Thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video.
The Sony a7 III came out in April of 2018, and while I didn’t know it at the time, it would turn out to be
the most important gadget I would ever buy.
I started my YouTube channel in August of 2016 as a hobby alongside a sports photography
business.
The cameras we were using for work, like the Canon 5D Mark III and 7D Mark II, also had
decent video capabilities and thus would serve well as YouTube cameras on the side.
Now while I did make some videos about cameras and photography, the bulk of my content in
those first 18 months was what I’d categorize as absurdist variety programming.
Meaning it didn’t do particularly well.
But the camera videos did.
So, in February of 2018 I decided to pivot to the photo/video niche and focus hard on
making that work.
At some point before this I had switched to the Panasonic GH5 for making my YouTube videos
as it started to become tedious switching the Canon cameras from sports photography
mode to YouTube mode every day.
Coincidentally, it was also in February 2018 that the a7 III was announced.
This might have been the first camera that I ever felt any hype or excitement about.
I’d sampled some Sony lenses the year prior, and borrowed the a7R III for a week in early
2018, but the features this new camera was offering at that price point seemed like it
was finally going to be the moment I switched completely from DSLR to mirrorless.
So I put a pre-order in.
Meanwhile, my transition to camera content on YouTube was… fine.
I was mostly making videos about the GH5.
Trying to solve the autofocus--testing each firmware iteration to see if the contrast-based
pulsing had been reduced.
I covered some lenses for the system, some flashes, and made some really basic postproduction
tutorials.
These videos were certainly doing better than my surrealist comedy masterpieces of yore,
but my future on YouTube was still quite uncertain.
Then in early May I got the call informing me that I had finally risen to the top of
the exceedingly long preorder queue for the a7 III and that I could come pick up the camera.
I filmed that transaction and the unboxing and then posted a first impressions video
expressing my excitement about the unprecedented value proposition this camera presented.
Now this is the part in the story where I tell you how that video catapulted me to YouTube
fame.
How I immediately got a call from Sony offering me 9-figures to be on the next box of Alpha
Wheats Cereal.
And how the subscribers and views rolled in too rapidly to track.
Well, no.
That video bombed.
Even now, nearly six years later, it’s still one of my worst performing videos of 2018.
But that lesson heavily advised the content direction that followed.
I learned then that making a video about the latest gadget without having anything meaningful
to add to the conversation is not the key to YouTube success.
More on that later.
After that video, I went back to making content about my journey to better understanding cameras.
I would find something that wasn’t working as intended or a concept that I didn’t fully
grasp, research it, test it, and then post my findings on YouTube.
And in 2018 that involved a lot of talk of lenses, optics, depth of field, crop sensors,
and many, MANY more videos on autofocus.
And it was looking over the analytics of these videos that helped me understand that people
were finding value in the testing I was doing.
I’ve always had a relentless interest in tinkering with my devices to try and figure
out each of their specific quirks.
Now while my audience was growing throughout this time, it was still quite small comparatively
and I attributed that to the fact that I was likely only attracting the nerdiest of nerds
who were willing to suffer through my 20-minute tirades of speed talking and bargain-basement
animations.
That is until I re-trained my sights on the a7 III.
I’d been using that camera during this time, but not talking about it much.
I was still shooting the majority of my videos with the GH5 and had my best performing video
up to that point discussing micro four thirds.
So, I guess I just assumed my audience wasn’t interested in Sony cameras.
But after using the a7 III for about 6 months, there were plenty of things that were bugging
me and a bunch of quirks I discovered that I felt had insufficient coverage.
So I made a few videos.
I posted stuff about face detection issues over HDMI and some workarounds I implemented,
weird things in the menu that turned off when you shot in 4K, and what it was like live
streaming with the a7 III.
And wouldn’t you know it, people found those videos much more helpful than some bozo showing
them terrible top-down footage of me unboxing my new camera.
But there was something that was still eating at me…
“Why are there so many damn picture profiles on this camera and which one is best?”
I must have watched nearly 100 videos and perused countless webpages in search of this
answer and I got nowhere.
