Fujifilm camera vlog | FUJI X WEEKLY

On being a YouTuber — Plus YOUR videos!

Posted on February 17, 2024 by Ritchie Roesch

I’m not a YouTuber.

Yes, I have a YouTube channel, but it’s a pretty minor footnote compared to everything else that is Fuji X Weekly. I’m a blogger. I’m an app developer (Sahand Nayebaziz deserves much of that credit, though). You could even make an argument that I’m a social media influencer, although that is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. I do, however, have a YouTube channel, and I do occasionally post videos—a whopping total of three last year. Technically speaking, I’m a YouTuber, but practically speaking, I’m a photography blogger who happens to have a small YouTube channel.

My definition of a YouTuber is someone who is successful at it. They post regularly, have some popularity, and earn a nice side-hustle income or even a full-time income from it. I fail at all three of those points. That doesn’t mean that it won’t ever happen, because it could. If I make a plan and work very hard at it, plus don’t give up, there’s a pretty good chance that I could find success. In time I could be a YouTuber, but right now I’m very far from it.

Making YouTube content is hard. It doesn’t have to be: strap on a GoPro and post the clips. That’s not my style, though. Many hours of recording and editing go into each minute of every video on the Fuji X Weekly YouTube channel. A two minute video might have taken eight hours or more to complete, start to finish. My wife, Amanda, does the vast majority of it. She’s busy raising our four children, and YouTube content is not at the top of her priority list. She very much enjoys doing it, though, and I’m always impressed at her skill and vision. I have a face for radio and a voice for print, yet she somehow manages to make it seem otherwise. It’s easy to understand why putting together quality videos is a near impossible task—hence, just three published in 2023—but Amanda does an amazing job, especially considering all of the challenges. She deserves a lot of credit.

*Fujifilm X-T5 + Kodak Vision3 250D v2 Recipe*

I’m surprised by the success that the Fuji X Weekly YouTube channel has had: over 14,000 subscribers, and three videos that have topped 15,000 views. 14K subscribers puts the channel deep into the Top 10%! Supposedly, only about 9% of all YouTube channels have over 1,000 subscribers, and only about 2% top 10,000 subscribers. I’m only in the Top 2% because of the popularity of this website, and not because I’m prolific on YouTube. The percentage that tops 100K subscribers is about 0.3%, so Omar Gonzales, Serr, Pal2Tech, and many others like them, are in an elite category that not very many reach, and even less surpass. Only 0.03% YouTube channels have a million or more subscribers.

What’s interesting is that the top 0.8% most-watched YouTube videos (which are ones that have at least 100K views) account for about 83% of all views on the entire platform. The inverse of this is that 99.2% of all YouTube videos (ones under 100K views) only account for about 27% of all views. Most of the videos on YouTube don’t get many views—in fact, about 88.5% have less than 1,000 views. Only 8% have more than 1,000 views but less than 10,000 (which is where most of my videos are), and only about 3.5% have more than 10K views. The percentage of videos with 100K or more views is less than 1%.

If you’re not a big channel with 100K or more subscribers, you are playing in the shallow end of the pool. There are some smaller channels that manage to break the mold, and have some success with one or two or a few videos. For most people, they’re stuck with under 1,000 subscribers, and their videos will almost always get less than 1,000 views. I feel very fortunate to have somehow moved into the Top 2% for subscribers, with most of my videos in the Top 8% for views, and a few that climbed into the Top 3.5%. Even so, I’m very small potatoes. The Fuji X Weekly YouTube channel is still much too small for me to be considered a YouTuber. Maybe someday it will get there (although that’s not currently a goal of mine). I like seeing it grow, but I have no expectations that it will ever be in that Top 0.3%, which is where one needs to be in order to eke out a living at it. Those that are getting rich from YouTube—aside from Google—are an extremely tiny fraction of the users—probably about 35,000 people worldwide (there are about 115 million channels on the platform).

So I went on YouTube today, and found some videos from smaller channels that posted about Fujifilm and/or Film Simulation Recipes, and included them below. I hope that in some way this helps them grow their channels. I also hope that you enjoy their content. If this can facilitate you finding someone new to follow on YouTube, then this article was a success. At the very bottom I also included my latest YouTube video, in case you have yet to watch it. Right above it is the latest SOOC Live broadcast.

My latest video:

SOOC Live THIS Thursday!

