Photography: "Mirrorless Mark" - YouTube as a Resource

A gorgeous day in Myakka River State Park with a LUMIX FZ300 in Panoramic mode.

Intro by Skip Cohen 

This is the sixth "Mirrorless Mark" Monday post from my good buddy Mark Toal. He's back with a reminder about one of the best ways to build your skill set online - YouTube.com. There's so much great content available and it's not only helpful but free and viewable on your schedule. It couldn't be more flexible to help you raise the bar on your technique and understanding of photography.

Check out the full LUMIX library online with a click on the banner below. You'll be surprised at how much good solid content is available, and it's so much easier to learn from than page after page of a manual. When you think about how Panasonic has built their educational library to help us take full advantage of all the features they've developed it's sort of like the Staples tagline, "Yeah, we've got that!"
  
Mark's never without a LUMIX camera. Check out more of his images and follow him on Facebook and Instagram. ​

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When I was learning photography, it was either trial and error or waiting for the monthly copy of Popular Photography to arrive in the mail. Now we have the Internet and especially YouTube.com with us everywhere we go.
 
I don’t know of any camera company that includes a decent manual with their cameras. Digital cameras have too many features to fit in a small manual. When I’m teaching new user classes for Panasonic the first thing, I tell new owners is that YouTube.com is their manual. If they want a printed manual, I send them to search Google for whatever model they just bought and download the large PDF manual. They can be 300 pages so think about putting it on your tablet or computer for reference before hitting the print button.
 
Most companies like Panasonic have a dedicated YouTube.com channel where they put how-to videos.

Let's say you want to know more about shooting Panoramic images with your new Lumix G85. Here's how you'd find the short video above:
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1. Go to YouTube.com
2. Search for “Lumix Cameras” in the main search box.
3. Search in “Lumix Cameras” for the topic. Example: “Lumix G85 Panoramic”
4. You should see choices of multiple videos on how to use the Lumix G85 including this one starring myself about how to shoot Panoramic images.
 
If you do a general YouTube search, you will need to sort through some long-winded videos on how to accomplish a simple task. My advice is that if they don’t get to the point in the first minute then move on to another video.