably. You're probably. [01:50:38] Speaker B: I don't mind. I'm not in a rush. Yeah. [01:50:40] Speaker C: All right, well, that's good because we got a couple of fun ones. Okay, let's. That one could get. That one could get ugly. Let's go with. So with. With all these. I'll save that for after this. [01:50:55] Speaker A: Where. [01:50:56] Speaker C: Where do we display our images? [01:50:58] Speaker A: Because. [01:50:59] Speaker C: And this was. So this was another thing. This wasn't a prediction. This was more of a hope that if the Apple Vision Pro or something, like I. So I have used the. What's it called, the Meta Quest or something. Or whatever. And it is pretty crazy, that technology. [01:51:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:51:14] Speaker C: When you first put it on, you're like, wow, I'm. I'm in something. And I was like, wouldn't it be amazing to be able to host a virtual exhibit exhibition, you know, of your images, where people can see them in. In a bigger format from anywhere in the world without having to print and hope that someone shows up to a tiny gallery that you can afford. [01:51:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:51:40] Speaker C: You know that. And they happen to be in the area. You know, it's like for things like this podcast or whatever, you know, we could hold a community curated exhibit in a. In a space that's virtual, that people can walk into and see the images. But other than that, I'm like, where. Where can we take. Where can we display our imagery that does it justice? Because the phone doesn't. [01:52:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:52:11] Speaker C: Do you have any thoughts on that? [01:52:12] Speaker B: Well, yeah, my 6x24s do not fit on my phone, I'll tell you that. [01:52:17] Speaker A: Instagram doesn't like them either. [01:52:19] Speaker B: It's very. It's very sad, like trying to look at my panoramas on. On a little Instagram square and being like, this is not. This is not working. Part of that is, like, why I got into printing. So now I have a large photo Printer and I print a lot of work and I try to just like put it on my wall and give it to my friends and you know this. But like seeing something behind glass Big is like a totally different experience and it sucks that it's harder to share. Like, I think we've kind of gotten into this mindset over the years with Instagram and stuff that it should be easy to like share your images with each other and it's like, okay, but we're not really sharing them in a way that feels native to the experience. [01:53:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:53:07] Speaker B: And then the other thing I would say is that you're just a couple years late to NFTs because that's exactly what that make these like virtual galleries where you own the photo. [01:53:17] Speaker C: Damn. [01:53:18] Speaker B: Damn. As if that was ever going to work. But I don't know, I mean, folding, like people do have an insatiable desire for bigger screens. I've always wanted a smaller phone, but the market does not. The market wants bigger and bigger phones and pop. The folding phones are starting to finally get popular. You know, just today Samsung released new folding phones. There's one that's a little bit smaller and Apple's gonna release a folding phone in September and that at least helps. It's still not correct. It's not the right, you know, aspect ratio or whatever. But bigger is definitely better and I think people do want to see this work in a better way. I have a lot of people that email me and say, can you send me a high resolution version of your photo so I can print it? And you know, I'd rather sell them a print, but I'm glad that they at least want to see it in real life and put it on their wall. Yeah, I think like actual, seeing actual art and work in real life is, is not something most people are really actively used to thinking about. Like they see when they walk into a hotel or a restaurant, there's like art on the wall, but it's like decoration and they never. The only times people actually stop to look at art is when they're in a museum. Otherwise, otherwise it's like it's ambient information around them. You know what I mean? So I don't know. I think printing is great. I'm like, I, I do a lot of printing. The ones that I'm not exactly happy with, I just give to my friends. They love putting them on their walls. I think sharing, sharing your work with a lot of people is like a good way to share it it. [01:55:11] Speaker C: But what printer have you got? [01:55:14] Speaker B: I have a canon program 1100, I think. [01:55:18] Speaker C: Me too. [01:55:19] Speaker B: Oh, hell yeah. Nice. [01:55:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Except I've been having some. I've been having some troubles with it, but getting there. Yeah. Classic printers, man. Every printer, none of them work. Yeah, this. [01:55:32] Speaker A: The. [01:55:32] Speaker C: The quality out of this thing is great. And the setup was easier. I don't know where it's gone, but anyway, I've been having, like, some smudging issues and stuff. Just weird little things that when it spits it out right at the end, it smudges the prints. Yeah. [01:55:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially when you get really big paper. That's not good. [01:55:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:55:48] Speaker B: I almost allowed myself to buy, like, a giant, giant roll paper printer. And then I live in a basement. I do not have space for this. [01:55:58] Speaker C: And the maintenance and. [01:56:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, the maintenance. Yeah. I like. What I like about this is that you just leave it on and it sometimes shakes up the ink to try to make it not ruin itself. [01:56:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And I've got a good cadence happening at the moment where we show images. On our Monday night show, we. We show images that people send in, but we also often show our own images. I've sort of set myself a task of every Monday night, I have a little image set to show. [01:56:25] Speaker B: Nice. [01:56:25] Speaker C: And then I print one of those during the show so that it's like once a week at a minimum. The print is spitting something out and not getting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:56:34] Speaker B: Something we do at Beers and Cameras, which again, if you've. If you don't have a club near you. [01:56:40] Speaker C: I had a look there. There. [01:56:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:56:42] Speaker C: There isn't one in Melbourne or I can't see one in Australia at all, actually. [01:56:46] Speaker B: You should start one. There's beers and cameras and there's coffee and cameras and we sort of sometimes collab. We sometimes fight each other. But what we started doing at the New York Beers and Cameras that I run. [01:56:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:56:57] Speaker B: Coffee and Cameras in Oakland. Um, my friend used to run it. She now lives here, so David probably knows her. But what we started doing was. We started doing print swaps, like, every month. So we have every month for beers and cameras. And we had an event at the Leica store in New York. And I was like, well, we're doing it. Like, let's do a print swap. So people. We told people, bring. Bring your prints. And everyone was so obsessed with it and loved it so much. Sorry. My. My smart home is turning off all my lights and closing all my blinds. Okay, the lights are back on. We're good. Yeah. So we started doing. Every month now is now. Every single Beers and cameras. Every Month is a print swap. So that's great. It's cool. Like you can go to, you can go to CVS and be like, wait, do you guys have cvs? But maybe not. [01:57:50] Speaker C: No, no, that's. [01:57:52] Speaker B: It's like a pharmacy. [01:57:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, we don't have that. [01:57:55] Speaker B: We have, we used to do photos as well. Yeah, but you can go to a small like print shop or, or a pharmacy or whatever and like order 30 like six by four by sixes, you