I’m really excited, because I just published my first YouTube video in over a year! You might not be aware that Fuji X Weekly has a YouTube channel, but it does. I published two videos (not including Shorts) in 2024 (here and here), and three in 2023 (here, here and here). Those were a lot of fun, but YouTube videos are so much work. They take hours and hours and hours to create from start-to-finish. A good estimation—for those channels without a team of people—is one or two (or sometimes more) hours of editing for every minute of video published. That’s not including the time it takes to record the clips.

The video that just went live is a roadtrip to the Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson. This is the oldest still-used building in Arizona, and the oldest church. It’s where the city started (even though now it’s a little outside of town). The mission is a popular location for photography, and even Ansel Adams photographed it. I used 11 different Film Simulation Recipes on a Fujifilm X-E5. The adventure gets a bit wild, so hang onto your proverbial hats. I’ve included the video below—be sure to watch!

We tried a little different style for this new video. It’s a bit more relaxed, but hopefully entertaining. It gets a bit silly at times. Amanda (my wife) filmed it all using her Fujifilm X-S20 and Fujinon 16-50mm f/2.8-4.8 lens and an upcoming Recipe for video (look for more details on that in the near-ish future). She also did almost all of the editing. There were some technical difficulties; hopefully a new mic will help alleviate some of the issues on future projects. This is also the longest video we’ve ever published, nearly three times longer than the previous longest. A big hurray for Amanda and all the work she put into it!

Even though I have published videos very infrequently over the last few years, the channel has (surprisingly) grown and grown. There are over 17,000 subscribers currently. Four of the last five videos have over 10,000 views, and two have over 16,000. That’s not bad for a barely-there channel. My hope with this new upload is to kick-off a restart of sorts. While I can’t promise anything, my goal is to publish new videos regularly, and not let so much time pass between them. But, in the meantime, I hope that you enjoy this one.