I learned that everyone had their own special combination of magical settings that they
preferred: “If it’s daytime I use Cine1 but I set the knee to 6/32nds and shoot only
in black and white, and at night time I like PP Off or Movie gamma, but don’t forget
to adjust the retro encabulator.”
But there was no reason behind the madness!
It was all subjective.
And my brain does not do well with subjective answers to technological mysteries.
So I tried to solve it myself.
I published a video about Sony picture profiles using an improvised chart I made that went
from pitch black to increasing intensities of white.
I didn’t know at the time that I was merely making a terrible, wish.com version of the
Xyla 21 dynamic range test chart.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing.
But I used this to develop a better visual understanding of what each profile was doing
to the curve and how noise was affected.
And in that video I shared my hopefully-slightly-less-subjective opinion on what I believed to be the best
picture profile for the a7 III based on my semi-scientific, mildly-fallacious testing.
And yes, if you were still waiting for the pivotal a7 III moment of my YouTube journey,
that was probably it.
I followed it up with supplementary videos about chroma subsampling and matching picture
profiles, each of which performed 8-10 times better than my average video at that time.
And that’s when I started seeing my name pop up all over the place in the camera world.
“Gerald Undone says you should use your Sony camera like this,” “Gerald doesn’t
like it when you do that,” etc.
And it’s also what put me on Sony’s radar.
When I went to NAB in 2019, I discovered that the people at the Sony booth had heard about
me and were planning to reach out to discuss some things.
It was quite exciting!
Those conversations eventually led to me being sent cameras early for review, which would
allow me to make videos about the latest gadget on launch day…
And this is the main reason why the a7 III is the most important device I ever purchased.
Had I not gotten the humility stomped into me when I tried to make a “banger” a7
III video back in the spring of 2018 with nothing meaningful to say, I might have incorrectly
used this new opportunity of having Sony send me cameras to the same pointless effect.
In fact, it might surprise you to know that I made very little Sony-related content between
those picture profile videos of early 2019 and the launch of the a7S III in mid-2020.
I spent most of the time in between tinkering with my new Blackmagic Pocket 4K, and being
a little too obsessed with the cinema cameras from Canon.
And most of my mirrorless camera videos were for products from Panasonic and Fuji.
Of course these days I’m known more as a Sony guy and that probably has a lot to do
with the launch of the a7S III.
It was because of that camera that I finally switched to Sony for YouTube production, and
my review of the Sony a7S III is my most viewed video of all time.
So why isn’t this video about that camera?
Why isn’t the a7S III my most important camera?
Because it was merely the evolution of a formula I started developing two years prior brought
about by the a7 III.
My a7S III review was merely my best effort to take all of the elements from those separate
dedicated videos that people appreciated about the a7 III and incorporate them into one review.
I talked about SD card interactions, did autofocus tests, checked for HDMI quirks, looked for
4K limitations, and of course, I “busted” out the Xyla 21, which I had acquired for
the making of that video to provide more accurate analysis of dynamic range and to give a less-fallacious
opinion on which picture profile was best.
In fact, the success of those previous Sony a7 III uploads gave me the courage to make
a 50-minute video discussing just picture profiles and exposure on the a7S III.
And those videos had massive impacts on my channel’s growth and trajectory.
These days it’s rare to find a camera review of mine that doesn’t include large sections
dedicated to dynamic range or other nerdy numbers.
And while it’s getting harder and harder in recent months to get excited about fractional
increases in those same test results, and while my interest in reviewing cameras has
certainly decreased, it is, however, easy to reflect on my life at the close of 2023
and be grateful for where this camera tinkering odyssey has taken me.
When the a7 III came out I had just under 2000 subscribers on YouTube and cleared only
$98 in revenue that month.
Since then, YouTube has brought financial security for my family, a lovely home to live
in, and an outlet for my madness that I’m told has been helpful to a great number of
people on their own camera-related journeys.
I can’t easily express in words how unbelievably fortunate I feel to have had this opportunity.
And while it can’t all be singly attributed to the Sony a7 III, I do indeed look at that
camera as the chief instigator and teacher of hard lessons that led me to where I am
now, which makes it the most important piece of equipment I’ve ever bought…
6/10 And while I’m being nostalgic about camera
YouTube, the most important sponsor this channel has had would easily be Storyblocks.
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