3 Castle Head West Cork by drone

Back in 2020 I got my first drone it was a DJI Mavic Mini. It served me well over the couple years I used it, it may have got slightly abused at times though.. 

But, one of the first big outings I went out with it was to 3 Castle Head, West Cork. Now there is a bit of a hike to see this place, it's not exactly the easiest places to get to. 

Anyway, a drone opens up a new, very different, perspective to photography. I don't think I would have liked the photos I got from 3 castle head if it wasn't for the drone. the height and distance out showing the cliff added the view i think works for the place. I have since updated my drone the the Dji Mavic Mini 3 so 2 generations newer. 

I will add the photos of 3 castle head here, If ye want to know more about 3 castle head continue on down passed the photos..

3 castles head or Dunlough castle was founded in 1207 by a man named Donagh O'Mahony. There are 3 fortified towers/keeps, which is where it gets its name from.

These towers are connected by more than 100 feet (30.48 metres) of wall. The lake here is apparently Man-made(unconfirmed on my side) some of these walls stand at 15 ft (4.6m)

There are reports of a "white lady" who walks the shore of the lake. people could confuse the the froth that come of this lake on windy days as the "white lady". but the story goes if you walk 3 castle head and see the "white lady" it's an omen of your death in the coming days. 

Thank you for reading catch you next time 

Ben McCarthy

A camera you most likely didn't know about

 I have an obsession with going onto Adverts.ie and Facebook marketplace looking for old, second hand cameras. All to use them for videos for TikTok and YouTube. 

My most recent purchase is a little bit of an odd one though, its one I've only heard of recently, and its from Samsung. Now, Samsung have done plenty of point and shoot cameras before and after this one but this one stands out just a little bit. 

It's the Samsung Galaxy Camera 2. This camera came out in 2014 replacing the first one which came out in 2012. Coming with a 1/2.3-inch sensor and equipped with the equvilent of a 23-483mm lens. It comes well equppied for most situations.  This camera is an oddball becuase it uses the android system on the back. For the technerds who may or may not be reading this it runs the jellybean 4.3 android  system. However, you can't make any phone calls or send text off of it. but you could play older phone games  and still access the internet through google chrome. 

Have had a few test runs with this camera will update when futher along with photos and videos 

Coppinger's court abandoned 1600's house

 Earlier this month, January, I travelled down to West Cork, Ireland to see the abandoned fortified house known as Coppinger's Court and to get some photos and videos of the spot. 

Coppinger's court, located near Rosscarbery, was built in 1616 for/by Sir Walter Coppinger. 

Walter Coppingers was a well know money lender/loan shark whichever you prefer to call him. His plan was to build a small town around his house but was opposed by the other locals at the time. If someone would disagree with his ideas the story goes he would hang the person or people from one of the sides of the house, because of this there has been reports of hauntings in the house. People have reported to have heard screaming at night or have felt like they're being watched. 

One story is that, the screams are from Sir Walter himself, the story says he died in a fit of rage when he couldn't execute a servent of his on a Sunday. Another story says the house was burned down by his servents after he told them that he was going out to settle an argument with a neighbour and if he didn't return by a certain hour. Sir Walter would win the argument but forgot about his instruction after going out to celebrate with alot of food and wine. 

On Wikipedia it says the house was burned down in 1641 during an attack in the Irish rebellion.

 Sir Walter Coppinger died in 1939. The house was taken over by his brother Dominic, despite Walter having several sons. Now the house is left in ruins with barely anything done to it since.. 

Hope ye enjoyed the little story of what I could find online of the place. Here's some photos of the place.. 

Thanks for reading 

Ben Mc.

What's my new camera set up

 So, when I first did these blogs six to seven years ago I was using a Canon 750D. Which very much served it's purpose to learn and grow my photography on. I got that camera in November of 2016 and used it until mid 2021. I'll add some photos here to for some context of whay my photography  was like with it 

In 2021 I finally upgrade the camera(or let it finally rest) and got myself a Sony A7Riii along with the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 which is a small upgrade but I was delighted with the results I was getting with it and I still am fours years later. Over the next year or so I added the sony 16-35mm F4 and the Sigma 150-600mm to my set up I kinda really missed getting wildlife shots cause I pretty much stopped using the Canon at this stage. 

