Category: Tutorials

I am a guy with a blog and a youtube channel, there has to be some tutorials. I am actually surprised how many I have done. Hence the category.

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Get More Views With Better Thumbnails! Here’s How….

Picture of Joey Lombardi with yellow background

My YouTube thumbnail game was terrible. After watching several videos on how to improve my site, I realized I needed a better method to make thumbnails.

I found a site called Canva and I am very impressed. The site makes thumbnail generation much easier than the other tools I have been using (like GIMP).

Canva is free, but there are several premium services you need to pay for. I share some other tools and tips to make due with what is available for free with Canva, but I do recommend the premium service, it makes workflow so much easier.

Tools Referenced:

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Cleaning Your Camera Parts

Cleaning your camera can sometimes be a little scary (especially the sensor), so I am always looking for tools to make the experience better.

I recently bought a NiteCore tool called the “Blower Baby” (terrible name) and I share my experience with that device, as well as traditional blower bulbs, sensor cleaning sticks, etc.

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Discussing Color Grading and LUTs

After my first experience with color profiles on my Panasonic G7, I steered away from changing the settings on the camera. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I just followed what other vloggers said to do.

The problem is… most vloggers what the most neutral color palette from the camera, so they can tweak the colors in editing.

Who wants to do extra work?

If you are using a few different cameras in the same video, I understand the desire to have the same color science through all clips, but I am sticking to the default settings.

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Canon FD Lens Aperture Lock

A quick follow-up on the “Old Canon Lenses” vlog I posted a few weeks ago…

Those over-exposed pictures really bothered me and I realized that the aperture blades in the lens were not moving when I moved the ring.

Canon FD aperture blades will lock at 5.6 if you don’t manually unlock them or make sure you have an adapter that has an unlocking mechanism. The K&F Lens Mount Adapter does have this feature.

Even though I figured out the issue, I am not sure if these manual lenses are for me. But I am learning more.

This video also has detailed instructions on how to unlock Canon FD aperture blades:

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Tripod and Mounting Plate Ecosystems

I am so tired of having to take mounting plates off my camera and screwing new ones on when I need to use different sized tripods.

After looking at a Peak Design video for their newish tripod, I saw how their one mounting plate interchanged with all of their capture systems – and I wondered if I can find a 3rd party adapter so I can use ONE PLATE for all of my tripods.

Spoiler: The answer is yes.
(The key is to find something Arca-Swiss Standard)

Here are links to the products I discussed in the video: