Tony Northrup Admits He Was Completely Wrong About Drones

Tony Northrup uploaded a video in July 2018 which discussed his thoughts on drones and why he thought you probably shouldn't buy one. This video was met with a lot of criticism from many people especially from those who had already bought a drone. In a recent video however, Northrup seems to be changing his tune. 

How is it possible that someone such as Northrup could offer such ridiculous advice about drones while owning a bunch himself? I mean sure he's probably built up a great deal of experience with them and come across many of the issues around filming with a drone. Also he didn't exactly say that no one should ever buy a drone and simply wanted to point out some of the drawbacks so people are aware of what they're getting into; which is actually really useful and good to know, but even still, how could he? Fortunately, Northrup has clearly found sense as of late and decided to reconsider his position on drones. The question that remains is if Northrup so easily flip flops on his points, then how can we ever trust him again? I mean does he even know what he's talking about? 

Yes, the answer is "yes" because what's relevant today may not be relevant tomorrow. It's brilliant that laws are changing and drones are becoming cheaper and more effective, so it might actually be a good idea to add a drone to your ever growing list of equipment. 

Check out the full video linked above and watch as Northrup tries to dig himself out of this one. 

Usman Dawood's picture

Usman Dawood is a professional architectural photographer based in the UK.

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41 Comments

"Tony Northrup Admits He Was Completely Wrong About Drones"

Hes wrong on a lot more then just drones

So is everyone else including you.

That response was totally uncalled for...

Why? it's a factual statement. All of us are wrong all the time on a ton of issues.

It wasn't a necessary response, as the original OP was correct about Tony being flagrantly incorrect about a multitude of things he posts, and then frequently back peddles despite originally putting out bad information as gospel.

Also the response could've been worded a bit better so it didn't make Usman come across so arrogant and obnoxious.

No response is strictly necessary. :/

Most of us don’t make money out of that though, right?

Haven’t you noticed a certain pattern with Northrups? One day they criticise something and a month later they make a video about how they were wrong.

He tells things with no room for doubt, everything is white or black, untill he decides the opposite. I stopped watching his videos a long time ago because of that.

No Tony does not just make mistakes like everyone else, he continuously lies and misleads people year after year, for no apparent reason, because he's obviously an intelligent man. For example he continuously pushes falsehoods about crop sensors gathering less light, total light, only working well with APSC specific lenses. Just the other day he tried to say full frame lenses are less sharp on crop sensor camera's, which is actually 180 degrees opposite of the truth as they are actually always sharper using only the center portion of the lens. He says things, like "the new Canon 90D has no good lenses for it!" What? Like as if ALL Canon EF lenses somehow don't work on a 90D? So I'm sorry Tony is either a moron (doubtful), knows nothing about photography or just likes misleading beginners. If it was just a one off "mistake" I would totally agree with you, but it's constant and never ending complete misleading and or WRONG!

This is why I don't watch either of them, because at this point, after all the BS they've peddled to unsuspecting viewers, I wouldn't trust them if they said rain was wet.

I agree. Tony Northrup is a calculating deceiver as far as I can see. His YouTube channel is full of annoying click-bait. On top of that, his defamatory hit piece about photographer Steve McCurry was blatantly false.

What else is new?

Still waiting for the videos on Steve McCurry, shooting JPEGs, ISO and many more subjects about how he wrong on those topics also.

Me too. Still waiting for a massive, groveling personal apology to Steve McCurry. Northrup's video about McCurry is one of the meanest, nastiest videos on YouTube. It was a sloppy hit piece built on lies and errors, calculated to exploit and abuse a great photographer's name for clicks for the Northrup gear review channel. Absolutely disgusting.

Notable post and transparent. I am not a fan of Mr Northrup and his style. But I think he nailed it on this article

I don't really get why Tony gets so much hate on here. He seems like a genuinely good person and puts out a lot of free educational videos to help photographers. You may disagree with some of the things he says but at least he contributes quite a bit to the photography community, which is more than most of us can say.

Right!!

I just checked and they have over 1000 free videos on their channel so I would say they contribute quite a bit. Of course, they need to make money too so I don't see the issue with them plugging some of their stuff as they go.

Advertisements as in before the videos/midrolls? Considering the videos are free to the viewers I would consider that contributing. But to each their own.

I don't think that should be the basis of whether he contributes or not. Youtube ads don't really pay that much anyway. The videos are free and educational to the viewers so I view that as contributing.

Haha I certainly understand where you're coming from, we just disagree on this one so you're right, no big deal :)

"You may disagree with some of the things he says but at least he contributes quite a bit to the photography community"

If you disagree with what someone says, you're probably not going to be a fan when they start putting out as an authority on any topic. Additionally, you'd probably be annoyed that what you might view as false information is being used to teach people. The few posts on this thread haven't said anything about him as a person. They're calling out points he's made.

I see a lot of comments every time he's brought up that just say he's wrong or "what else is new" without providing any substance, those are the people I'm referring to. He communicates pretty well with his audience from what I've seen so if enough people have an issue with something he's said he'd probably be willing to discuss it further on a podcast or video.

I have no problem disagreeing with someone on some things and still taking their advice on others.

His videos provide all the substance (or lack there of).

