Hey what's going on everybody?!  I just finished my adventure VLOG on "Photographing an Abandoned Railway in the Middle of the Desert"  I made this using the DJI Mavic 3 Cine, Nikon D780 + Ninja Atomos, DJI Ronin S2, DJI Wireless Mics, and a Samsung Galaxy S23.

If you recognize any of the footage from Jeven Dovey's recent video on the new Mavic 3 Pro, you are correct, Jeven joined me for the second trip (which took place just 2 weeks after this one) and that video will be dropped here as soon as its ready.  

I hope you all enjoy it and thank you so much for watching!

Fascinating.  Pretty sure i saw that trestle at the end on a TV series called Abandoned Engineering, recently, in the UK.

Awesome scenery and "sights" - cool! Crazy bridge.

Very cool adventure.  Awesome wooden trestle bridge.    Looking forward to seeing video from the 2nd trip.  

Very cool.  

good job !

Blériot53 Posted at 5-21 13:22
Fascinating.  Pretty sure i saw that trestle at the end on a TV series called Abandoned Engineering, recently, in the UK.

Very nice, I'll have to take a look and see if I can find it.  If you are interested in the history of the bridge, I found a great mini documentary on the trestle on a local tv show here in California called, "California's Gold."  It was known locally as the absolute most fascinating show on some of the absolute most boring topics.  But on occasion, the late Huel Howser would find a bit of California gold like this episode here:

Trestle - California's Gold

Definitely worth the watch and it was great to learn some of the back stories of some of the sights along the way.

Thank you for the feedback!

Depp Posted at 5-21 21:41
Awesome scenery and "sights" - cool! Crazy bridge.

Thank you, much appreciated!

DowntownRDB Posted at 5-22 02:02
Very cool adventure.  Awesome wooden trestle bridge.    Looking forward to seeing video from the 2nd trip.

Thank you brother!  I always appreciate the kind words.  

Booradley Posted at 5-22 14:39
Very nice, I'll have to take a look and see if I can find it.  If you are interested in the history of the bridge, I found a great mini documentary on the trestle on a local tv show here in California called, "California's Gold."  It was known locally as the absolute most fascinating show on some of the absolute most boring topics.  But on occasion, the late Huel Howser would find a bit of California gold like this episode here:

Trestle - California's Gold

You're welcome. And thanks for the info. The TV Channel in the UK is called "Yesterday" and hosts documentaries which are from days gone by - already seen on other channels or elsewhere in the world I suppose. Each episode deals with four extraordinary feats of engineering from around the globe, which have reached the end of their useful life and been left to decay away.

Booradley Posted at 5-22 14:43
Thank you brother!  I always appreciate the kind words.

You're very welcome.  Hope you have a great week and keep up the fantastic work.

YEah, I watched it because YT recommended this one.
Great work!

DAFlys Posted at 5-22 02:21
Very cool.

Thank you!!

CristianDaniel Posted at 5-22 05:16
good job !

Thank you!

Montfrooij Posted at 5-23 23:56
YEah, I watched it because YT recommended this one.
Great work!

That is music to my ears!  I have some pretty ambitious plans to hit the road with the drone and my Z8 as soon as I can monetize.  Until recently YT would rarely recommend my vids.  So glad it seems to be getting started.  Thanks again!

Booradley Posted at 5-24 08:47
Thank you!!

Its my pleasure.     

Booradley Posted at 5-24 08:49
That is music to my ears!  I have some pretty ambitious plans to hit the road with the drone and my Z8 as soon as I can monetize.  Until recently YT would rarely recommend my vids.  So glad it seems to be getting started.  Thanks again!

I'm trying very hard, but.....
Almost there with my 3rd channel.

Man it's a big task. Especially after the changes YT made a couple of years ago.
So make sure you're having fun in the process.

Montfrooij Posted at 5-25 01:03
I'm trying very hard, but.....
Almost there with my 3rd channel.

I remember that...  It's a double edged sword for sure.  It was really exciting to see a little bit of money come in during that time.  Then they raised the bar so high, especially with the 4000 watch hours and on top of that, then shifting their resources to favor short content.  I was so disappointed that I didn't post for probably two years. I became a SF agent and sold insurance but quickly discovered I was miserable.  So I shifted gears, started a photo business and then I started to see the wall in front of me as a goal.  First I thought the hardest part was subs, then I realized it was actually watch time.  I'm only at about 800 of 4000 and at one point I was closer to 1k.  I need to post more as it is finally starting to trend upward instead of downward.

But what I will say.  The requirements to monetize force you to be better.  Before I would just float along.  If I was BBQing that day, I'd post a video about BBQ, if later I was on Xbox, I'd post a video from xbox.  Took a trip to vegas rode a zipline and posted that.  They were earning me money too.  I turned on my pc one day and see 100k views on the BBQ video.  Then my  GTA V video started moving.  Then someone from Discovery Channel contacted me and asked if I could license the zipline footage to them for a show.   Even with the brief success, it has set me back to this day, nearly 10 years later.  

