Camera Reviewers: Worse Than Musicians?

Back in the Summer of 2016, I bought my first interchangeable-lens digital camera, for the purpose of not just taking still photographs but also for shooting many hours of video for a feature-length art-film that I would never get around to editing, because after three years of such, I'd have "moved on." The Panasonic Lumix GX85 was ridiculously compact, had then-innovative in-body stabilization ("IBIS"), an equally-innovative practically-shockless electromagnetic mechanical shutter, and the capability to shoot 4k video. This was half a year before the announcement of the GH5, which also had IBIS, plus pro-level video and audio capability, and advanced features which I could have used or were way over my head. This was also a couple months before the release of the G85, not a "pro" model, as was the GH5, but with a microphone input jack and Cinelike-D, a flatter, more gradable, picture profile than on the GX85 (although the GX85 would turn out to have this feature hidden-away in its firmware, and accessible by a "hack" published on the Internet in 2017).

I ought to have bought the G85, but I hadn't known of its imminent release, and I was stuck with the GX85 due to financial constraints. The G85 did have a mic input jack, but it also had an "articulating" ("flippy") screen, which I didn't like. The vertically-tilting screen as on the GX85 was not prone to being broken-off by impact, as is the "flippy" screen (as I'd learned from having worked in a camera-repair department), and it made sense to me to be looking in the direction of the subject, rather than off to the left of its axial orientation. The tilting screen was also far more discrete in shooting candidly, not drawing attention, and permitting a more natural affect, as though one were merely fiddling with the camera. I got away with a lot for which I could have gotten my ass kicked, because I had such a tiny camera with a tilting screen.

YouTube is rife with camera-review videos, a lot of them superfluous and formulaic copycat clickbait, with titles such as "Is the (camera model) still relevant in (current or recent year)?" or some other rumination on an already-superseded model. One such video on the GX85 decried the "missed opportunity" for that model to have been "the perfect vlogging camera" because it lacked a mic input and a "flippy" screen. Never mind that its predecessor (the GX8) and successor (G85) had both. The GX85 hadn't been intended to be a vlogging camera. Do lesbians complain that men don't have vaginas? No. They want a person with a vagina, they get a woman.

And what's so great about "vlogging," anyway? Why be proud to be an annoying pedant or glorified selfie-shooter? I don't even know any vloggers – just photographers and videographers (not vloggers who call themselves such). Vloggers have skewed the standards of R&D for camera manufacturers, by whining in their videos that "this camera doesn't have a flippy screen – WAAA-WAAA-WAAAAA!" and, "It's (current year) – every camera should have a flippy screen by now (POUT-SULK-POUT)!" Camera manufacturers only listen to them because they provide valuable advertising for which camera manufacturers usually don't pay. If camera manufacturers would listen to me, they'd be making cameras with modular screen assemblies, whereby one could attach a tilting screen, a dumbass flippy screen, or a flat display, or a no-screen dummy panel – but thus far, none has solicited my opinion.

When I need help falling asleep, I watch photo-gear reviews on YouTube. Pedantic droning and rambling about dry subjects, delivered without sympathy for the listener – it just works. When I see a youngish reviewer wearing a backward cap (facial hair optional), I know that I'll be off to Slumberland within a couple minutes, if the guy's not too jargon-heavy and doesn't grate on my nerves with too many instances of "actually" or "having said that being said with that said," or doesn't spike my ears with pronouncing the words "a" and "the" with long vowels when preceding words beginning with consonants. Maybe such semantic farting is better for "the algorithm," maybe it's that they'd made it through college after not having paid attention in grade school, or maybe that's how they think they have to talk in order be perceived as a legit photo-gear reviewer on YouTube.

Another example of the insidious and inexplicable influence of YouTube photo-gear reviewers is their driving the prices of "used" gear up by talking the stuff up in their videos. As soon as they report that they'd gotten this or that for a certain going rate, the going rate shoots up by 20-50%. Even when they mention no price, just extolling an older models's deprecated virtues will render it more precious overnight. For example, these guys' fetishizing the "film-like qualities" of images from the original version of Fujifilm's X-Trans sensor caused Fuji's X-Pro1 to go from selling for just $300 on eBay to over $400, and even up to $600, and the X-E1 went from $200 to $300. When some guy wearing a backward cap needs a clickbait video to monetize during a dry spell of "content" for his channel, the market for used photo gear moves along with a wave of his hand.

Yet more damage being done by YouTube photo-gear reviewers, if not by the lemmings who follow their dicta, is by dint of the "affiliate" links to Amazon pages where the items in question are being sold. Amazon is a major threat to independent photo-gear dealers, and these dudes are skimming funds from Amazon purchases made by their viewers. (The revenues from YouTube ads, Patreon, PayPal, and so forth, just don't put meat on the table, perhaps.) These guys (most photo-reviewers being guys; the gals are at least refreshing to behold, though one in particular was on the verge of becoming my next stalking victim, being witty, articulate and attractive, before she stopped reviewing cameras – probably due to some camera geek's stalking her) deem "supporting my channel" paramount, above supporting independent businesses. That's how self-absorbed this YouTuber hustle renders a person. Providing links to independent photo dealers would demonstrate and engender a sense of community, but the only "community" among photo-gear reviewers is their subscriber bases, which they badger viewers into becoming at the beginning of each video. It's all about them; you're just monetized consumerist eyeballs. Camera reviewers are worse than musicians in this regard. 

Although I myself switched from Panasonic to Fujifilm for my photographic self-indulgence (taking photos of stuff as I go on long walks around town, and making videos every now and then), I would still recommend the GX85 for the same reasons as for which I had acquired it over five years ago. The only shortcoming to it is in the reason why I'd switched from Panasonic to Fuji: the latter's superior colors and dynamic range. The GX85 is perfect for what it's made for, however, and I have to mention that its L.monochrome picture profile produces stunning black-and-white images that at least rival Fuji's. May this not drive the GX85's "used" price up – it's currently going for half the amount that I'd paid for it when it came out, and it's lookin' mighty sexy to me all over again.