a fistful of cameras

One type of video I particularly enjoy making for my YouTube channel is a shootout or comparison of two or more of my cameras.

Picture the scene.  A dilapidated mid-west town in the 1800s.  A dust ball blows across the ground, and a hauntingly whistled tune carries on the wind.  The camera pans out and across to reveal two characters, one clad all in black, the other a down-and-out hobo.

A close up into the eyes of both shooters, a bead of sweat rolling down their foreheads before one twitches and goes for his....  But it's too late, the hobo stands victorious with his prize - an image of said tumbleweed on an empty track, beautifully composed on a third with the negative space emphasising its lonely place in the world.

The man in black, bowed, falls to his knees on the ground and cries out "why did I bring a Pentax to a photography competition" before slumping to his inevitable demise as vultures circle the air above him.

Our victor throws back his tattered woollen cape, revealing an arsenal of prime and zoom lenses, then walks over to his enemy, stands over him and places a Nikon lens cap over each still open eye.

Well, my videos are nothing like that.  I haven't got a cape...

In them I'll usually devise a test shoot where I take one or sometimes a series of images and then closely compare the cameras looking at things like ergonomics, ease of use and, most important of all, image quality.

I've filmed a fair few of these down the years and they're usually quite successful on the viewing front.  More people seem interested in camera gear over actually taking pictures which is a little sad but whatever.

Anyway, after filming my latest shootout - a high resolution macro test of my Fujifilm X-H2 and Nikon D800E I realised that I have now absolutely milked these cameras to death in terms of the video ideas they can provide.  So, no more shootouts.  No more taking over the lounge while I set up some convoluted test scenario.  And no more absolutely pointless outcomes.

It means that I'm now going to come up with different ideas.  Maybe finding out which camera makes for the best assault weapon maybe.  Which one floats for longest.  Actually, not that one, no.

In order to keep my YouTube channel going, and to bring you content of the highest quality (ha!), I'm taking a short break from releasing videos for a couple of weeks to re-energise!

While I'm resti... I mean coming up with new and exciting ideas, I need to decide whether to synchronise my posts here more closely with my videos.  I've been posting here on a Monday - Thursday - Monday schedule for as long as I can remember.  But my videos come out on a Saturday - Tuesday - Saturday schedule.

Something needs to change.  Until I decide just what, there's a link above to my latest camera shootout video.

Anyway, the videos will be back towards the end of April with my latest nature trail update.  See you all then!

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To see just how our hero from above decided to compose his winning shot, get your copy of "Mastering Composition for Macro Photography" for free over to the left with all the other free resources.  Make sure it's never you left dying in the dust...

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And if you're interested (well, there may be one of you) in what I think of Adobe's latest price increases and whether I should move away from their photo-editing platform, then watch this frankly rather tedious video...

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Lastly, I tried to fix the issue of not being able to respond to comments you may leave here on posts.  I hate not being able to do so as it makes me come across as rather rude an, well frankly, I'm not.  Well most of the time!

I even tried leaving a comment below one of my posts, but I just get a message asking me to sign in to my Google account.  Erm, I AM signed in - that's how I published the bloody post in the first place!  I've tried on my phone and iPad with no success.

I really am sorry :-(