Youtube Reviewers come UNDONE! 

Spot on Greg and you are the "Real Deal", sadly most of the reviewers or even professed experts are no more than edit junkies if they shoot at all. Replacing whole skies, adding removing objects etc. I learned more from you and your style than any of those folks. My instructor said it best last class, try to get it right in the first place and minimize the Post time. If you are spending that much time fixing then you are not making any money. I built my vintage collection one at a time by seeing photos taken on that gear by by people who have owned it both pro and consumer. They weren't using a "LightRoom Preset" ... lol

Nice share bud. You’re part of why I like RU-vid. Real stuff, genuine. I’m pretty content here at stage 1 lol. Great topic and share thx

You nailed it mate! My channel is new and I took the same attitude as you into it, therefore I enjoy it without the stress. Same thing for my motorbike channel. I see so many content creators in the motorbike community who seem to think that they’re special and stress about subs, views etc. Enjoy your content mate, thanks. ✌️

It's the influencer-like business model, and you're right - primary beneficiary are the companies. Having said that, there are a few reviewers out there who I trust (most of the way) and who provide added value to their reviews by way of bringing in new insights through their experience. But you got the find them and learn how to take what they are saying. (I believe Gerald mainly criticised the way companies woo and catch and reel in reviewers by special junkets and experiences to promote a company-friendly team spirit and enforce a sort of peer pressure - see the latest S9 event in Kyoto. And he's right in his comments there.) Buyer- beware.

I think one of the main issues with Mr. Undone's video is that in a way he has his cake and is eating it too; for years he reaped the benefits of companies sending him gear and then soon as he doesn't get his invite to the latest Panasonic thing he now takes the moral highground and denounces accepting benefits from companies. This sort of thing is always going to be a balancing act - consumers need to think critically about what is being presented to them from reviewers and not depend on one single source as truth, while reviewers need to at least maintain some version of objectivity, and any that don't should just be ignored by consumers.. then their channel takes a hit and they fix it or stop reviewing. Consider that the alternative to getting free gear to review is that reviewers get less gear to review which leaves consumers less informed and then may end up making a purchase they deeply regret, due to the lack of information out there. Sure, I don't want reviewers getting *everything* including their happy end massage being paid for by camera companies, but I'm also not going to be upset about having more avenues to collect info about items I may be dropping significant $$$. As long as it's clearly disclosed that X is sponsored by Y then we're all good (sometimes it isn't though, and that's bad).

G'day Greg, Well said mate, I generally watch reviews and then form my own opinion and generally feel I cannot trust channels that do a lot of reviews. I watched one this morning on the GFX100s ii The review started with a disclaimer stating they were not given anything for free, and they were forming their own opinon etc. The issue there is the channel then stated they are using a pre-production model of the camera. Honest reviews don't continually get given product to showcase and as you said, a lot of channels need those products to promote their channel and hopefully to earn a living. I own the x100v, the x-t3, and the x-t5, too many lenses! I love them, however, I'm now looking at adding the A7RV to the stable due to the lack of fast AF on Fuji gear. It's a hobby for me, but, I do not want to continually pray that I capture sharp photos of fast kids in low light at my families events! Fuji floods the market exactly how you say they do in this video, and thankfully a few reviewers are starting to shit can Fuji's lack of quality and suppport (yes im from Victoria too and wanted to say what I really thought :).....) . They charge a premium price for a product that is sub-premium. If you take the dials out and the film sims out, what have you got?? What would I brag about... lol mmmm I got nothing! Oh it's light weight like most miorrorless systems now. I'll never part with the Fuji gear, but it really needs work correctly to justify the cost!! Anyway, as you were mate, take care.

Finally, an honest review… 🤦🏼👍🏻📸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Yeah, when all the reviews drop at the same time when the NDAs expire it's a bit sus.

I had seen the Undone video come up on my youtube but didn't actually watch it until I also saw this one of Greg's. It seems to have caused quite a stir. I like to think that most potential customers know that any given reviewer, youtube or otherwise, might be biased for any number of reasons including getting kickbacks fro the company whose product or service they are reviewing. It's always in the back of my mind when I access photography reviews be they about hardware or photo editing or the practice of photography. About six months ago I accessed two reviewers who I believe produce useful content about a photo editing app I like. However they are "affiliates" and "ambassadors" of the software vendor and go on egi international photography trips s[sponsored by them. I see this as a pretty obvious conflict of interest and indicated so (perhaps I should have been more direct). But they clearly don't think about it that way. I find that disappointing and bewildering at best.

We wouldn't have it any other way Greg. Does Gerald Undone actually do any photography? I don't think I've ever seen it.

I dunno about reviewers losing, if it were genuine losses it wouldn't be a thing. It's a scale thing, for 1-5k subs like you and I, yeh we're the mugs, but once you have 100-400k subs its definitely a valid source of income. So if you are good at the reviewing thing, people like your personality, you have good video and post production skills, and there is a steady increase in your subscriber listing (and you're willing to put in the work on 2-3 videos a week to satisfy the algorithm)... then yeh... there's an actual job here. I just think there is possible easier ways to make a living 😅 EDIT: Sorry, posted this before the video was finished and can see you're exactly of the mindset to the point I was making. To summarize.. there is an actual job here to reviewing gear, its called journalism and the industry has just changed to how it works. Now the journalists are sole traders and make their own money via clicks. The problem I have with GU is that he for sure was behaving himself more at the start of his career (constraining his opinions), and its fine for him now to sing a different tune at 400k subs but the arrogance to then demand things change and want those lower tier YTers to be more brutally honest and potentially close revenue doors from such opinions is really off. We already had a law in place that people had to disclose that the item was sent to them, or they are being paid to review it... I mean I felt it was always fairly transparent anyway, and you can tell the quality of the review when they disclose they actually bought the item. Check out Dustin Abbot's latest XF56/1.2RWR review for example, he gets sent a lot of shit but also buys what he wants and shares his 2 cents. All of these channels are like advertisements to be, I don't understand how anyone really saw them as anything different. Connecting the dots was never rocket science!

I have a RU-vid channel and I’ve made… nil videos so far 🤣

I have been saying this for years Greg on my channel.Reviews are a joke.