Podcasting

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."

No, it is not necessary to use a cleaning solution. Breathing gently on the lens and then wiping it with a microfiber cloth should be enough to clean it. If more cleaning power is needed, you can use a lens cleaning solution, but make sure it is safe for camera lens coatings and never apply it directly to the lens surface.
 
Transcript: "Is it necessary to use any cleaning solutions or sprays when cleaning lens elements or is a microfiber cloth enough? Okay, first part of the question is no. It's not necessary to use a cleaning solution. The first thing I would always try is just to breathe gently on the lens like this. Right on it. Get that little fogging on it and then take your microfiber cloth and in circular motions clean the lens. Never try to clean a lens that's dry. Now if you are, that's just breathe on it and it's usually enough. If you need a solution, say it's it's more than just a little smudge, you need a little bit more of oomph behind it, there are lens cleaning solutions available. Make sure they're safe for camera lens coatings. Eyeglass frames have different coatings on them. They have different surfaces. Your lens coating is a lot more easy to damage. You have to be careful about that. Also you do not apply any of these solutions directly onto the lens surface itself. You put it onto the microfiber cloth, just a little bit to moisten it and then you start to clean it off again. So the big thing is you could just breathe on the lens and use a microfiber cloth or get a solution and apply little bits of it or light spray from a distance and just use as little as you need to get the job done. And that's the trick of the whole thing. But the big takeaway, never try to clean a lens when it is dry. Always moisten it somehow, even if it just means going..."

I use Streamyard for software, and for equipment I use the Rodecaster as my main podcast setup with static mics, Tascam independent lav mics that record to an SD card, and a Rode shotgun mic on top of my camera for a third backup option.
 
Transcript: "All right, this is an interesting question about equipment. I'm gonna stick to audio only on this one. So if you're doing audio recording, what do I use for software? I use StreamYard. I've been using StreamYard for three years and they've recently updated and increased a lot of the stuff that they do on there. So StreamYard is a great option. It gives you independent wave files for your audio from both yourself and your guest. And so that's always a big plus. If you're doing it in person, what kind of equipment do I use? I usually have three pieces, three microphones. I have a Rodecaster that I use as kind of the main podcast setup with actual static mics. I have Tascam independent lav mics that record directly to an SD card. And then I also have a Rode shotgun mic that goes on top of my camera to pull audio as a third backup option."

The one piece of advice I would give my younger self is to start that big dream of mine now and take small baby steps towards it every day.
 
Transcript: "So the question asked is, if you could give yourself one piece of advice to your youngest self, what would it be? And I love this question because I've answered it many times and I also ask people this question a lot on my podcast. So the one piece of advice that I would give myself is start that thing, that big dream of yours, start it now and start small. Take baby steps towards that big thing every single day. This question actually reminds me of a piece of content that I just shot in Arizona. Here it is. Hey guys, I'm out here in Arizona at a very, very high elevation and it just brought this thought to mind that sometimes people don't start things because they feel like they got to knock it out of the park on their first shot. And a very wise man once told me, don't worry about writing your first book because no one's going to read it anyway. One."

I'm an optimist and believe that technology has made us more connected and improved society. I think it can be used positively, such as with body-worn cameras on police officers, to make them more professional.
 
Transcript: "My opinion on the role of technology in society and its impact on humanity is I am an optimist. So I believe in the future of a utopian society of Star Trek, that world where we no longer judge people based on their appearance and we no longer judge people on their whatever ism that you want to add to it. I believe that everything has become better because of technology. If you go back just a hundred years and you take away an item such as the smartwatch or the smartphone 50 years, 25 years ago, ask yourself are we better off, more connected? I stuttered a little. Are we better off? Are we more connected or less connected? I believe we're more connected. I can reach people around the world in an instant just by shooting a video and posting it to Instagram or Facebook or any other countless websites and I believe that it connects us better. I believe in technology and I believe that we're heading in the right direction. It's just a tool and it comes down to how we use it. Look at the example of body-worn cameras on police officers. I believe that it makes them more professional. Just my opinion."

The success of my podcast is measured by the feedback I receive from listeners, including emails, text messages, and personal phone calls. One example of this was when a listener said that an episode saved their life, which has been a source of motivation to keep going.
 
Transcript: "How do I measure the success of my podcast? I guess I have a little bit different of an internal metric than most. I don't care about downloads. I don't care about numbers. I don't care about revenue. I started my podcast as a passion project to share knowledge and experience and to create relevant actionable training for as many first responders as we possibly could. One of the things that I measure my success by is the feedback that I receive from the people that listen. I have a ton of emails, a ton of text messages, and a ton of personal phone calls from people that listen to the podcast and have said, hey, I really got something out of this. Or, hey, you were talking about X, Y, or Z, can you give me more information? Or can you connect me to the right person? That is where I really find value. And I had one situation happen very early on. It was like our third episode we did on mental health. And somebody came back and said, what you put out saved my life. That has given me motivation from day one to keep going. Maybe it'll help you out."