I get your point but it's not the job of everyone else to proof all of the content someone else makes. If someone is wrong, they should probably to a better job of coming up with information that's more accurate.

I wasn't trying to say that it was everyone's job to do so. I was trying to say that with over a 1000 videos of course there are going to be a few mistakes along the way and I like that he keeps open dialogue of sorts with his community so that things like that can be discussed further. I'm not saying he's perfect, I just don't like when people jump on the hate bandwagon without contributing anything to the discussion.

Anything he affirms is white or black, there is no place for grey, though the word is, and he's offen wrong or misleading by lack of deep knowledge of his subjects, his goal being to make the buzz, whatever the quality of the containt.
So, no, his channel is not a good contribution in our community.

He gets so much hate b/c he's always flip/flopping on issues and chastising people or manufacturers (wrongly). Personally, I think he does it on purpose then tries to take the other side of his original message.

"Genuinely good person"? I don't think so. He made a horrifically defamatory video about Steve McCurry, a great photographer. In the video, Northrup made up a blatantly false story about the famous Afghan Girl photo and sold it to his million viewers as the untold "true story". Anything for clicks.

I just watched his two videos on the subject as I was unfamiliar with them. What about it was blatantly false? He has sources for his story and communicated with the McCurry gallery. His follow up video seemed to rectify some small mistakes but nothing that was detrimental to the story. Can you elaborate on what you had a problem with?

It would take a long time to go through ALL of the errors in detail. Here are just two big ones. Tony claimed that Sharbat said she was "scared to death" of the photographer. But there is no source for that. Because she never said that. Tony made it up ... put words in her mouth! Tony also claimed that Steve pressured Sharbat into removing a burka, which she was very strictly required to wear. Tony uses this to portray Steve as violating a young girl's personal boundaries by pressuring her to remove essential clothing. Thus Tony drew a devious — but false — #MeToo predator-creep parallel. Any responsible journalist would have examined the several photos of her that day and seen that she wasn't wearing a burka and thus — obviously — wasn't pressured into removing one. Instead, she was wearing a headscarf, and definitely was not required to cover her face with it. Photos and videos from Afghanistan show that girls were not required to wear burkas or cover their faces. So the whole video is based on the false premise that a culturally insensitive man photographer used some authority/power in a refugee classroom to exploit and endanger a young girl for his planned magazine cover. Basically it accuses Steve of committing a major photojournalistic sin. The follow-up video in which Tony admits to getting just "one" thing wrong implicitly re-affirms the rest of the original video (and lets it remain on YouTube), thus doubling down on the false narrative, bringing additional clicks for Tony's channel. A responsible person would have taken down the original video as its most potent criticism was based on an embarrassing dumb error. But instead, Tony doubles his clicks, by keeping both videos up. There's more ... such as when Tony uses a clip from a TV interview with Sharbat that makes Steve look bad ... except that Tony cuts the clip just before she says something very positive about the famous photo. Tony presented his false story as the "Untold True Story" and actually convinced a lot his viewers that this was the true story (evident from many comments praising Tony's "courage" for telling it, etc.). But it was built on errors, slapped together by a non-journalist who failed to follow any journalistic principles. When Tony published his "notes" which allegedly had sources for all of his claims, it became apparent that he did no journalism. He interviewed NOBODY! Instead, he just watched some videos, mis-read a Wikipedia page, got basic facts wrong, and slapped together his own errors (such as Tony's false claim that the photo has "negative space" for a magazine logo) into a hit piece that still stands on YouTube, defaming Steve McCurry every day. I think the two videos are examples of a YouTuber publishing sloppy, misleading and hurtful garbage to a very large subscriber base (bigger than some news organizations have) ... all for clicks. The grotesque irony here is that this camera-reviewer *pretending* to do journalism abused his huge YouTube power to take down one of the most gifted, sensitive and brave photojournalists in the history of photography, and to poison thousands of people's views about the famous photo. It's irresponsible. Anyway, that's the short version. There's more, but it would take days of detailed work to explain everything Tony got wrong and how harmful it is. Unfortunately nobody has time for that. So most people, like yourself, will go away with a very wrong impression.

It's great that Tony does educational stuff. It's not great that he has a hilariously poor relationship with facts & accuracy.

I basically learned photography from Tony Northrup. I started late (4-5 years ago) and can honestly say I learned the vast majority of beginner level, and maybe some intermediate photography from him. He adds a lot to the community (even with the clickbait and flip flopping).

GoPro tried and failed. It would be pretty difficult for an American company to get their foot in the door at this point if only because they would be hard pressed to beat DJI's price point even if they could wedge themselves into the market.

The answer is software, DJI has been developing and refining their software for a long time now. Many other companies have tried to release 'premium' consumer drones, but they're all basically flying potatoes that'll blindly crash into anything (or in GoPro's case fall out of the sky). Skydio (who I think are American) seem to be close, but there's still a bunch of fundamentals missing from their offering based on what the industry is saying.

Drones are still iffy IMO. There seems to be less and less places you can fly them and a lot of hoops to jump through.

Tony who?

Didn't he have a free course on how to pass the drone exam?

He is usually wrong, so yeah, doesn't surprise me at all.

Tony is a good guy, he usually gives pretty sound advice and has a good sense of humor. I don't get all the hate towards him.

Photo sites seem to be full of negativity, in general. Not sure why.