know? [01:58:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:58:08] Speaker B: And they're beautiful. And I have like, I have like, I have them all around my, my apartment from people from beers and cameras that I've met who have beautiful work and it's like really cool. Like, oh my God, I love seeing the look on people's faces when they're just like, they have their beer. And our events, we've gotten up to 2500 people at a single event before, so it's like 2500. Yeah. It could be crazy. [01:58:33] Speaker A: That's insane. [01:58:34] Speaker C: Where, where would you even hold that in? [01:58:37] Speaker B: In like Central park or like Prospect Park. Wow. That most events are closer to, like most months we get about 400 people, which is still a lot. Yeah, a lot. But I just love the look on people's faces when they're like going around with their prints and they're like looking at each other's work and they're talking about the work and it's like. Yeah, it's so good because in the photography space everyone just talks about specs and cameras and it's like, it's not about the camera. [01:59:03] Speaker A: You can't get that experience and you can't get the same experience with this. [01:59:07] Speaker B: No. Yeah, absolutely. [01:59:08] Speaker C: Holding. [01:59:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's totally different. [01:59:12] Speaker C: Do people write their names on the back of each print that they bring so that you, you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:59:17] Speaker B: Let me, let me grab one, Let me grab one for you. [01:59:19] Speaker A: Yeah, please. [01:59:19] Speaker C: That'd be awesome. I'm just. I'll bring up a comment. Dennis Smith says, I bought a box of 5x7 paper and print out stuff for fun and little gifts. Feels so nice. Also good to see you, Dennis. He says, also I've been looking at my work on a new big 4K TV and that's been nice. So Felicity is going to try that out. Rodney Nicholson, with 50 years of experience, says nothing beats an in person exhibition. And yeah, that's, that's obviously always the goal, but it's a big thing for people and especially if they're new to photography. That just seems like a pipe dream, you know. When you knew. So. [01:59:56] Speaker B: So these are just different ones that people have given me at. I wish they would focus at beers and cameras. Like a car at late at night. [02:00:06] Speaker C: Love that. [02:00:06] Speaker B: On Cinestill. Or like a disco ball. [02:00:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:00:11] Speaker B: Like Coney Island. And people just like. It's cool because they're, like, not that big, but, like, most people will, like, just on Sharpie or something, like write their name on the bottom. [02:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:00:21] Speaker B: And even if it's not something that you want to, like, put in your house, just, like, looking at it and like, paying attention to it and looking at the details, it's just. It's so amazing. Yeah, definitely recommend that. The print swaps are very fun and maybe. [02:00:36] Speaker C: Greg, we need to do that at be. We go to a festival every year, the Bright Festival of Photography. It's. It's this weird festival. [02:00:44] Speaker B: It's. [02:00:45] Speaker C: It's small but crazy. [02:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:00:48] Speaker C: Usually we Hugely popular, but it's capped at 600 people and it sells out basically the day after it. The day after the event, it's sold out again for the next year. But yeah, maybe we should try and organize that, Craig, where we will facilitate, like a print swap there. [02:01:03] Speaker B: You should. People love it. People love it so much. Definitely recommend. [02:01:08] Speaker C: All right. That's a great idea. Thank you. Look at you, David. [02:01:12] Speaker A: Just. [02:01:12] Speaker C: Just leveling up our. Our podcast. What else should we do? How do. How do we go viral? [02:01:23] Speaker B: Luckily, we don't. Okay. Something that Marquez will say that I agree with is like, I think like, something that helped us is that we never went viral. [02:01:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:32] Speaker B: Like, I think going viral is actually bad for you because people. People don't. When you go viral, it's not about you or what you're making or what you're doing. It's about, like, this, like, virality moment or like a thing. And the problem is you'll get like a ton of followers at once, but they're not following for you. They're falling because they saw something random. And then they. They have no relationship with you. And then it hurts. It hurts you. In the algorithm, it's like much, much better to grow really slowly and just have the people who care about you will return for every single thing. [02:02:12] Speaker C: How slow is. How slow is. Too slow. Is there. We're really. We're really trying to ride the line. [02:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I don't know. [02:02:21] Speaker C: I think our format, like, live and we don't. We don't have time to make clips and stuff. We're trying to, but we don't have A lot of time. And I think clips would probably help us. But live is one of those things that it's a big investment and to watch it back later, it doesn't have the polish and stuff that. That people might be used to. [02:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:38] Speaker C: But the people that do find us do tend to stick around, which is nice. [02:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Our show is, like, very edited, so. Yeah, I mean, when I say very, it's like, not significantly, but it's. Yeah, but. [02:02:53] Speaker C: But it's pol. Like. It. It. It's extremely high production value for a podcast. This is a waveform podcast station. [02:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah, waveform. Waveform, yeah. [02:03:02] Speaker C: Have you guys ever done any live lives? [02:03:05] Speaker B: We've done two live, like, on YouTube, live shows. And then we. We go to south by Southwest every year now, which is like a. It used to be a music festival and now it's an everything festival. [02:03:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah, but we. We do. We do that too. And that's. That's always really fun. I do one year want us to do, like, after an Apple event or something, like, do something in, like, Cupertino, like right outside of Apple Park. And then this year, maybe I shouldn't be talking about this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. [02:03:39] Speaker A: We won't tell anyone. [02:03:40] Speaker B: I don't know if this will be live, but we're going next month, we're going to Spain and we're gonna do a show underneath the total solar eclipse, like, while it's happening. [02:03:50] Speaker C: That's awesome. [02:03:51] Speaker A: That's a great idea. [02:03:53] Speaker C: That's so cool. [02:03:54] Speaker B: I don't know if that'll be live. I kind of doubt that's going to be live. Yeah, it'll be fun. Yeah. [02:04:00] Speaker C: That's so awesome. What did I have. Oh, yeah. What did I have here that I wanted to. Actually, first, let's just. Just quickly so that I can not muck up our print swap because everyone seems keen. So how do you. How would you actually do it? Like, do you. Does everyone just sort of mill around hanging on to their own prints? Or is that. Do you guys, like, lay them out on a ton of tables? [02:04:24] Speaker B: We've tried. We've tried both. The better way is to have people just hold on to their prints. And then. And then randomly little groups will form and they'll be like, what did you bring? And then they just show each other and, like, it's better to do that, I think having a connection to the person who took the photo that can talk to you about the photo people connect with more. When we did it, where everyone just put their prints on the table. Nobody cared about the photography. It was like. It was like, oh, cool. I guess. But when. When you're talking to someone about the picture, people latch onto that and they actually really start to care about the photo. So. [02:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:05:01] Speaker C: Okay. [02:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:05:03] Speaker C: All right. I have some ideas. Okay, perfect. Yeah. [02:05:06] Speaker A: Cool. [02:05:07] Speaker C: What about. What about AI when it comes to photography, particularly when you start to see it sneak into. Obviously it's going to sneak into the smartphone side of things, but what was that. What was that camera that come out like last year or something that I think is already dead, that had. It had like nano banana built into it or something like. [02:05:28] Speaker B: Oh, you mean the thing. Was it the thing that like took your GPS coordinates and then it tried to replicate what it thought the, I think scene was? Or. I mean, I think that was probably just like a dumb, fun project. [02:05:43] Speaker C: What was it? There was the thing. It was. It was a proper attempt at a. I can't remember. It's. It's so gone. [02:05:53] Speaker A: I remember the one you're talking about. [02:05:55] Speaker C: The Kyra, maybe. [02:05:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Okay. They are still around. Yeah. They took the AI stuff out. [02:06:04] Speaker C: Okay. [02:06:06] Speaker B: Well, there's, I think a lot of these companies, like, they just, they try to figure out a way to like, ride the wave of whatever's popular at the time and also funding. As someone not in the United States, you. You might not know that like 40 of our stock market is riding on three companies. So it's not good. It's pretty bad. Everyone's a little bit worried about the bubble popping. [02:06:32] Speaker C: Yeah, [02:06:35] Speaker B: yeah, it's interesting. So, so for example, today I saw a. The, the. So the Sony FX5 got announced today. [02:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:06:44] Speaker B: And I saw these comments that were very angry that it said it had AI autofocus. And to me, this is an example of, of like the initiatification of a term because we've been using machine learning for a really long time and nobody had a problem with it. And I think what people don't understand is like, AI autofocus is like a local, like a locally trained model on the chip that understands what a bird is. Like. It's not, it's not like using data centers to. [02:07:19] Speaker C: It's not. It's not asking Claude what's in this photo. And Claude's like, yeah, I think that's a bird. [02:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah, focus. Exactly. So, I mean, the, the broad topic of AI and photography is very crazy because I not being able to know like, what's real anymore and having smartphone manufacturers, like, lean into the ability to generate for falsehoods is very convincingly is not good. And I don't think, I don't think anyone thinks it's good. I hope that because nobody thinks it's good, people won't use it. But at the same time, like, the, the cat's sort of out of the bag and the tool is there. People have made the analogy like, oh, it's Photoshop. But it's like Photoshop about a barrier to entry. I see where you're coming from. But it also had a barrier to entry. And this has no barrier to entry. I've been asked before, there's a documentary coming out about the resurgence of film photography that I think is coming out this year. And they interviewed me about it regarding, like, photography and AI, and I think people will still be shooting photos like we talked about earlier. Like, the effort is the point. People want to be in the moment. They want to do something hard. Hard. They want to feel connected to it. I. I don't think that's going away, but I do, I do think, like, photo generation and video generation is like, why are we doing. Like, nobody asked for this. It's sort of like we're doing it because we can, not because we should. Well, I mean, people did ask for it because businesses want to not have to hire people. [02:09:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:09:09] Speaker B: Ultimately, that's what it is. It's about. It's about Capex going down. So. [02:09:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And that's the weird thing. It's like if. If everything that you see on social media is you, you can question, did this happen? Yeah, yeah, like that. So then, are you. What are your thoughts on things like building content credentials into camera bodies? Do you think anyone will care? Do you think, obviously photographers might care because they can be like, this proves that I was here and took this photo and it's a real photo. But do you think a viewer would care in the future, a casual viewer? [02:09:47] Speaker B: Do you know the webcomic xkcd? [02:09:50] Speaker C: No. [02:09:51] Speaker A: No. [02:09:52] Speaker B: I'm gonna send you one of their. One of their comics. So the thing about, like, these standards that sort of like, tell the truth about an image and like its lineage and stuff, they all have, they all have good intentions, but that there are so many of them that it is impossible to actually, like, rally around, like a singular one or that everyone will use and for that will like, give you an actual source of truth, Number one. Number two, how do I. Can I. Oh, I'll drop in the private chat. [02:10:36] Speaker C: I was gonna say this is a private chat. Yeah. Yep. [02:10:38] Speaker B: Okay. Number two, these companies don't have an incentive to like, actually care about whether or not people have the ability to check the. Whether or not something's real. So right now, like, Google has technically everything that gets made with Gemini does have an invisible watermark in it called Synth id. And you can go to a web portal and put an image in a web portal and it'll tell you if it has a Synth ID watermark. Nobody's gonna do that. Like just, they just did it because it allows them to say, oh, but we care about things being real. And they just don't like, they really ultimately don't. Like, Meta did the same thing. And there are a billion standards. Nobody's following the same standards. Yeah, here's the webcomic. It's about, it's about like protocols and standards. And this is basically what's happened in the, the photography. Like, is this real or not? Space is. They've generated just like there's so many now. And it's hard because, like, you know, I love the idea, especially with, like, what is the one that, like is using in their cameras again now it's. [02:11:53] Speaker C: I'm trying to remember. [02:11:54] Speaker B: You mentioned it like three minutes ago. Content credentials. [02:11:59] Speaker C: That's what it is. [02:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah, but is that frame. [02:12:02] Speaker A: Is that Frame IO or is that Fuji's using? [02:12:06] Speaker B: It's made by like an open group, which. But all of these companies have, like, it was sort of invented at Adobe in a weird way. And Adobe doesn't really have an incentive to know what's real for people to know it's real either. You know what I mean? [02:12:22] Speaker C: So Content Authenticity Initiative. Initiative, AI. [02:12:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ultimately, I don't think they're going to matter in the grand scheme of things. That's my answer to your question. I wish that they would and I wish that, like, because it's up to these platforms, right? Like, if Meta actually cared about, they would make it so Instagram and threads and whatnot automatically put a tag on something that popped up with an AI generated like, like invisible watermark in it. And it would say, this is an AI image. But they don't because their incentives are for more eyeballs. That's for people to argue with each other so they stay on the platform longer. And like, I believe that there are individual people at these companies who care about, you know, care about this stuff, but the incentive structure of the business itself does not lean itself in that direction. And it's all about the. It's all about the capitalism of it all. Unfortunately. I think that's the way that things Tend to drift. [02:13:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:13:25] Speaker A: So, yeah, so. [02:13:26] Speaker C: So it's just going to end up, I mean, the photo. Photoshop analogy. Yeah. Like there was a barrier to entry to that, but it was still something that was possible. And is this just going to be a step beyond that where it's like we're still just going to have to use our own disturbance and people will accept what they want and reject what they want, but it will just be maybe more prolific. There'll be more of it. [02:13:49] Speaker B: I think so. I think there's going to be exponentially more of it, which, which sucks. And I don't like. It's crazy being a tech journalist right now because I used to be so rosy eyed about the future and I didn't understand when I was 14 that like capitalism plus the stuff that I like equals like chaos and like difficult to understand what's real and what's not real. And you know, and so. So yeah, I think, I think there's just going to be a lot. And I heard something for the other day from someone that we've. We're sort of transitioning from trying to spot if something is fake to now we're like, is the first thing you think is, is this real? [02:14:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:14:34] Speaker B: Because there's just so much. It's so easy to alter images now. And they're so convincing. They're like so convincing. Yeah. [02:14:43] Speaker A: And the videos, even videos, some of the videos that are coming out just. [02:14:48] Speaker C: I was going to ask that, like, is Marquez even doing videos anymore or is it just some sort of AI that you guys have built? You know, like you've all retired people. There was people saying that that was coming like, like that that's going to be. You will see on every major channel. They'll just basically get AI to write a script and then get AI to generate the video based on what it's learned from the rest of the channel and then that's. That you won't have to film anything anymore. Is that, is that even. [02:15:18] Speaker B: There's elements of it. If you want to look at meta. [02:15:21] Speaker A: Want to do a. Didn't they want everyone to have an avatar and that. Sorry, I cut you off. [02:15:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that was, that was the metaverse. [02:15:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:15:32] Speaker B: They poured $10 billion into that and that. We all see how that went. But I think if you want to look at the future of any of these things, you. You look at how it's being used in advertising because all these companies again are trying to spend less money, hire less people, make their stock go up. And so there are a lot of AI influencers that do AI videos of opening products that you probably would not even realize are AI. Like, there's a lot. And we do a lot of stories on the verge about this, actually. [02:16:05] Speaker C: Okay. [02:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you want to read that, if you want to know more about that. But like, as far as like the, the avatars and the scripts, I will say some people have definitely started using like LLMs for video scripts, which makes me very sad. Like, I, I recently this year started like, taking care of myself more because I've traditionally just never taken care of myself and I hurt myself a lot and I finally started having back problems. So I started. Yeah, I'm getting to that age finally. [02:16:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:16:44] Speaker B: So I, I started like, you know, doing weightlifting a little bit and going to the gym and stuff like that. And naturally, when you get into anything new and you're a curious person, you're like, I'm going to watch videos about this or I'm going to look this up, whatever. And I just. The amount of fitness content, dude, that is at least the scripts are completely AI generated. And it is so obvious to me. It is so obvious. Like just the, the way they, the way that they. The cadence of the, of this. It's just everything. It was crazy. I. [02:17:20] Speaker C: That's back pain. That's. It's something. [02:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. All these analogies that they make, like, I, I kid you not. So I, I use these, a lot of these platforms because, like, as a journalist, I have to like, understand how they're working and like, how they're evolving. And so I use Gemini a lot to just sort of like, I mean, mostly I use it as a better form of Google now to like, find sources faster. And it's actually good at that. But, you know, sometimes I will just be like, how good is it now if I'm just trying to ask it questions about fitness or something. And I'm, I'm talking to it and it uses this analogy of like, imagine your body like a paper towel roll. And then the next day I'm watching some, some fitness YouTuber and he's like, I'm going to make an analogy now. Imagine your body like a paper towel. [02:18:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:18:12] Speaker B: It's in. So in certain, in certain industries. And like, the other thing that I've realized this is very off topic, but like the fitness YouTube, like, world. [02:18:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:18:23] Speaker B: Is just everybody making the same video a thousand times. It's like the same information being regurgitated. And so I think that that's probably the, the perfect storm for Like AI just like show up faster, you're gonna start seeing that stuff faster. Yeah, the avatars right now, it's all in marketing. I don't know if YouTubers and like creators are going to start using that stuff because part of the reason, and someone, someone in, in here said, yeah, viral, make a good work. [02:18:59] Speaker C: Yeah, that's Dennis. [02:19:00] Speaker A: Dennis. Yeah. [02:19:01] Speaker B: It's because the connection that people have with like your YouTube career, your virality, you're not virality, but your ability to, to grow community, you, you can't do that by like pretending, you know, you have to actually care about what you're making. And like, if you say like, oh, I love you guys, but you don't actually love these guys, like, yeah, you're not gonna grow. And so if you're just making content to make content, this is the problem with virality. If you make content for the virality of it all, nobody gives a shit about you and you're not gonna grow. And so I don't think a lot of people are going to start making AI avatars of themselves because there's no connection there to like, it's just a content farm at that period of time. And people will do it. Like some people will try. I don't think they will do that well. But it all depends on the context. When you're on Instagram and a reel pops up of some person unboxing a product, that's the perfect fodder for an AI avatar, user generated content. [02:20:12] Speaker C: That's right. Because it's sort of a nondescript person and you're just taking it as that. And it's all like, I guess, how much trust you've built up and credibility. Because you know, at the moment, if Marquez endorses something and says, I use this, you should use it too. It's great. It carries a lot of weight for sure. But if, but if he endorses a thousand things using AI avatars that will quickly disappear. That, that trust. [02:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah, trust is. The whole trust is, is what you're selling. Like we both say this at the Verge and mkbhd, it's like the product we are selling you is trust. And every other tech website who has like slowly become like just like a farm to get backlinks and like make affiliate revenue, they've sold out the trust and people don't care about them anymore. Like there used to be a lot of tech websites where people would go to for product reviews and stuff. Nobody trusts them anymore because they basically sold their audience out. And yeah, trust is what people are getting from you, that's what matters. [02:21:21] Speaker C: So, yeah, a little, little comment here. He's. Dennis says you mentioned the FX5. The astonishing number of exact replica bullshit reviews this morning is icky. Do you have any thoughts on that, Dave? [02:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a tricky. This is a tricky. Okay, I'm