With the Sony and lenses I was improving my photography once again and my shots where getting better as well. Partly cause of the experience I already had, partly cuase of all the extra features and functions on the A7Riii

So, I used the Canon 750D for around 4 and a half years and I'm coming up to 4 years with the Sony this May, and I have no plans on getting rid of it any time soon. 

Anyway thank you for reading I will finish this blog of with a few photo from the Sony. 

Ben McCarthy

Long time, no Blog

 It's been awhile since I've done a blog here, about 6 years actually. Im going to start doing Blogs again in the coming weeks. Can't remeber why I stopped posting these to be exact I did enjoy writing them.. 

What to expect in the coming blogs is Photography content mainly, I have updated my camera system(s) and expanded a bit, but more to come on that later. Will be going more in depth now over the last time I did these as I have a little bit more experience in the field. 

I have also more Video work done as well. My Youtube channel will be getting back into action as well.  

For now I will keep it short and sweet so this is it for my first blog back 

Thank you for reading and hope you stick around 

Ben McCarthy.

wildlife

As of late I have been doing a lot more wildlife photography and videography. I’ve been finding getting these shots really interesting.  I found getting the shot of the squirrel that I’ll have down below challenging to get as if they hear a noise, they run away so I had to be really quiet and hide away from it. Getting the squirrel took about 8 months to get. The reason I wanted to get the squirrel is because at the start of April my mother got a new iPad and got a photo of the squirrel when we went out to Fota. The photo turned out very pixelated so I made it my mission to get the squirrel

I stayed out of the way and kept quiet as I said, I couldn’t move much either when I was taking them as it had very sensitive to sound. luckily there wasn't many people around it stuck around for awhile. 

It was feeding for the squirrel so it was probably a bit easier than usual to capture him on photo I was actually able to get a couple videos of him 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_y91XWMVQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzqZJc3icXM

Hope you enjoyed this short blog. I'll post more as i get them up here as well 

So, its been over a years since I uploaded a blog up onto here and I thought there's no better way to get started then putting up my assignment for Media Analysis from college. I did the assignment on the monetization on YouTube and all the the problems surrounding it. Hope you enjoy it 

 Demonetization on YouTube

For my assignment on media ownership I’m going to talk about the issues surrounding demonetization on YouTube, on people/business’s channels.

To start I am going to explain what demonetization and monetization mean in regards to YouTube and the content creators, it’s when a content creator uploads a video or several videos onto YouTube and have the ability to run ads on or next to these videos, this is called monetization. If one of these videos aren’t deemed by YouTube to be advertiser friendly it becomes demonetized, so they can’t run ads on the video and make money from their content. Over the last few years this has become an issue because of the following reasons. 

We have to go back to 2012 where YouTube made changes regarding demonetization because some terrorist organisation were able to place ads on videos they uploaded, when these advertisers found out they got onto YouTube to change how a video would be able to get monetized.

However, YouTube only decided to let this be public knowledge in 2016, when content creators started to notice the yellow dot alongside one or more of their recent videos they uploaded. It was when the stories started to pick up a bit of traction with news sites and news channels on YouTube.

In the guidelines of uploading content onto YouTube they say if the video contains a news item that is deemed sensitive even if no graphic imagery is shown it is not advertiser friendly and will be hit. Even if they didn’t have the sensitive new story as part of the tags or the title of the video

They kept to their guns with creators on the platform such as Casey Neistat, one of YouTube’s biggest creators, uploaded a video about the shooting at a Las Vegas shooting in 2016. In the video, he did not show any images from the aftermath of the shooting or did he show the gun man’s face. In the video, he also stated that he’s going GoFundMe fundraiser page to help the victims of the shooting and any money he got from the video through ads he would send towards the help of the victims of the shooting.

However, the video was demonetized because he was talking about a sensitive situation. So, he could not send any extra money towards the help.  The statement YouTube made to him when he questioned them about it was, ‘no matter the intent of the video our rules are our rules.’ Which to me is bullshit because how are people supposed to spread relative news, awareness or raise funds if they can’t earn somewhat of living off the content they create and upload.

