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DPReview.com to close

dpreview.com

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Re: DPReview.com to close

#241

Post by astrange »

Espressosaurus wrote: post #144
oktwtf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that there is some valuable content on the site, there are certainly others to fill in the spots... You want detailed look into equipment? Checkout Ken Rockwell's site[0], or byThom[1] [0]: https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm [1]: https://bythom.com/reviews--books/index.html

Ken Rockwell is a blowhard that copy/pastes info into every "review". His sharpness comparisons are laughable, as is his blatant fanboyism (which went from Nikon to Canon. It's funny to read the things he said about one brand 10 years ago and compare it to what he says about the same brand today). I would not put him into the same category as DPReview with a straight face. DPReview gave us the exposure latitude and h…

K-Rock has more than 200% the opinions of a normal human and is more than half trolling in all his reviews, but at least he knows how photography works, which is better than all the comments on this page claiming ILC digital cameras take "actual pictures" and smartphones take "fake AI pictures".

Re: DPReview.com to close

#242

Post by coldtea »

vvrm wrote: post #165
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…

> another victim of the rapid pace of improvement in smartphones It's not just the pace of improvement, but also the marketing spin. I find the strengths of smartphone camera and ILCs pretty complementary. Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions. Coincidentally it is also easier to find your ILC indoors at home when…

>DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

That's exactly the area where smartphones have been killing DSLR and mirroless for years now.

That's because of internal DSP processing, combining multiple frames, machine learning AI, etc, but to the consumer it doesn't matter: they get a clearer, more stable picture than what comes out of the DSLR/mirroless and with way less effort.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#243

Post by dahwolf »

Sure enough the camera market has drastically shrunk, but even then it is bizarre to have the singular most popular website/community in the industry, with a treasure chest of 25 years of content, only to wipe it out like it never happened.

As for this faith being "in the stars" as so many suggest, note that until very recently they had open positions. And as far as I know, plans to rebuild the entire site. It wasn't exactly on its way out, rather it seems a casualty of the current economic panic in tech.

Even if this was meant to be, the ramp down is close to criminal. Extremely short notice, no interest in selling it to another party, no plan to keep it online long term, no archival. Nothing.

This part of the web which I hold dear to my heart is on its way out. Long form, quality content, deep community (most of the time). Not only have smartphones disrupted photography itself, it has also changed content consumption. From long form to short form. Quantity over quality. And community engagement is shallow.

Discovery is under pressure as Google, Facebook, the like starve the web. The rise of AI chat bots will nuke the remaining debris.

It's quite telling that the site's 2 main reviewers (which are great) can fairly effortlessly move on as they were clever enough to build a following on their Youtube channel. You see a similar effect when journalists build a following on Twitter, in a way they become independent of their employers.

It's just another sign that independence will wreck you. Google and social media are the traffic controllers of our digital existence. You play on their platforms or you cease to play at all.

At least, you'd be on a safe and stable platform? Well, no.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#244

Post by gannonburgett »

gannonburgett wrote: post #51
Jiejeing wrote: post #47

That hurts a lot, I got in way past the point where it was acquired by amazon, but the forums were always a very nice place to interact (with its lots of weird and single-focused people, as every forum, that gives it charm). The reviews for most cameras made in the last 20 years were invaluable and very detailed, although lately they certainly struggled to maintain the quantity of content they put out in the past. I…

Former DPReview News Editor (who left after getting news of this back on January 18th) here: There were 8-10 members of the editorial team that were full time and a small group of freelancers. Add in about 8-10 more devs, who cycled in and out for the most part. So, 15-18 people, tops. By my rough math once, our entire operating cost for the year was about 10-12 minutes worth of Amazon revenue.

Worth noting this math is based on estimated numbers from what I roughly knew people’s salaries were and what server costs were roughly estimated at. I had no first-hand knowledge of the numbers, as I wasn’t allowed to view that info as a contractor.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#245

Post by Clamchop »

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…

They ran an online discounted fashion outlet called MyHabit some years ago. I used it often and I'm sure there were at least ten more like me.

But they shuttered it.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#246

Post by pixelmonkey »

Sad news.

A guy named Ken Rockwell runs a solo operation publishing reviews of cameras and lenses across the DSLR / mirrorless ILC market.

https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm

Example review of the recently released Canon R7 (a nice mirrorless camera I own):

https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/r7.htm

Note that his review style is to start with sample images, and then kick off his prose/text review. So you have to scroll a few pages until the "Introduction". That starts here:

https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/r7.htm#intro

Re: DPReview.com to close

#247

Post by Clamchop »

akho wrote: post #169
vvrm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> another victim of the rapid pace of improvement in smartphones It's not just the pace of improvement, but also the marketing spin. I find the strengths of smartphone camera and ILCs pretty complementary. Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions. Coincidentally it is also easier to find your ILC indoors at home when…

> Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions. I find the opposite. Proper cameras are much more flexible and plain better when there's enough light. Inside, without a flash, you'll not get a great photo anyway, so might as well benefit from “computational” fakery.

A camera with a swiveling flash (almost always a separate unit) can yield stunning photos in dim indoor conditions. If you have a white wall or ceiling, bam, tons of diffuse light without any more props.

Only available on a traditional camera.

But even fewer people will bother with all that.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#249

Post by riversflow »

mrandish wrote: post #73

Wow... I've been reading their comprehensive reviews and news for over 15 years. DPR got me into DSLR videography as a hobby which I've spent well over $10k on – much of it at Amazon. This really sucks as I don't know of another source I consider as authoritative for objective, thorough reviews and analysis of not only product but technologies and trends. Super disappointed in Amazon for not at least keeping the 25 y…

> I don't agree with those saying mobile photography/videography has (or will soon) make DSLR/mirrorless irrelevant.

I like to go backpacking. I used to always take my Full Frame Camera and a couple of lenses, after several years of going with the same crew, they finally convinced me that I should just leave the extra pounds behind and use my phone.

I won't do it again. The difference in the image quality, if you actually look at it, and not just scroll it, is night and day, and from my understanding of optics there is no way that it will ever be comparable.

In my personal opinion if you are trying to make photographic art, to really capture beauty, a smartphone camera is incredibly limiting. You can do it, just like you can make art with a disposable camera, however the rendering is too utilitarian and the ability to capture fine details will always be lacking. You can get moments quite well, perhaps even better than a ILC, I find "Live" photos particularly charming, and moments can be very beautiful. But again, my subjective opinion on aesthetics is that to capture things that are already very beautiful in their own right, like a landscape at sunset, a waterfall, or a Stag in the woods require fairly precise equipment–not algorithmic de-noising.

I am extremely sad about DPReview closing, it is an extremely valuable resource for comparing lenses. I will forever hold this against Amazon.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#250

Post by JenrHywy »

bradlys wrote: post #46
asdff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, there's another boom currently going on. The mirrorless boom, and this site is the gold standard for that one as well. Now there is no home, and its much harder to gleam the differences that are actually meaningful between these many mirrorless cameras (and new dslrs that do get made).

a "boom" is an overstatement. The camera industry overall is dying and struggling. We're down to something like 10% of camera sales from 2010. There is no boom. There is a transition from DSLR to mirrorless for the few existing dedicated camera photographers out there.

And yet, popular cameras like the Fujifilm X100V are selling for above retail because demand is outstripping supply.
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