Been on YouTube for 3 years most of the content I created went unnoticed forever, but my lens review videos surprisingly did a great job attracting viewers, so I'm gonna just talk about how I made my 4 lens review videos (Samyang 14mm f2.8, Samyang 85mm f1.4, Sony 50mm f1.8, Sony 18-105mm f4)
Nov 6 2016 my review of Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens
It's rather an unboxing video because I published that video probably only one or two days after I got the lens, but who cares right, put "review" and you get views. I really didn't know what I was doing, I was just super excited about the lens, I always wanted a wide angle lens for my full frame camera A7 so that I could vlog like Casey Neistat, at that point I still had close to zero knowledge about camera gear and how exactly how camera functions, had no idea what was full frame what was APS-C, anyway I made the video out of excitement, it's kind of like a vlog but then I put a lot of photos I took in it so I called it review. All the lack of knowledge made the video really hardly qualify as a "review", on top of that I was imitating Kai W's hosting style even accent (i did a horrible job, cringe) , all of these made the video really hated by viewers, at the time of writing this, it has 82 likes and 94 dislikes, my most controversial video ever.
Dec 9 2016 my second review: Samyang 85mm f1.4 lens
Came out just one month after the 14mm lens review, a little more refined in the format, I did voice over instead of vlogging to the camera made it sound a little more legit, I didn't talk much about the technical aspects but only touched on the bokeh aspect, then just threw a bunch of pictures I took those days in there, cracked some jokes, shot some low light scene and called it a review. And it became my most viewed video on my channel with pretty positive feedback 179:59 like-dislike ratio. In this video I was still doing the Kai voice, cringe : p
Nov 3 2017 almost exactly one year later I came back with a much delayed Sony 50mm f1.8 FE lens review. This time I did not rush, unlike the previous two cases, I waited almost a year to make this video and got a lot experience shooting with it and not to mention my knowledge of photography has improved a great deal.
The procedure of making the video was: 1.choosing some of the best shots I took in the past year that I think best represent the lens' various features: portrait, landscape, night etc. 2.write a script of voiceover (probably did the same for the 85mm lens review) 3.shoot some close up footage of the lens on different cameras (camera/lens porn) 4.shot some lowlight focusing test footage 5.organize them together and edit a video.
The entire process took much more time and dedication than my previous two lens reviews(especially the first one, so poorly made). The main selling point of the video is to demonstrate the real life usage of the lens, show people what it can do and how it has served me, giving my personally experience and opinion to share with viewers instead of just "wow this lens is amazing wow". It's been over a month since I published the video, so far it's doing not bad, over 2 thousand views with 19:3 like-dislike ratio, probably need a better thumbnail for the video. I'm expecting at least 20 thousand total views on this video in the next year.
Dec 6 2017 again I took one month interval between last review and this one. This is for the Sony 18-105mm f4 G lens, not completely in patient, I made the video only a few months after I got the lens, because there's really not that much to it, it's a straight forward lens, I give straight forward opinion, pretty much like other YouTube reviews of this lens, it's positive opinions, because it's a great lens for APS-C sensor cameras.
I shot a bunch of close up footage of the lens on different camera bodys, put a bunch of photos and videos I shot in the past few months in it, wrote script, easy.
While I did not recommend this lens for portrait but I do like the result of the portrait shots from this lens, it doesn't have the awesome bokeh prime lens would have, but it's a very nice versatile, sharp, compact combo with A6300 and it shoots great portrait if you incorporate background into the shots, definitely enjoy using it.
It's only slowly picking up traction now, with near 1 thousand views, 10 likes 0 dislikes, I actually favor this review over the 50mm lens review, plus the thumbnail is really nice, a portrait of my friend, I really love this shot with HSS flash in Venice, the bold red of the hat, golden flow of the hair and the cold dusk color tone of the environment made great contrast.
I'm expecting 50 thousand views in a year maybe a little over estimated? I don't know, let's see.
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