what cinematography taught me about technology
After leaving Protocol Labs last year I spent months diving deep into cameras and cinematography. In the process I learned a valuable mindset WRT tech.
I went deep, wayyy deep. Like, "reading the American Society of Cinematographers’ Cinematography Manual books (plural) and recreating experiments within them to test and understand my equipment" deep. "Flashing open source firmware to old cameras and adpting them to use old 16mm film lenses" deep. "Up until 5 in the morning A/B testing how individual camera lenses within the same sets affect image color profiles before the rising sun changes the light in the studio" deep.
I was lead into this after watching a video by a cinematographer titled “Own your sensor” about how to truly understand and get the most out of your camera, whatever it may be. How to understand what are its strengths, its weaknesses, and what is available to you stylistically because of this combination of traits. How you can use the limitations of your tools, not just to avoid them but to your own creative stylistic advantage.
This changed everything for me. No longer was I trying to find the perfect camera and lenses, instead I was understanding the true power of what I already had.
I feel the same way about AI.
That’s why “owning” my AI has become a driving factor as I learn more about using it in my daily work. Having my own local toolset that I can configure to taste, experiment with, costs me nothing, and is not at the whims of the ever-changing marketplace.
No longer am I hunting for the latest big thing, a race that’s impossible to keep up with right now, but instead actually learning deeply how to maximize my tools to create with what I have.
Does it have limitations? Absolutely. Can those limitations become my strength? They already have. When I inevitably use more powerful tools in the future, that power won't be wasted on me, because I'm already discovering ways to squeeze more from less.
Own your tools. Understand them inside and out, and embrace your constraints — that’s where the real magic happens.
Learn more about my private personal ai toolkit project here.
