Hey, so it's been another year of making these YouTube videos, and so much has happened this year. I moved into this new

apartment, and I did things on this channel I don't think I've ever done before. I worked with another designer on

a project video for the first time. I filmed in more public locations than I've ever done before, which has always

made me uncomfortable. And working with Overwork, we brought the iPhone stand by Dr. Production, marking this as the first

time I've ever worked with the Print Farm, which was so cool. Oh, and we crossed half a million subscribers—that is wild!

Thank you all so much for the support, and I'm very proud of the videos and projects this year. Not to give myself

too much credit, but I've made some of my all-time favorite videos this year, and I'm so excited to share with you the new

tools I got to help level up my content creation. Okay, so for the tools I got for filming, for starters, my videos are now

in 4K, and even though the old a7C can shoot in 4K, it was time to upgrade. So,

after 3 years, I got a Sony FX3. This has been my dream camera for a while now. I

won't get into all the specs, the amazing colors, and detailed reasons why I made this upgrade, but I'll share two of my

favorite things about this upgrade so far. The old a7C used to use a Bluetooth shutter remote, which is so dumb. Many of

the time-lapses I made in the past would skip or have jitters because the shutter remote would lag. With the FX3 and the

wired remote, all my time-lapses now are just buttery smooth. And the camera also makes it very clear it's recording. You

have no idea how many times I missed footage because I thought my a7C was recording, but really the battery died or

I forgot to hit the record button or something. Now there's an attachment on here from SmallRig; it's a quick release

system for their Magic Arm. I use it for a camera monitor. I'm just using a cheap monitor here; it's the same one from my

iPhone 3D scanner project years ago. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. If you guys have recommendations for a

better one, though, let me know in the comments. I like this arm setup because it keeps my whole setup fairly

lightweight. I'm not really a big fan of those super rigged-up camera setups with the cages and everything, and this also

allows me to continue using my Sony shotgun mic through the digital audio interface or whatever. Next is, I stopped

using SD cards. I now use CFexpress Type A memory cards. This was a pretty expensive upgrade, but the transfer

speeds are just wild! It's four times faster than the SanDisk Extreme Pro cards I used to use, so these have been an

absolute game-changer. They do require a dedicated card reader, though, which is kind of annoying, especially when I'm

traveling, but I think it's worth it. Now, while I was traveling, I also fell in love with these new batteries I got for

my camera and accessories. They both allow for charging via USB-C, which means I no longer need to travel with

all these giant battery chargers, so they've been super helpful. Okay, so for the lenses I've collected so far, they've

been pretty basic, but this year I really dove into some more unique lenses. First up, we got this 10mm f/2.8 lens, and it's

just so wide! Like, look at how long my fingers look! And I love that I can get super, super close to it and it doesn't

lose focus at all. It's perfect for vlogging, and it's just such a fun lens. So I was able to get so many cool and

Unique shots, all thanks to this lens. Next is this probe lens. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty hard to use. It has an

aperture of f/1.4, which means you need a crazy amount of light for it to work. It

does have a light at the end of its probe, but it doesn't really produce the most natural lighting, so I don't really

use it. Now, the lens needs to be used on a slider or a tripod because you need to be very still when you film, and

that's why it's so hard to use, but the shots are just out of this world. Now to

fix the shaky footage from not just the probe lens, but a lot of my handheld footage I filmed this year, what's really

helped me is this tool called Topaz Video AI. It's just so much better than any of the other video stabilization

tools I've used. I'm definitely starting to dabble more in these AI tools. I also used Photoshop's Generative Fill earlier

this year to fake people into my time lapses, to make it look like I was filming in a busy coffee shop when in

reality it was completely empty. Moving on, the next thing I invested in is a better storage solution. Before, I just

backed up all my videos on these little drives, which makes accessing old projects super annoying—not a safe

approach, too, because these aren't exactly designed for long-term storage. So now I'm backing up all my projects,

videos and data on my very own Synology 5-bay NAS. So when I found out Synology

had an office here in Washington, I reached out to them and was like, 'Hey!' And they sent me this whole thing. They

included five Synology hard drives and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking card. So basically, now I have my own 40 TB

A Google Drive-like service I can access online, wherever I am, while also having the speed of a hard connection.