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Ritchie Roesch

*Dodge Van Steering Wheel* – Buena Park, CA – Fujifilm X-T5 – Reala Ace Recipe

Mark your calendar! After a two week delay, the next SOOC Live broadcast will now be this coming Thursday, October 19th. Originally, we were going to discuss double-exposure photography (as was advertised at the end of our last show), but we decided to change the topic to Reala Ace.

Why? First, life events happened, and we just didn’t have the time needed for such a big topic, as there are a whole lot of considerations and approaches to multiple-exposures worth addressing. We hope to still tackle this at some point, but understand that it’s a big undertaking, and we can only do it if we have the time to prepare everything. It just didn’t work out this time like we had hoped it would. Second, Reala Ace, which is the name of Fujifilm’s latest film simulation, is a trending subject, and my new Reala Ace Film Simulation Recipe has quickly caught on. So Nathalie Boucry and I thought that we should discuss this instead, diving more deeply into it, while also providing some alternatives.

I hope that you can join us this Thursday! It’s an interactive program, and your participation makes the show better. I’ve included the video below so that you can easily find it, but please follow the SOOC Live YouTube channel so that you don’t miss any upcoming episodes. See you soon!

Let’s talk Travel Photography

Posted on July 5, 2023 by Ritchie Roesch

*Pacific Poppies* – Montaña de Oro SP, CA – Fujifilm X-E4 & Fujinon 90mm – Pacific Blues

I traveled to California’s central coast last month. If you regularly read this blog, you’ve certainly seen the pictures, such as Pacific Poppies above. Well, tomorrow—July 6th—Fujifilm X-Photographer Nathalie Boucry and I will be chatting about travel photography in our SOOC Live broadcast. I hope that you can join us at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, 1:00 PM Eastern, as it is an interactive program, and your participation will make it better.

We have a lot of points to discuss—from Film Simulation Recipes to camera gear to practical advice and so much more! If you have any upcoming travel plans, this is a can’t-miss episode! I’ve included it below so that you can easily find it. If you don’t yet subscribe to the SOOC Live YouTube channel, be sure to do so now, so that you don’t miss any future shows.

I hope to see you tomorrow!

Chatting ChatGPT — SOOC Live is Next Week!!!

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Ritchie Roesch

*Abandoned Ford* – Cambria, CA – Fujifilm X100V – Urban Dreams

The next SOOC Live show will be this coming Thursday, June 29th, at 10 AM Pacific Time, 1 PM Eastern! Mark you calendars!

I really hope that you can join us, as Fujifilm X-Photographer Nathalie Boucry and I finish our chat with you about using ChatGPT to make AI Film Simulation Recipes. We’ve been shooting with four—Urban Dreams, Kodak Ektachrome E100VS v1, and two others made for the show (called Soft Blue Classic and Vivid Summer Glow). We also challenged you to shoot with one or more of those four Recipes.

We invite you to share with us your photographs (click here) captured with those AI Recipes to be potentially featured in the next broadcast, to be included in the Viewer’s Images Slideshow, and to enter a chance to win a one-year Patron subscription to the Fuji X Weekly App. Please upload your pictures no later than Tuesday, June 27th! That’s coming up very soon, but there’s still time if you haven’t yet begun the challenge. Don’t forget to include the name of the Recipe that you used in the file name.

If you missed the last broadcast, I’ve included it below. You’ll want to check it out if you missed it when it was live. You can find all the past episodes on the SOOC Live YouTube channel.

I hope to see you on Thursday!

Telling Stories with Your Fujifilm Camera

Posted on April 3, 2023 by Ritchie Roesch

*Free Spirit* – Pismo Beach, CA – Fujifilm X-E4 – Pacific Blues Recipe

Photos tell stories.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words—a lot can be nonverbally communicated through an image. But what exactly is storytelling photography? How do we effectively become storytellers with our cameras? Those questions and so many others will be discussed at length in the next SOOC Live broadcast, which is THIS Thursday, April 6th, at 10 AM Pacific Time, 1 PM Eastern. Mark your calendars now! I hope you can join us live!

For those who don’t know, SOOC Live is a bimonthly broadcast where Nathalie Boucry and I discuss Film Simulation Recipes, give tips and tricks for achieving the results you want straight-out-of-camera, and answer your questions. Basically, we’re trying to help you master your camera, with a focus on simplifying your photographic workflow. On the first Thursday of each month we introduce and discuss a theme—the theme for March was Street Photography—and the fourth Thursday of each month we look at the photographs captured within the theme using the Recipes, talk about lessons learned, and answer any and all of your questions. It’s an interactive show, and your participation is what makes it great!

