Podcasting

I handle negative feedback or criticism by first looking at who sent it; some people are just trolls and don't deserve a response. For those who have thought-out comments, I focus on the value that their feedback might provide and discuss it with them to come to a resolution.
 
Transcript: "I love this question. How do you handle negative feedback or criticism? Listen, we are always gonna get negative feedback and criticism. It doesn't matter if it's in podcasting, if it's as a leader in charge of people or organizations. The most negative feedback I get in any one day is from my kids and my wife. So no matter who we are, where we are, we always have to consider how we respond to negative feedback and criticism because sometimes how we respond is going to elicit another response that we may or may not want or need. It's called the second and third order effects, right, of our actions. There's always gonna be a reciprocal action or reaction. So how do we handle it? How do I handle it? First of all, I look at who sent this. There's always gonna be people who don't like us. They're not gonna like you. They're not gonna like your face, your voice, where you come from, how you look. It's just the way it is. So regardless of what you do or what you say, you're never gonna win. I don't respond to those. They don't matter. They're not my audience. They're never gonna be my audience, and I don't want them in my audience. There's people who are gonna be out there who are just trolls, okay? They're looking to generate a response. They're looking to create divide. They're looking to create problems. Their comments are usually very short. They didn't watch the whole thing, or they didn't read or listen to everything you put out. They're just pontificating a bunch of nonsense. Those, I normally won't respond to either. What I care about are the feedback and the comments from those who display thought, those who actually I can tell read or watched what I put out, and they have comments. They have actual feedback that warrants my discussion with them to talk about why I did a certain thing. For instance, the other day, somebody questioned my research, all right? Well, they had a different research source. I gave them mine. We talked about it. We came to a resolution and moved on. So understand where it's coming from, focus on what the value is to you, and answer it that way. Good luck."

To clean the front and rear elements of a lens, use a microfiber cloth or lens cleaning tissue, gently breathe on the lens first, then move the cloth in circular motions to remove smudges or fingerprints. Use a squeeze bulb of compressed air for dust. Make sure to keep the cloth moistened and be careful not to scratch the lens coatings. Smudges on the front or rear element will affect image quality.
 
Transcript: "What's the best way to clean the front and rear elements of a lens? It's actually very, very easy. First you need is some kind of a cloth or a tissue. There are lens cleaning tissues. They're perfectly fine. You use them once on each side and you toss them so you have a garbage issue. I prefer microfiber cloths. They're available all over the place in different configurations. They will not scratch the coatings of your lens and you could wash them out with mild detergent solution, dry them out and use them hundreds of times. Anyway, very, very simple thing to do is first thing you do is breathe on the lens. You never, ever, ever try to clean a dry lens. So just give a little gentle breath and then move the cloth around in circular motions until you've cleaned off all of whatever smudge or fingerprint you might have. Do the same thing on the rear and that's it. Use this thing a dozen times or so. Wash it out because again you're cleaning grit off of the lens. You don't want to put it on the next one. One thing you have to really be careful though is that these lens coatings, all right, if you go too hard or if you go dry on them, you're gonna start scratching them a little bit. And by the way, if for dust, just use a little bit of compressed air in a bulb, not one of those cans. You put it up there, you could actually damage the coatings. So I'd say one of those little squeeze bulb things, clean it off or just a little gentle dusting like that. Fingerprints might be a little bit more difficult. Again, do it repeatedly. Make sure you keep moistening it and again, circular motions until it comes clean. As far as dust inside the lens, sometimes if you look inside of a lens, you see little particles of dust. That means nothing. It will not affect the image quality or the sharpness whatsoever. Having a smudge on the front of the lens does take away resolution because again, this is where the light is first coming into the lens. More so, a smudge on the rear element, that definitely affects the image quality and keep both surfaces clean."

Never hand-hold your camera at a shutter speed slower numerically than the focal length of the lens that you are using. If your camera lens combination has image stabilization, you can hand-hold your camera at even slower shutter speeds depending on how many stops of image stabilization it has.
 
