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DPReview.com to close

dpreview.com

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Re: DPReview.com to close

#151

Post by modzu »

silisili wrote: post #96
antisthenes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you honestly think your phone camera is a valid replacement for medium/large format film, then you were never serious about photography in the first place. For all their improvements, smartphones are still extremely limited by sensor size and the size of optics. Those are terrible, compared to even the entry level DSLRs. I'm glad it works for your use case (although I can't imagine what that is), but any decent ph…

The vast, vast, vast majority of pictures are viewed on a 6ish inch screen. You'll have real trouble telling much difference there. Now if you're blowing things up into a poster, it becomes much more apparent, granted, but it's not a common use case.

not only that, but Google magic eraser made my holiday photos appear like i had my own private island and yacht and i was always happy and smiling and looking at the camera and the sunset and skies, oh my! it just lights up my instas. i don't get what real cameras even do, they have something to do with reality?

seriously though, not all the kids will be coopted into this, and will find cameras are still instruments for artistic expression. but for that we hardly need dpreview and its obsession with optical sharpness and perpetually reviewing every camera in existence as "almost good enough"

Re: DPReview.com to close

#152

Post by ben7799 »

Definitely sad as this is a site that has been around and is/was an important early website.

However I don't really think it's much of a loss for photography. DPreview was always pushing the whole equipment acquisition as the goal part of photography that always seems so weird. They would regularly talk about how you needed some new camera and willfully ignore alteration to your technique that got better results without needing the new equipment. Their forums and comments were always ultra dramatic and controversial with all kinds of brand bashing & cheerleading and other stuff that had little to do with photography.

I think it was OK at first as all the tech was new, as time went on it became more and more counterproductive.

I actually think smartphones getting people off the train of ever fancier cameras every few years actually helped photography due to:

- Better UI

- don't need to relearn a new camera constantly

- Always have the phone, so everyone got more practice

- Forced use of prime lenses made more people start moving around to frame their photos

- People started to forget about the tool and just use it

I'm still holding a pretty high value amount of camera gear, probably higher value than any other hobby I have. But it doesn't get used as much, and I"m constantly thinking of selling it off. I guess a lot of that being a result of no longer really caring about the specific types of photos the expensive camera gear facilitates.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#153

Post by citrin_ru »

Zak wrote: post #65
giobox wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think times have changed though, DPReviews fortunes arguably have mirrored the fortunes of the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market. The site (along with flickr.com...) was a daily visit for me 15 years ago at the height of the DSLR boom, but I honestly now can't remember the last time I checked. ILC/DSLR annual sales volume peaked in ~2010 I believe, and has rapidly declined ever since really, another victi…

Consumer fixed-lens cameras are much more dead as a market than ILCs, and those made up the bulk of camera sales. Almost everyone who isn't doing photography as a profession or serious hobby is satisfied with smartphone cameras now.

There is one more use case not covered by smartphones but actually covered by fixed-lens cameras - taking photos in rainy weather (which in some parts of the world is hard to avoid) or underwater. While there are waterproof smartphones, capacitive touchscreen becomes unusable as soon as it catches even a few drops of rain or water from wet fingers. A camera like Fujifilm XP140 works well in rain as long as there are no drops on the lens and under water if you want to make a shot of marine life.

And while there are gloves which allows to use touchscreen using it in the snow is not the best experience either - pressing a physical button is easier.

I expect many smartphones to have quality better then this camera but in some conditions it's hard/impossible to use a smartphone. And quality is enough to capture some moments from a family vocation.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#155

Post by pcurve »

asdff wrote: post #66

Here's a 2007 article from when they were acquired by Amazon. It seems at the time this made sense. Jeff Bezos identified the website as the source of truth in the digital camera field and sought to own that source and have it direct customers to his website. The founders were naturally overwhelmed and busy as founders of any company are, and were promised resources to make their jobs easier and let them build out th…

I cannot believe that was 16 years ago!

Re: DPReview.com to close

#156

Post by codersfocus »

thih9 wrote: post #146
codersfocus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be intentional then. Instead of having that content out there again where they will presumably have to pay affiliate commissions to the new owner, they must've calculated it's more profitable to just get rid of it.

In this case why not keep the old content online at least? And continue paying affiliate commissions to themselves?

From their announcement, that appears to be their plan. They said they will keep the site up for an limited amount of time. It's speculation on how long "limited" is. Months, years? There might be some clues with how quickly they shut down alexa.com "In December 2021, Amazon announced that it would be shutting down its Alexa Internet subsidiary. The service was then discontinued on May 1, 2022." which would put it at 5 months.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#158

Post by heipei »

citrin_ru wrote: post #153
Zak wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer fixed-lens cameras are much more dead as a market than ILCs, and those made up the bulk of camera sales. Almost everyone who isn't doing photography as a profession or serious hobby is satisfied with smartphone cameras now.

There is one more use case not covered by smartphones but actually covered by fixed-lens cameras - taking photos in rainy weather (which in some parts of the world is hard to avoid) or underwater. While there are waterproof smartphones, capacitive touchscreen becomes unusable as soon as it catches even a few drops of rain or water from wet fingers. A camera like Fujifilm XP140 works well in rain as long as there are…

The iPhone is waterproof and you can take a photo with the physical volume up/down key. I've used it underwater a couple of times, none of my other proper cameras would be able to do that. My two cents.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#159

Post by ghaff »

giobox wrote: post #9
ragona wrote: post #3

Dang, I'm actually surprisingly sad about this. DPReview is _the_ site for extremely detailed analysis of cameras. When I want to buy something I go through their report first, and it's always extremely informative. It feels like this kind of layoff is part of an end of an era. Amazon used to NEVER cancel projects that customers were using. They just straight up Did. Not. Do. It. I once had to get approval from my VP…

I do think times have changed though, DPReviews fortunes arguably have mirrored the fortunes of the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market. The site (along with flickr.com...) was a daily visit for me 15 years ago at the height of the DSLR boom, but I honestly now can't remember the last time I checked. ILC/DSLR annual sales volume peaked in ~2010 I believe, and has rapidly declined ever since really, another victi…

I still use my Fujifilm XE-3 from time to time but use my Canon DSLR rarely--mostly for situations that benefit from very wide angle or telephoto lenses. And, yeah, if I'm going on a trip where I'm mostly only going to take some snaps, much less a local hike, I'll almost certainly just take my smartphone. And this is someone who still has a Flickr Pro subscription and used to spend many many hours in the darkroom.

I can imagine buying a new Fujifilm body but not sure I can imagine getting a new Canon at least so long as my current one works.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#160

Post by khazhoux »

A real shame. I've been visiting dpreview since 2000.

Just a couple of days ago, I noticed all their review videos on front page featured the same presenter, and it gave impression they're down to just a couple of people running the site.

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