getting into sticky, sticky deep territory here. [02:21:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:21:42] Speaker B: Okay. This is a category of. Of thing is really weird and broad because they're both exists a lot of natural similarities and things where it's like, yeah, you're looking at the product. Everyone has enough knowledge of the ecosystem and of the world of cameras and what came before it and whatever that like the highlight. New features are obviously going to be the things they talk about, et cetera, et cetera. There have also been companies that literally will tell you, you need to talk about ABC feature or we're not going to give you the camera. [02:22:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:22:24] Speaker B: I declined to review the Hasselblad X2D2X2D Mark 2 because they asked me if I wanted to check it out and I said, sure. And then they said, okay, your review needs to mention these things and you can be, you can, you can be a little bit negative just to make it seem more authentic. And I was like, wait, excuse me. [02:22:49] Speaker C: They gave you permission to do excuse me. [02:22:52] Speaker B: And so I was like, I'm not under any circumstances, like going to say anything you want me to say. And this is because they got bought by dji. [02:23:03] Speaker C: There was a pretty big push I saw for that X2D. X2. It's like X2D2. Yeah, yeah, the X2D2. It sounds like R2D2. There was a pretty big push for that. What was it, six months ago? Maybe. Yeah. Of it. But being in the hands of a lot of people that weren't the traditional user of that. [02:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:23:27] Speaker C: Style of camera. So they obviously had a bit of an outreach program for. For YouTube. [02:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:23:34] Speaker A: Because you don't move to that sort of camera as your first camera. No, you know. [02:23:38] Speaker B: No, no, they like dji. Like, a lot of these, A lot of these, like, Chinese brands are just sort of. And I, I'm not trying to be like, you know, xenophobic or anything like that, but like they. I know for a fact, because I've gotten The email from DJI, from Hasselblad, from Insta360 where they are just where they say, like, you have to say these things and we will give you the camera as like compensation for your review, which is insane. And I, and I. It's insane. And when I, like, see something like that, I'm just like, Marcus Spam, you know, Like, I'm. But it also saddens me because I've, I, I know a lot of these people and the world we live in sometimes now is like, damn. Like, yeah, somebody's thinking, oh, I just have to talk about the color science. And then I can get this 12,000, $13,000 kit and sell it and provide for my family. And it's like, that's tough. I, I would never do it personally, but I'm also in a position where I have like three jobs and I, you know, I don't have to rely. This is actually why I never went full time. YouTube is because I never wanted to, like, as for my channel, because I never want to feel the pressure of doing sponsorships because I don't like the idea of sponsorships in general. And I think, you know, for a lot of people, if you're probably like making $2,000 or $3,000 a month on sponsorships and then a camera company offers to give you a $13,000 camera, if you just talk about the color science, it's like, it's, you can see how you would. You could easily convince yourself that it's not that bad. But it's a, but it's a really, really slippery slope. So what's tough about this? And I told Hasselblad this, like, directly. I was like, you guys are ruining your, this is. You are ruining your brand because people will see through this bullshit and they're eventually going to see that everything that you're doing is paid for. And you know what was so depressing about that camera is that a camera is really good. It's really good. I like, got to use it for like a week. I borrowed a friend of mine and I'm like, this is a really good camera. You didn't have to market it to people in this way where you're like conning everybody. So I don't think the Sony one, I don't think they do that, honestly. It's normally like, you know, DJI, Insta 360 that do that kind of stuff. And the traditional, like the, the older camera manufacturers like Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, I know that they don't. I've worked with all of them and none of them have ever asked me to say a very specific thing. You know, I have gotten like, temporarily like slap on the wrist, blacklisted because I said a thing, like a negative thing. They didn't like, and they were like, well, we're not going to work with you on the next camera. And I'm like, okay, like for most people, for a lot of people, I can see why that would also be a deterrent. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of implicit deterrence that they don't have to make explicit, which is sort of the, the weird middle gray between like journalism and being a YouTuber. [02:27:05] Speaker C: I think, I think that's, that's the thing. It's like, it's not necessarily the brand saying you must, you know, say they obviously would. All brands will send you like here are talking points, here are key selling points. Like yeah, do with them. [02:27:19] Speaker B: Like a review guide. A review. Yeah, exactly. [02:27:21] Speaker A: I've written reviews, you get media releases and there, these are the top points, these are the features I want you to highlight. Yeah, that sort of stuff. [02:27:28] Speaker C: But, but there is that pressure of like I would like to continue to have a relationship with his brand. So I, I've seen a little bit of it from the inside of a much smaller part of the world. But a very well run mountain bike publication, website and YouTube channel that reviews mountain bikes and E bikes and all that sort of stuff. They're the premier one in Australia and they get quite a few views worldwide as well. And they have very purposely. So the guy that owns it and, and sort of directly underneath him that manage all of the brand deals and partnerships do not touch journalism and reviews. They can talk obviously, but like he doesn't even like being seen riding, you know, on a review bike. [02:28:18] Speaker B: Totally. [02:28:18] Speaker C: Because he's, he's like. And they've got, you know, their statements about how they keep everything separate and stuff like that. And then the, the reviewers, they do their job and they don't care about a deal that's being done over here for sponsorship or advertising because they're not, they don't, there's not part of it. They don't have to even think about that. Yeah, and I think that's a cool way to set it up. But not obviously a YouTuber can't really do that. [02:28:39] Speaker B: Exactly that, that's exactly how like a website like the Verge runs, you know, because they, you, if you go to their website, there will be a banner ad for Samsung. But they make a, they make a very clear that like there's a firewall between the reviewers and the money people and that's the luxury that you have when you work for like an organization. But because we've decentralized media production so much to where like everyone can do it. You no longer have that firewall. And so, yeah, it's just very easy for people to, like, slip into, like, it's not that bad to do. It's not that bad to do. And then it gets worse and worse and worse and worse, worse and worse. And suddenly you're. And I, God, I mean, I can. I can see why somebody. Sometimes these brands will offer you like, $30,000, you know. [02:29:32] Speaker C: God, I say what they want. [02:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Well, no, but, you know, I can see why somebody would. [02:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. [02:29:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:29:42] Speaker A: You know, that's a big payday. It really is. And like you said, you know, we've all got responsibilities. We've all got to put food on the table. We've all got, you know. [02:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:29:50] Speaker C: Also, especially, like, this is where. And I'm sure no one's getting $30,000 to do a video on. On the FX5, but I'm sure the FX5 is great. And that's the thing, too. It's easy to accept that money when you're like, well, it's pro. It's an awesome camera. I know it's going to be awesome. Sony's great. So I'll just tell everybody that it's awesome because. Yeah, it probably is. You know. [02:30:10] Speaker B: No, I mean with the, with the Hasselblad X2D2, like. Because I got the script that they wanted people to say, slightly negative script. Well, they said you specifically need to, like, talk about the, the Hasselblad natural color science. And here's the suggested verbiage and like, all this stuff. And then they get like a. They're like, we need to be able to see the video before it goes live, which is just like. No, I don't know. It's. It's not. It's all. It's all not good. But, like, to your point, it's a really, really great camera. So. And, like, if you're gonna talk about the color anyway, because that's what you do when you talk about a camera, and especially a hospital camera, I can see why someone. We would be like, well, I was gonna talk about that anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. [02:30:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:30:57] Speaker B: But, yeah, yeah, it sucks. I mean, I, it sucks that that's the way that the, the industry has gone, because all of us that, like, have that ethical line, it has really, like, ruined that for everybody else. Like. [02:31:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:31:14] Speaker B: As a smartphone reviewer for many, many, many years, you know, people will be like, you're paid by Samsung or you're paid by Apple, and It's like, I'm not. But I do know people who literally are. So, yeah, yeah, I don't. [02:31:28] Speaker A: You know, it is interesting. I, I've written a lot of reviews for photography software, for editing suites, and I've had a couple of not leading brands, but a couple of smaller brands. I've written a draft of a blog that goes on a fairly well visited site and the brand managers come back saying, oh, can you change these things? And I've always stood my ground on it because it just felt coercive. And here we'll get you a free license. You can give a license to a friend and here's the media release and the product sheet and. But when they actually see the review, they're coming back and saying, oh, it's not quite the flavor we were going for. It's like, well, it's like experienced it. [02:32:12] Speaker B: Do you know what a review is? It's not a review if the company gets to change it. [02:32:20] Speaker A: It's just become another marketing tool, hasn't it? Exactly. [02:32:23] Speaker B: It's just an ad. It's just an ad. [02:32:25] Speaker C: Unless it's specific product verbiage. Like, hey, this feature is actually called the this, note the that or something like that. That's. That's one thing. But anything beyond that, they should just be saying thank you. [02:32:36] Speaker B: Something I really, really, really respect about Leica is that every time I review one of the cameras, they have told me like point blank, like, I do not care whether or not you like the camera or not. I'm never going to get mad at you for like being negative, thinking that this is bad. I will keep working with you no matter what. Like, I really appreciate our relationship. The only thing I will push back on you on or get upset at you about is if you make like errors like you, you get incorrect. And like, if you're, if you're, if you're spouting that you're angry about something that isn't true, I'm gonna push back on you. I'm gonna email you and try to get you to change it because you're not doing your job, you know, but if, but if you're just like negative because you're just. I don't like the way that this feels in my hand. Like, I'm not gonna like be mad at you about that. And I, I really appreciate that about them. They've been like, really awesome on that end. [02:33:32] Speaker C: We, we had, yeah, we had Marcus Bell on the podcast, who's an amazing photographer and now a Leica photographer, and he said when he looked at switching to Leica, they. They. Obviously, he's a Leica photographer. Is it. I don't know what they. They call them. Like, a photographer is not ambassadors or whatever. But they said to him, you can shoot whatever you want as long as you. [02:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:33:55] Speaker C: As long as you also shoot Leica. We don't care if you use other cameras. That's not a problem. Like. Yeah, it's not like you're locked in and can only use their stuff. If you're a professional, you need to use a different tool on a shoot or whatever. [02:34:06] Speaker B: Yeah, go for it. [02:34:07] Speaker C: And it was like, it was that. And he said, I haven't shot another camera since. [02:34:11] Speaker B: But, yeah, I know ambassadors for other brands who stopped being ambassadors for that brand because they were told they were hit on the hand for having a Leica, like, you know. [02:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And we've had people on here will say, oh, I can't discuss that brand because I'm a Nikon ambassador, you know. [02:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:34:32] Speaker A: It's just an opinion. [02:34:34] Speaker B: Yeah. You can't just, like, live in a vacuum and pretend none of this stuff exists. [02:34:38] Speaker C: No. I know you probably got stuff to do, so I won't keep you too much longer. I've got two more questions. Greg might have some to. But we'll. We'll see. [02:34:46] Speaker A: You go for it. [02:34:47] Speaker C: Yeah. My. My first quick one was after all that discussion. Are there any. It's okay if there aren't, but are there any camera views that. Camera reviewers that you dig like, that. Are you sort of like your. You watch their reviews? Yeah. And who do you like? [02:35:02] Speaker B: I saw in your little intro that you had Nick Carver on and. Oh, yeah, he's not a reviewer necessarily, but he's just. [02:35:09] Speaker C: He did review the R6 Mark III recently. I've got. I've got that camera because he. He got it from Canon and he's like, just letting you know Canon gave me this camera so that I would make this review and I don't care. [02:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:35:23] Speaker C: He's so cool. [02:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, as a panoramic photographer, like, him and I are the only ones doing 6 by 17, like, consistently. And we have the same printer and we. I've met him once. He's, like, an amazing guy. He's so cool. And I love. I just. His videos, like, you can tell that he makes what whatever the he wants to make. [02:35:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:35:46] Speaker B: It's like the most in the weeds. Like, it's not trying to be a YouTube video. It's just like, I'm gonna talk about this really, really nerdy thing, like why I didn't think this filter mattered before, and now I like it. [02:36:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. I think we talked about. And he's supposed to be releasing a. I don't know if he's released it yet. A printing. [02:36:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he released it. [02:36:09] Speaker C: He did release it. [02:36:10] Speaker B: I missed it. [02:36:11] Speaker C: Damn it. [02:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I bought. Yes, he's very smart. [02:36:15] Speaker C: I think we. I think we talked about printing and stuff. Profile, paper types and on the podcast for over half an hour, like you did. Yeah. And that's why it's the weeds. But then he's also so creative and such a great photographer. [02:36:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Someone else I like. I like James Popsis, do you know? [02:36:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:36:32] Speaker B: He's great. He's great. I like his photos a lot. I like the way he approaches photography and that he talks about. I like that he talks about photography more than he talks about gear. Like, I think his videos are about the practice of photography. And I also think he's just a really great photographer and he lives in a cool place that not a lot of people live in, you know, Wales. I think it's really interesting and cool. And. Yeah, I. I had a little star Star moment when he followed me back on Instagram a few weeks ago. I was like, oh, [02:37:10] Speaker A: yeah, that's very. That's very humbling, isn't it? [02:37:13] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. [02:37:16] Speaker A: When you have a hero follow you, that's for sure. [02:37:18] Speaker B: Who else, man? I don't. It's like I don't watch a lot [02:37:22] Speaker C: as a. Yeah, I was gonna say. I can't. I can't imagine you consume a lot. [02:37:27] Speaker B: I don't. Yeah, I'm. I've always sort of been a big podcast person, and I definitely consume more podcasts than I do, like, video. Let's see. I'm just looking at who I'm following. There's got to be somebody that is a photographer. Oh, Jamie Windsor has always been amazing. Do you know him? He's great. He's also. He's also like. I think he took a hiatus recently because he had a health issue, but he's also very much. And he's a great animator, so he animates a lot of the ideas that he has around the concepts of. It's also about the photography, which is cool. One of my close friends, Becca Versace, I don't know if you know. [02:38:11] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. [02:38:13] Speaker B: She. She's amazing. She is also a tech journalist who's also a photographer. We're trying to start a show together. We'll see if it happens. We're trying. Ted Forbes. The art of photography has always been great. I love him, but I'm also close friends with him, so I'm very biased. If you like, if you like, like. Oh, yeah. If you like, like, film photography. Long form, my friend. Grainy Days is amazing. Like, it's so good. And I. I also feel very fortunate that I get to just, like, moonlight in his videos a lot of the time, just kind of, like, show up, wave my hands around, and then. [02:38:56] Speaker C: You don't have to do the editor. [02:38:57] Speaker B: I don't have to edit it. It's nice. It's like, yeah, it's nice because we go on all these road trips together, and I always. I'm like, damn, I'm gonna be like, 80 one day, and I'm gonna have all of these documentaries of all these, like, national park road trips I went on. It's gonna be awesome. And he's. Oh, my God, he's so good. He doesn't get. He doesn't think he's good, but he's so good. It's, like, annoying. He'll. He'll go through his photos, like, during the videos, like, after he's taken them, and it's so wild because the photos he likes, I'm like, that's, like the worst photo you took on the trip. And this random photo that you're like, I don't think it's, like, worth putting in my portfolio. I'm like, this is the best photo I've seen in, like, five years. It's crazy. Yeah, I would say those are the main people. I don't. I don't follow. I don't watch a lot of YouTube in general, but, yeah, that's sort of how it goes. [02:39:53] Speaker A: Well, I can't imagine you have much time, given all the things that you've listed that you do. [02:39:58] Speaker B: I have too many hobbies. That's the hobbies and jobs. That's the problem. I just do, too. [02:40:02] Speaker A: I. I like to say I have too many expensive hobbies. [02:40:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:40:06] Speaker C: You know, you've got so many cats, Greg. [02:40:09] Speaker A: That too. What's a hobby? That's a hobby. [02:40:12] Speaker B: That's a hobby. Yeah. [02:40:13] Speaker A: Have you got any other questions, Jay? I'm just conscious of time. [02:40:16] Speaker C: I do, but you can if you don't want to answer this, David, you could definitely say. You say pass. But let's say you could be the product manager at any camera company you want to design whatever camera you want. What company would it be and what camera would you design? [02:40:37] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's. That's hard. I know that's really hard because on one hand I want a TX3, like a digital TX3 or. Or a film one. And so I would yell at Fujifilm, but they're already apparently making it. So based on what I've heard. So yeah, I don't have to worry about that. I guess I would. Yeah, I would. Really. I mean, I think the Mamiya 7 series of cameras is like. Those lenses are like the best lenses. Like they're the sharpest lenses I've ever used in my life. So I think Mamiya is now owned by Sony. Maybe like the patents or something are owned by Sony. They got dissolved into Konica and then Konica got purchase. You know, it's all this corporate like stuff. Yeah, I just want another six by seven, like rangefinder camera. And I don't know if this film count. Can I make a. Can I make a company make a film camera? [02:41:40] Speaker C: You can do a film one. [02:41:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:41:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:41:42] Speaker B: Okay. I would say I want a Mamiya 7 3. I think that would be great. And it could be digital, but I prefer it with film. That's probably it for video. Like so much good stuff exists. [02:41:55] Speaker C: Yeah, [02:41:58] Speaker B: maybe stupidly enough, because I care about photography so much more than video. Because most of the when I'm making videos, I mostly do like video essays. And so when I'm doing an essay, I just create the environment. But then I lock off the shot most of the time. So I'm like, I don't really. The stuff doesn't matter. And I use my GFX for the video and then I don't even color grade it. So it's just like Provia and that's it. [02:42:25] Speaker C: It's also just straight up not. So you don't shoot it in log or anything. You just. [02:42:29] Speaker B: No, man, I love that too much. It's too much work if you get the lighting right. Like that's what I. I go a little hardcore on making sure the lighting and the white balance and everything is like, is correct. And then I dress the set and that's like a big part of it. But yeah, I don't. I mean, I've always been interested in these crazy video cameras like the FX3 and stuff. But at the same time I'm just like not really a running gun videographer. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably a Mimi A7 3. [02:42:59] Speaker A: Nice. That's a good question. What would you choose, Jake? [02:43:03] Speaker C: Oh, now it's too big. This could take 20 minutes of me trying to figure out. This is this is a question I throw to other people. I don't want. I would. I would. Hey, The G. The GFX 100 RF with A. With a better lens. And you. You were spot on with that. So it's exactly. Yeah, we. We had. We had two people on the podcast that run the Bright Festival of Photography arguing about that exact. Those two exact features. Like. [02:43:29] Speaker A: Yeah, [02:43:31] Speaker C: yeah, yep. A faster lens in Ibis. And the other guy's saying it's, you know, it's totally fine the way it is. And. [02:43:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty much. That's the argument. I. I could get away with F4 because I do mostly like, environmental photography and landscapes. If it had Ibis or. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, if it had Ibis, but I can't get away with. I mean, yeah, if it was 2.8, then maybe I wouldn't need IBIs. It's like, you can have either or, but you need one of them, and it doesn't have either. [02:44:05] Speaker C: Yeah. And I know it's a fair bit cheaper now, especially because it seems to be unspecial at the moment, but compared to the Q in Australia, anyway, compared to the Q3, the Q3 is a lot more compelling for a little bit more money in terms of. It's got optical image stabilization, and it's got an F. A 1.7 lens, if you want it. [02:44:24] Speaker B: And it just sort of. The lens is really good. Really good lens. And it's got the triple resolution. And it's a Leica as well. You know, if you want to be. If you want to be like that. [02:44:35] Speaker C: Unfortunately, it's not going to make it to Africa. I'm so sad. [02:44:39] Speaker B: No. [02:44:39] Speaker C: Because I've got to do actual work and I'm. I'm having to, you know, be picky on what I pack. And it's sitting there looking at me being like, why wouldn't you take your favorite camera anyway? [02:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, when I go on these trips, I take, like, seven or eight cameras. [02:44:55] Speaker C: I can't. [02:44:55] Speaker A: So you. [02:44:55] Speaker C: I can't believe you travel with that much the heavy, like, film. [02:44:59] Speaker B: This is why I'm having back problems. [02:45:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:45:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:45:02] Speaker B: I literally have done this since I was, like, 19, and I'm just finally getting scoliosis from it. [02:45:08] Speaker C: Oh, no. Well, [02:45:12] Speaker A: that. [02:45:12] Speaker C: Don't. Don't listen to fitness YouTubers. [02:45:15] Speaker A: No. [02:45:16] Speaker B: That's what I've learned. I literally muted, like, all of them because they all say this exact same thing, and then they're just trying to sell you their, you know, courses. [02:45:25] Speaker C: Exactly. But. But also. And I'm sure you already know this because you understand AI don't trust what it says about fitness. It can give you. It can give you a good. A good idea and outline, but it gets so much shit wrong. [02:45:39] Speaker B: So, yeah, totally. I have. I've had it. Tell me one thing. And then I say, well, what about this? And it'd be like, you're absolutely right. You should do this. And I'm just like, I don't trust anything you're telling me. Then, like, it's. [02:45:53] Speaker C: No, yeah, no, it's handy to summarize some stuff and. And get, like a head start on what you're trying to figure out, but you got to be so discerning with its answers because it's just wrong. Especially with fitness, because it doesn't understand. [02:46:04] Speaker A: We can't afford to lose critical thinking in our evolution. We cannot afford to lose it. [02:46:09] Speaker B: Yeah. 100. You know, yeah. [02:46:13] Speaker C: Should we call it, Greg? [02:46:14] Speaker A: I think we should call it. Yeah. Look, I think we've. I think we've extracted more than David had planned to share. But, David, just. On behalf of Justin and I and our community as well, thank you so much for your time today. It's been insightful and invaluable. You know, I've learned a lot about the industry that we are in, photography, creativity, and podcasting that I wasn't aware of, and it's certainly given me pause to think deeper about what we do and why we do what we do as visual creators. So, yeah, on behalf of all of us, thank you so much for your time. [02:46:47] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. Sorry my cameras kept dying. [02:46:50] Speaker C: That's okay. It makes us feel better. [02:46:52] Speaker B: This is an upgrade. I want is. I want pass through charging, because you can't use it. You can't use Fujifilm cameras as a webcam while they're charging, which is a very dumb thing. [02:47:03] Speaker A: It's weird. [02:47:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:47:05] Speaker C: I don't know if you can do that with Canon, but I use the HDMI out anyway through a cam link so that I can just have it charging all the time. That makes better. [02:47:13] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, there's HDMI in this. I should be able to use that, but. [02:47:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:47:19] Speaker C: What was I gonna say? Before we go, can you please tell everybody the various places that they can find you and where your book will be available when it comes? [02:47:29] Speaker B: I don't know where it's going to be available yet because I still have half of it that I'm working on. [02:47:34] Speaker C: Okay. [02:47:35] Speaker B: I'm working with some, like, South Korean publishers on it right now, but it's a slow process, honestly. Like, I'm so bad about posting, updating my website and stuff. You should, like, go to my website. But my newest stuff is usually on Instagram and that's only if I even upload it, because I only upload there like twice a year, so it's slow, I think threat I put myself on threads a lot because it feels less. Feels less permanent, I guess. It's like I can just kind of throw it out there into the ether. So across every social platform, including YouTube and my website and everything, I'm just David Amell, which is cool. Luckily, I don't know anyone else with my last name, so it's handy. So David Amell on Instagram, David AML on YouTube, David Mellon threads. I don't know, whatever exists. I'm probably David Miller on it. Yeah, I would, I. I would hope. Oh, and if you do look at my photos on Instagram, the other stupid thing that I do is like, every single post is a gallery of like 10 plus 10 photos. Because instead of like posting them separately for some reason, I always just max it out. And so sometimes I see people looking at my photos, but they only like. They just like scroll down. And that's not how you need to do it. You need to click on one and then you need to scroll sideways. Yeah. So that would be. That'd be that. And then every week we have the Waveform podcast, if you're into weekly technology. It's fun. I sometimes say we're a comedy show that talks about technology because we just have a very good. We are all friends and we have a very good energy between us and we do trivia every week, if you like trivia. And I'm also writing on the verge.com right now, so stuff that you want to see about the new stuff that's coming out and happening in the technology world. I write on there. I've been doing a lot of camera stuff on there recently. I wrote about Peak designs, new lake grip thing and stuff that they're doing. So. Yeah, and then, and then also I am on GX ACEs videos a lot. I'm on Grainy Day's videos a lot. [02:49:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, everywhere. [02:50:01] Speaker B: All my friends are really talented. So that's you. You can find me in the background. [02:50:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, sometimes the greatest people have, you know, ridden the backs of giants science to get to where they are. So there's nothing wrong with that behavior. David, really, it's. It's fine. You can hang out in the background. We'll let, we'll let that slide. But yeah, look, thank you so much once again. We look forward to seeing what you've got ahead and we'll, we'll certainly keep an eye on that. And if you ever want to come back and have another chat, then we'll always have a seat and space for you. [02:50:30] Speaker B: Sounds good. [02:50:31] Speaker A: Most definitely. [02:50:32] Speaker C: We'll be waiting for that book. [02:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's coming slowly, slowly. I'm giving it another three years, so. [02:50:39] Speaker A: Okay. We'll be waiting a while for that book. Yeah. [02:50:41] Speaker B: You'll be waiting a while for. [02:50:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice. All right, let's, let's roll the music and say goodbye to some folks. Justin. [02:50:47] Speaker C: Well, Dennis, despite all the FX5 reviews that he didn't like, he does have a kidney on ebay to fund his purchase of some FX5. So that's exciting. Good luck with that. I might buy it. John Pickett says he wants to go back to the Hasselblad reviews and see how many of them talk about color science. Now that's a good. Let us know what you come. [02:51:04] Speaker B: 100%. [02:51:07] Speaker C: Jason also loves James Popsis and says self deprecating humor and a style of his own. What else we got? Thanks. Philip Johnson says thanks to everyone and says safe trip to me. Don't get eaten. I'll do my best not to get eaten. Lisa Leach. Thanks. John Pickett. Good to see you. Stuart Lyle. Who else? Felicity Johnson says thanks, David. Your panoramas are amazing. Have fun in Africa, Justin, and see you, Greg. Rodney Nicholson. Thanks. Lisa Leach. Good, good to see everybody. Everybody's here. Even Doozle Dumbler 5393 was here. Thank you very much, guys. Thanks, David. And we'll, we'll catch you guys in the next one. [02:51:45] Speaker A: All right, Be safe, everyone. [02:51:46] Speaker B: Appreciate.