Transcript: "What's the slowest shutter speed I should use when hand-holding my camera? A very, very simple rule of thumb is never hand-hold your camera at a shutter speed slower numerically than the focal length of the lens that you are using. So if you're shooting with a 50mm lens, don't hand-hold it at a shutter speed slower than 1 50th of a second. If you have a 500mm telephoto, 1 500th should be the slowest shutter speed. And if you're shooting with a 15mm ultrawide, 1 15th should be the slowest shutter speed that you should hand-hold that. Now, note I said the slowest. You will get sharper results if you up the shutter speed. So if you have a 50mm lens, yes, there's a good chance you're going to get a very good sharp picture at 1 50th. You'll get a sharper picture at 1 25th and even sharper at 2 50th. So that is just a starting point. But again, depending on what your aperture is, light values and everything else. But keep that in mind. Now, if your camera lens combination has image stabilization, say 5 stops of image stabilization, which is not unusual these days, you can now hand-hold your camera at even slower shutter speed. So if you were shooting, say, at 1 25th of a second as the slowest handheld shutter speed, with 5 stops, you can now hand-hold it at about 1 3rd of a second, which is tremendous. And again, that's the slowest shutter speed that you should hand-hold it at. That's it."

When taking portraits at wider apertures, the best focus point for the lens is the eyes. That's where the communication happens and the connection is made with the viewer. If the eye is sharp, the rest of it doesn't matter.
 
Transcript: "When taking portraits at wider apertures, what's the best focus point for the lens? That's actually pretty easy and my rule applies for wider apertures as well as when your lens is stopped down for greater depth of field. If you think about it for a second, if you're talking to somebody at a distance, say between you and I right now, when you're looking at the person, you're looking at their eyes. That's where we communicate to each other with. We might look off a little bit at one thing, but we always come back to the eyes. Same thing goes for a portrait. If the eye is sharp, the rest of it doesn't matter. Because when was the last time you were talking to somebody at a distance like this and said their eyes are not sharp, but the nose is sharp, or the eyes are out of focus, but the ears are sharp? That just doesn't happen. It's the eyes. That's where the communication is. And at that point, whether you're shooting at wide, wide aperture or greatly stopped down, if you're making connection with the eyes and that eye is clear, you've taken a good portrait. Everything else that's out of focus, it's irrelevant. That's all. It doesn't matter."

Yes, you can use macro lenses for photographing landscapes, portraits, and other types of non macro photography. However, there might be very slight differences in sharpness or plane of focus compared to a regular lens.
 
Transcript: "Can you use a macro lens for photographing landscapes, portraits, and other types of non macro photography? The answer is yes you can. There are very, very slight differences. A good example would be if you're using a regular 50 millimeter lens, a conventional normal lens, to photograph say some artwork or a document and you want it to be sharp on all four corners. If you were to shoot at wider apertures, you'll notice that the center will be in focus but the edges will be soft. Whereas a macro lens, even at wide apertures, if you get the center of the document sharp, your corners are sharp too. And that's because macro lenses have flat fields, flat planes of focus. Whereas a conventional lens, there's a curve to it. So the center might be sharp but the edges won't be. Now how does that translate into say portraiture? You'll be focusing on the eyes. The plane of focus will be slightly different with the macro lens compared to a regular portrait lens. Now in some cases, especially close-up, macro lenses can be brutally sharp. Much more clinically sharp than a conventional lens and for certain forms of portraiture you don't always want high definition of details of the skin. So keep that in mind. And again you could always diffuse the image down line post-capture. Conversely, macro lenses are their sharpest at close focusing distances. And while they do focus to infinity and can be used at infinity for landscapes and comparable kind of photographs, if you were to compare them with a comparable conventional lens of the same focal length, you might note that the regular lens is sharper at infinity than the macro lens. And again it's not always the case and not as perceptual but that would be the only difference if you do two. And yes you can use macro lenses for anything other than macro."

To manage and minimize the risks of burnout and creative exhaustion in podcasting, you need to find cool places to record your interviews. This will keep things exciting for you, your guests, and your listeners or viewers.
 
Transcript: "I thought this was the absolute perfect spot to answer today's Any Question. How do you manage and minimize the risks of burnout and creative exhaustion in podcasting? Well, it's simple. You've got to find cool places. One of the things that I've made a staple of the Jedburgh podcast is not only to have impactful conversations with today's most meaningful leaders, but to record those episodes in places that are important to them. Go to them, sit down and build that personal relationship that you get through in-person interviews, but also do it in a place that represents their story. Do it in a place that they identify with, that sums up the whole experience of what they're talking about and why I wanted to interview them in the first place. That's what I do. That keeps it interesting. That keeps it unique. That keeps it exciting for me as the podcast host and the creator, for them as the guests because they're in their environment, and for our listeners and viewers."