When I'm at home. I've been wanting one of these for so many years now, so shout out to my brother and Sonology for

helping me set this whole thing up because I really don't know anything about this stuff. Okay, with my new

apartment's layout and the lower ceilings, I need to move my lights around much more, and the old stand just isn't

working for me anymore. The wheels constantly get caught in the cables; it's hitting into my walls and furniture all

the time. So this is the new light stand I got. It's basically like a C-stand, except it takes up way less footprint,

especially compared to my old stand. If you take off the grip feet around the base, it actually has a felt-like texture

underneath, so this basically lets you push it around and slide it around. It's definitely not going to be easier to

push around compared to wheels, but this way it never gets caught in the cables, and visually, this is way more

discreet. All right, now let's talk about the tools for making stuff. I want to start with something that instantly

earned a spot in my jewelry studio the second I saw it. It's from the sponsor of this video, Fantic, and it's their Fantic E1

next workstation. I've always said that an electric screwdriver makes working on 3D printers, electronics, and just so much

more fun. Well, if you're looking to grab one, I can't recommend this kit enough. It's pretty much an all-in-one workstation.

You get this workmat with magnetic areas for holding your screws, and look at where the electric precision screwdriver

is stored. Not only is this injection design crazy satisfying, but a small detail I fell in love with is that if

You drop it in straight; the screwdriver is heavy enough to lock it back in place, and that's just so satisfying.

The attention to detail is amazing, also very functional because at this location you can now charge the screwdriver via USB-C

while the workstation is closed. Now, the workstation contains basically all the tools you need for disassembling stuff,

also, it's prying tools, a bunch of different kinds of tweezers, 60 precision bits held perfectly in these magnetic

crevices, and a bunch of other tools. But my favorite thing has got to be the storage area. I often work on projects

across multiple days, which leads to me losing a lot of screws. This area perfectly stores them, and I love that

you can just close the whole thing up at the end of the day for safekeeping and open it the next day to continue from

exactly where I left off. Everything about the fantastic E1 Next workstation design is just clean, functional, and

considerate. It's really the perfect kit for any kind of DIY project, and I managed to get you guys a huge discount.

So I'll leave the Amazon link below, but on that page, if you apply the current Amazon coupon of 25% off, then use my

code "SYYJ E1 Next," you get an additional 15% off on top of that. So that's a total

of 40% off—that's a really good deal. So thank you to Fantac for this awesome

workstation, for this exclusive discount, and of course for sponsoring this portion of the video. So the most

impactful tool for me this year has to be the Bamboo Lab X1C. Even though Bamboo Lab sponsors my channel a lot now, there

was a time when they didn't even respond to my email, so I actually had to buy the X1C with my own money. Now, Bamboo Lab

also isn't paying me to say anything about their products in this video, but the only thing I'll say is what really

blew me away when I first got it was how fast this printer is. I remember one time I accidentally threw an STL I was going

to print into my old Creality Ender 3, just because of, you know, muscle memory, and I

learned what would have taken my X1C under 6 hours to 3D print, with the exact

same settings and everything, my old Ender 3 would have needed 20 hours. Yeah, that's why this 3D printer was such a

game changer for me. It really helped me increase my productivity this year, especially with those projects that required large prints. Now I still

recommend the Anycubic Mega X series printers for beginners; they're just reliable and fun to use. I loved making the iPhone standby

dock on my A1 Mini. It just also looked so much better on camera, I find, because it's an

open printer. The one thing I hate about the X1C is that it's super hard to light

for filming because it's so enclosed. I always have to light it from above, which is super annoying, but I might add some

LED lights inside this thing at some point. Maybe. Anyway, I've been pushing myself to draw more this year. There was

a time when I used to fill sketchbooks every few months, so I want to get back into that. My daily carry sketchbook now

is the white Field Notes. I love it because I can write the projects I'm working on directly on the cover, so once

I collect several of these, it'll be easy to identify the contents of each sketchbook at a glance. All right, finally,

let's talk about some stuff I got for my new apartment for productivity, starting with this new desk. It's a solid

White Ash desktop I got from Desky. My last desk was a butcher block from Ikea, and even though that was really good,

I hated that the wood slats in it were so small; so often times they kind of looked like floorboards. I remember after taking

some nice photos of the iPhone standby dock, my coworker was like, "Yo, why did you take these photos on the ground?" And yeah,

that bugged me a lot. Anyway, this new desktop has much larger slats; I barely even see their seam lines. The wood

grains are just gorgeous, and the lacquer finish is super durable, too. I also like the proportions more, too. It's the same

width as the Ikea countertop, but just a few inches deeper, and that's helped me a lot with being able to film more on my

desk now that I don't have a dinner table. Anyway, after buying this desktop, Desky actually reached out and just sent

me a bunch of additional accessories. I'm now using their desk legs, cable management tray, with their power bars

that fit perfectly into them. They also make monitor stands that match their desk finishes, but I'm probably going to

give it away. I don't think monitor stands are for me; I like my desk setups a little bit more open. But anyway, I'm

20 Tools That Made The Cut in 2024

20 Tools That Made The Cut in 2024