The initial success rewarded bad behavior.  My content was all over the place and not growing my audience.  After all of those views you'd think I would have had a larger sub base.  It popped up to 190 and slowly grew to 490 over a period of about 8 years. I switched gears 2 years ago.  Now it's centered on photo adventure vlog drone.  And I feel like I would benefit even greater from niching down even further.  I wish I would have just started like this, focused and themed properly because every time I release a new video my old audience is rejecting it and is suppresses it because the YT thinks it has the right audience initially and it comes across as a terrible video.  It's geting better, I've grown through shorts.  My growth has accelerated from about 20-28 subs per 28 days to 88-100 per 28 days and the watch time is finally going up with each long form video I post.  

I'd love to support your channel, would you mind dropping a link to it?

Booradley Posted at 5-25 07:28
I remember that...  It's a double edged sword for sure.  It was really exciting to see a little bit of money come in during that time.  Then they raised the bar so high, especially with the 4000 watch hours and on top of that, then shifting their resources to favor short content.  I was so disappointed that I didn't post for probably two years. I became a SF agent and sold insurance but quickly discovered I was miserable.  So I shifted gears, started a photo business and then I started to see the wall in front of me as a goal.  First I thought the hardest part was subs, then I realized it was actually watch time.  I'm only at about 800 of 4000 and at one point I was closer to 1k.  I need to post more as it is finally starting to trend upward instead of downward.

But what I will say.  The requirements to monetize force you to be better.  Before I would just float along.  If I was BBQing that day, I'd post a video about BBQ, if later I was on Xbox, I'd post a video from xbox.  Took a trip to vegas rode a zipline and posted that.  They were earning me money too.  I turned on my pc one day and see 100k views on the BBQ video.  Then my  GTA V video started moving.  Then someone from Discovery Channel contacted me and asked if I could license the zipline footage to them for a show.   Even with the brief success, it has set me back to this day, nearly 10 years later.  

Yeah, I have been a long time youtuber as well, randomly posting stuff on my main channel.
No clear focus, just what I liked.
Then I decided I wanted to go for trains and trucks (both have my interest) and I have a ton of old videos from both subjects, which I though would be popular.
And those days, you could become popular more easily, the algorithm was not so aimed at high level creators somehow.
I had one really popular video with 1mln views about me connecting a tablet to a monitor. This got me some money. Which was interesting.  
And at that time, I figured it was time to split my interests into multiple  channels, so I could have one subject per channel.
One 'main' one for drone stuff, one for trains and trucks and one for tricks and tips.
At that time, it seemed wise.
But then one of my old videos was picked up and got 20mln views and 50k subscribers.
Which was a complete surprise and total nonsense, since nobody liked the video, but somehow it was served to everybody in Russia and India. I have a lot of the same videos and none of them are popular, but this one was.
This really earned me some money (but it did not last, since I did not have a fanbase that really liked what I made).
And then YT came with their 4000h rule, which still feels unfair and too focussed on the main channels.  And their algorithm changed so the small channels were not pushed anymore.
My personal channel and trains and trucks channel were lucky enough to meet both demands, but did not generate much views anymore. Even though I kept posting quite a bit. But drone videos are not interesting anymore for the algorithm. (apparently)
And now I'm trying hard to get my third channel monetized. I'm almost there (more than enough subs and almost enough watch hours.
But it is so much work, that it is really not interesting for me to push harder, start screaming for attention with clickbait titles etc. etc. I want to deliver quality footage and music at my own pace and get a little bit money from this to invest in the hobby again. But this was not the direction YT wanted to go unfortunately.

These are my three channels.
https://www.youtube.com/@montfrooij
https://www.youtube.com/@trainsandtrucks
https://www.youtube.com/@tricks-and-tips

And the last one I hope to get monetized soon, just need 25h watchtime or so.

Top job Booradley and really liked seeing the effort that must have gone into constructing the line.

Montfrooij Posted at 5-25 11:08
Yeah, I have been a long time youtuber as well, randomly posting stuff on my main channel.
No clear focus, just what I liked.
Then I decided I wanted to go for trains and trucks (both have my interest) and I have a ton of old videos from both subjects, which I though would be popular.

Lol, I just realized I was already subbed!  The trainsandtrucks channel was the only one I hadn't been subbed to.  I remember subbing to you before and couldn't remember who on here it was.  Have you tried messing with shorts much?  

sky wombat Posted at 5-27 22:46
Top job Booradley and really liked seeing the effort that must have gone into constructing the line.

Thank you for the kind words my friend!

Booradley Posted at 5-28 08:24
Lol, I just realized I was already subbed!  The trainsandtrucks channel was the only one I hadn't been subbed to.  I remember subbing to you before and couldn't remember who on here it was.  Have you tried messing with shorts much?

Hahahahahahaha. Yeah that happens. (with me too).
I tried, but that is a lot of work for mweh content.
I don't like this format a lot, even though it is very addictive for your brain.

booradley referred to an old clip by  Huel Howser titled:Trestle - California's Gold. Well worth watching to see Huel lugging around some portable recording equipment and realising 'organisational ability' has't changed much.