Last Thursday was the Q&A broadcast. If you missed it when it was live, you can watch it now (see below). We had some very good discussions about street photography, so be sure to play it if you haven’t seen it yet!

Also, check out the Viewer’s Images slideshow! It was so great to see your wonderful pictures—they were quite inspiring to me—and I appreciate everyone who shared—thank you! Take a look!

Be sure to follow SOOC Live on YouTube if you don’t already, so that you don’t miss any broadcasts. I look forward to seeing you in just a few days as we talk about Storytelling! This will be an especially insightful episode, I think, so you won’t want to miss it. See you on Thursday!

I Think You’ll Appreciate This …Or, How to Get Through Another Hump Day

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Ritchie Roesch

*Julio* – Arlington, AZ – Fujifilm X-T5 – 1970’s Summer

Recently I shared videos by Leigh and Raymond Photography, Andrew Goodcamera, and Mango Street that mention Fuji X Weekly and/or Film Simulation Recipes. That’s awesome! Those are pretty big names in the camera world. But if you look on YouTube, there are so many other photographers who are shooting with Recipes and making some wonderful content. They don’t (yet) have the large following of those well-established channels, but they deserve some love and recognition for what they are doing. That’s what this post is about. I want to share with you some of those videos that I found, which perhaps didn’t come up in your feed, but are worthwhile to watch.

Today is Wednesday, which is also sometimes called Hump Day because it is in the middle of the week. If today is a struggle and you are in need of inspiration and/or entertainment, this will surely help! Find a video or two (or more!) below that look interesting, and give it a watch. At the end, if you liked it, don’t forget to give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing to that person’s channel. Let them know that you appreciate their content!

I’m sure I missed several wonderful videos. If you published one recently that I didn’t include, or if you’ve seen one by someone else that should have been in this list, feel free to leave a link to it in the comments. The videos below are simply the ones that YouTube presented to me, and I appreciated them so I thought you might, too.

Enjoy!

Introducing the Fuji X Weekly Vlog!

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Ritchie Roesch

My wife has been telling me for awhile now that I should be on YouTube. She’s completely right about that! Almost two billion people worldwide watch YouTube videos regularly, and about one billion hours of YouTube video content is watched daily. YouTube is the #2 search engine, only behind Google. More than half of YouTube views are on a phone, tablet or other mobile device. There are a ton of statistics which demonstrate that those under the age of 50 are spending a lot of time watching YouTube videos, and about half of those videos are uploaded by people and not companies. There’s a massive audience I’m missing by avoiding YouTube!

I like to joke that I have a face for radio and a voice for print. That’s all in fun, but the truth is that I don’t have the eccentric personality to be a video star. I’m just a regular Joe. I don’t look or sound the part, and so I prefer not to be a video guy. I like to write and I’m pretty good at it. Even though I hunt-and-peck, I’m comfortable and happy typing out paragraphs. I like that I can lay out my thoughts in a clear and organized manor, and it’s easy to change the words if I didn’t communicate something well. I will continue to write the Fuji X Weekly blog because I love doing this!

When it comes to photography, there’s a lot of long-winded content on YouTube. Most videos exceed five minutes, many exceed 10 minutes and some seem to go on forever! That’s good sometimes, but what I often prefer, and I figures others might feel the same way, is content that’s short and to the point. I often don’t have time for ramblings. I feel that there is a need for quality photography-related videos that are under two minutes long, that get right to the point and concisely explain things. That’s my vision for the Fuji X Weekly vlog. I want to produce short videos that are mobile device friendly, that are interesting yet informative, and, perhaps most importantly, don’t feature me rambling on.

I just started the Fuji X Weekly vlog a couple of days ago. I think it will be a good companion to the Fuji X Weekly blog. I hope that it will reach some new people, perhaps some folks who wouldn’t normally go to an “old-fashioned” blog, but would definitely look at a video. I hope that it’s a fresh way to view my content, pictures and ideas. I’ve made three videos so far, which I’ve included below. Feel free to like and share them. Please subscribe so that you don’t miss anything! I appreciate any feedback that you have. Hopefully it just gets better and better as time goes on, because I’m very new to this whole video-making stuff. I hope that you enjoy!