 In today's video, we're learning five different skills that you can use to create better content, tell better stories, and cultivate skills that you can use to display to your audience and really captivate them. The art of mastering any camera is so much more than just about the gear and the tech specs. It's about creativity, it's about honing your skills, and it's about flexing that artistic muscle. The same way that your brain tells your fingers what to do when you're working with your hands, that should be how the camera is. The camera is an extension of you, just so you know today we're not gonna be talking about specs and menu settings and shortcuts on your camera because those all differ from camera to camera. The ability to pick up any camera and just create a sick video is so much more about you and your skills. So let's start with the most important lesson on how to master any camera, what's your story? Once you've defined your story, only then should you start looking for cameras to fit that story. For example, is your story a dance video? Is it a vlog or a narrative? People are more willing to forgive bad video quality as long as the story and the content of that video are fun, are entertaining, are keeping them hooked. So before you pick up a camera, just get into that mindset that content is king, story is king, and everything around that is to serve the content, to serve the story. If you're enjoying this video so far, then let us know by giving it a like. And also, if you wanna see more videos like this, then subscribe to this channel and click the notification bell so that you know the next time we put out another video. All right, let's get back to the next tip. Regardless of the camera that you're using, good composition is one of the most important steps into becoming a master of any camera. It's the bread and butter of all good movies and videos. Your phone is the best place to start. Even if it isn't the iPhone 13 Pro Max, it could be any phone at any price point. All you need is a camera and a screen to look at. Because at this point, it doesn't matter about the dynamic range and the specs, all the resolutions you can get on a camera, it really just matters how you place the camera within space and where you place your subjects or how you frame up an environment within your frame. Again, all of this is to just move your content forward to make your story better. Blurry images and blown out highlights don't matter right now. All that matters is honing this skill and then moving on to the next step. ISO, shutter speed, aperture, ND filters, all of these are just fun names of functions in your camera that make sure that your image is properly exposed. Most of the time, it doesn't matter what camera you're using, but if you have a smartphone that doesn't have manual exposure or anything like that, there are plenty of apps on the market and they're usually not that expensive. Of course, the amount of control you have over your image improves usually as the price point goes up on the cameras, but that's all details. It really just depends on you learning the skill and how to expose and what is proper exposure in general. In short, proper exposure is a balancing act between ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and sometimes if you want to use an ND filter, when an image is overexposed or underexposed, meaning the highlights are too bright or the darks are too low, then it could sometimes get a bit distracting for your audience and at that point, it does start to hinder your story. So that's where this step actually really does make a big difference. The topic of properly exposing your image can go on and on for a really long time. So if you want me to make another video talking about a more in-depth version of this, of exposing your image properly, then let me know in the comment section and I'll get right on it. Lean into your limitations. Something I didn't think about when I bought my first professional camera, Canon 70D, by the way. I didn't think about the extra things that I would need to fit the camera to the needs that I had, like extra batteries, tripods, gimbals, monopods, lenses, and a bunch of other hidden costs. Before that, I was using my smartphone and I'm so happy I started with using my smartphone because looking back, I needed to learn the skills first on a smartphone, on a cheap version, and then move my way up. Crew is another big factor that I didn't think about. The bigger the camera, the more complex the camera, the more people are needed to handle the camera. Time is also a huge factor. I mean, like some of the biggest cinema cameras take forever to turn on or to set up and rig up. Sometimes just a regular vlogging camera like this or smartphone just does the job so much better and quicker. And again, it's all about the convenience and getting the job done and learning these skills. Understand your needs first. You don't need all the bit rates, you don't need all the resolutions, you don't need all the frame rates. All that matters is just getting the right piece of gear for your content, for your story. Either way, online video content is just moving more and more towards convenience and less about the resolutions and less about the video quality and more about the content, the quality of the content and what's going into the videos. When I first started making videos years ago, I was a personal trainer trying to make commercials for myself. They were horrible. The editing wasn't good, the acting wasn't good, none of that was good. But I actually drew a lot of inspiration from Casey Neistat. Just his style of filmmaking and video creation, it was all about the story and not about the gear whatsoever. He so much talked about how much it wasn't about the gear but he's really good at just focusing on composition and editing and keeping your videos tight and keeping your audience hooked. And that's the main thing. It's not about the gear, it's not about the camera you're using, it's about the story you're telling. I guess the way I'd sum up this video is mastering your camera is less about knowing your camera inside and out but really learning yourself inside and out. Learning your creativity, learning your skills, learning what speaks to you artistically. Because camera technology continues to advance and your cameras are gonna be coming obsolete and getting new ones but you are never gonna become obsolete. And whatever you do with your camera is always dependent on how good of a content creator you are. Of course, there's room for tech talk and specs and becoming a gear head. Absolutely, that's so much fun and they're very important but at this point I think the most important thing is learning how to tell better stories and create better content. And if you wanna learn how to take your videos to the next level then you can go ahead and watch this video right here where we talk about how to use motion graphics from the MotionXPAC to level up your videos and tell more engaging stories and create just overall fun and more entertaining content. Thanks so much for watching y'all and we'll see you in the next video. Bye.