It turns out that Jimmy Kimmel, a big talk show host in America who has a YouTube channel for clips from his show, uploaded a video talking about the same incident in Las Vegas, had ads from GMC (A car company in America) running on the video. So, this makes it seem like they have one rule for one side and another rule for the other. YouTube didn’t give a proper statement about this and we do not know if Jimmy Kimmel’s team has an advertising department  and is able to run ads on YouTube themselves

This doesn’t just cover people who talk about sensitive news topics like Casey and Jimmy, but creators who would talk about depression and anxiety would get hit with this as well. So, people can’t even talk about their personal lives and be able to sustain a liveable wage from the content they create. In a way, these people are put through a tougher time because of it. They could now believe that nobody even wants to hear about it on YouTube because they can’t run ads on their videos. 

About a year later, Casey made another video in which he talks to the Indonesian president which was just a basic sit-down interview with him. This video got demonetized as well. In the video, he has a walk around the capital city has a talk at convention then he has the sit-down talk with the president. It’s a basic one question sit-down nothing sensitive or controversial about the sit-down or the video itself yet it still got the demonetized.

YouTube has not been clear with its creators on the issue of demonetization and what could cause a video to be ‘hit’. They are doing everything they can to keep the money coming in from advertisers then trying to keep the creators informed about the issues, the reason their website is so big now, the reason they have such a vast income with ads on their site. 

Another big YouTube personality, Philip DeFranco, also had a big problem with his news channel. Philip talks about topics that may be deemed sensitive to some people. When the news broke about the demonetization Philip and his crew found out that the majority of his videos got hit with the yellow dot.

Philip was one the people who ‘led the charge’ into getting an explanation from YouTube about the whole situation. From when this story broke Philip stated from when he started out on YouTube, he built out his company in a way that in the future he would not need to depend on the ads that run on his videos, also known as AdSense.

However, he knows that if a bigger YouTuber like himself, who now has 6.3 million subscribers, left it to smaller channels to talk about this issue probably would not get an answer from an official from YouTube.  So, he kept contacting a representative for an answer and kept talking about it in his videos that he uploads daily. 

This is when YouTube came out with the statement about the changes to monetization on channels. In the statement, they said the changes came about because of pressure from advertiser companies who threatened to pull their money and ads from YouTube.

Eventually, YouTube changed how they dealt with the demonetization of channels. They gave creators the chance to try to regain ads onto their videos. But, with this turn around to keep content creators happy comes another smaller issue. The amount of time it took for the review of the strike on the channel to be overturned and ads to be reinstated to their video they usually are past the majority of views where they would make their money off the video.

While it may seem like a turn in the right direction, but people still lost out on money for no reason. This turnaround took the phrase, ‘while everything changes everything remains the same’, to heart. YouTube gave their creators the option to get a strike on their video reviewed. The time it would take YouTube to review the strike on a video the creator’s video would already have gained the majority of the views on the video, so it would make very little difference to their overall monthly income from their content.

Recently, YouTube introduced a new system for being able to monetize a channel and its content. This new rule was for the channel to have 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours which is the equivalent of 166 days’ worth of viewership from people. This at first seemed like a problem for smaller creators who were getting the views but were not able to gain 1000 or more subscribers. While some bigger creators like Peter McKinnon who made a whole video on it said, when he started out on YouTube at one stage, he had 800 subscribers and about 1600 watch minutes so not close to the new guidelines (rules) but that was before the guidelines and for all that watch minutes, he made 0.55 cents. His reasoning behind the new guidelines was that people would not have a big enough revenue for the monetization 

In review, YouTube have done their best to keep both sponsors and content creators happy with new guidelines about monetization on videos. But, they did it in a way for the sponsors to stay and drove a wedge between them and the creators who made the site what it is today with how they implemented the changes and their lack of listening and response to criticism about the changes to the site from user and content creators.

  YouTube did their best in a bad situation when those videos started to get attention and could not get it sorted properly for the betterment of the website in the short term if not the long term as well.