Technology to me has always been the great leveler.
Not in its inception but in its adaptation. As we have seen, this can lead to good and bad things. Still, it allows me to publish my books worldwide in both written and audio format. It’s allowed film I’ve written to be shot and distributed also worldwide (though limited scope).
I can format my book for any platform including print. I have a complete digital darkroom for turning my photographs into something worth sharing or at the very least leaving a memory for my friends and I in its best possible looking format. I also have a very powerful editing suite of tools at my disposal for creating video with some impact (more on this in a bit).
The programs I use in my day job allow me to build and test machine components for fit and stress before a single piece of metal is cut or welded into its final form and then do a cost analysis on that machine. Technology allows me to hand write notes that are then dated and stored for later viewing. I can take a 3D pdf model out to the production floor and show the person building the thing I designed, exactly what I am talking about.
Power.
The real thing, not a concept.
Still, for all of my work in the virtual, there is great satisfaction in doing things in the real. In fact the only reason I’m successful in the virtual is because I’ve spent many years doing things in the real world with the tools at hand and the sweat of my brow. There is great satisfaction in that. Knowing that when you talk about certain things, you come at it from a point of experience and past effort, not one of theory.
Which brings me to the bit about video.
I’ve been shooting on a Canon DSLR for about 14 years. Before that I shot on SLR Cameras and 35 photographic film. One of my feature films was shot digitally the other on Super 16mm. DSLR Cameras have come a long way since then.
Hell we shot my first short The Provider on Beta.
Compare that to my own efforts shooting my flight in a Lancaster Bomber and recently a PB5Y Canso.
The Lancaster was shot with a Canon 7D and a Sony action cam and the Canso footage was shot with a Canon 7D Mk2 and the same Sony action cam with some fill in footage from a Canon T2i.
Ironically though the video on my YouTube Channel with the most views is of the Fairey Firefly at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum folding its wings. Which I thought was strange until I recently learned it’s the only flying example of the aircraft left in the world. So now it sits at just over 64K views, which is cool because as a lifetime member of the CWHM, I really want to promote the museum and the great work they do there.
But it’s also got me thinking about adding a vlog component to this blog as well. Which I think is really more about me getting off my arse and adding more content on a more regular basis than I have been. It’ll also give me an excuse to get out to the CWHM and shoot some cool aircraft running up and flying over. After all, what’s the good of having a 500mm lens if you don’t get to use it.
Something else I discovered today is that a lot of the cooling issues we used to have with the sensors on DSLRS in video mode have been fairly sorted. So before when you could expect to get ten minutes of video before an overheated sensor would crop up, now you can get over an hour. Which is good news for me (though I sense a few 2TB portable drives in my future).
I’ll still be writing on the blog of course but I’ve got a few things I’d like to cover in a vlog including what it takes to put out an audiobook (or three).
