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DPReview.com to close

dpreview.com

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Re: DPReview.com to close

#321

Post by numpad0 »

WWLink wrote: post #273
vwoolf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of people discussing sales numbers; here is one article showing the decline in terms of both lens and interchangeable lens cameras shipped: https://bythom.com/newsviews/real-camera-economics.html . Lenses appear to have declined by about 66% from 2012 to 2022. Cameras, by a little under 50%. This decline makes sense to me. I have a Fuji XT4 which I like a lot, but, also, starting around the iPhone 13…

"starting around the iPhone 13, phones got really good" -exasperated sigh- I wish I could agree but I just can't. I feel around that point pictures taken by phone cameras stopped looking real. They started forcing stuff like HDR and AI correction and very heavy handed noise filtering. Looking back at my old pictures from the 2010s, I think my canon digital elph took better pictures than my phones do now lol. I realiz…

To me they do seem to be getting “better”, in air quotes, I think due to ILCs supplying ground truth data…

IMO the real problem is that there aren’t much connection between that photos you like and people. “If we take the S.D. Card out of the proper camera and insert it into a proper Computer…” just don’t cut it anymore.

They only have a phone each. You have to be able to get the photo to the phone to social media before the flash unit finishes recharging(on fresh batteries of course). Else they’ll lose interest.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#322

Post by rockzom »

dahwolf wrote: post #243

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…

The lack of archival is the biggest problem I have with any of this.

Imagine if Wikipedia were taken offline in 2048, with one month notice.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#323

Post by jjav »

johnvanommen wrote: post #71
bradlys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a $600 DSLR that I bought at Costco on a whim, fifteen years ago. Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade. Camera phone lenses do alright when it's sunny outside, but DSLRs kill it when it comes to medium and low light.

> Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade.

Exactly. I can't identify at all with comments saying phone cameras are good. Convenient, yes I get it (although personally I keep my phone in my backpack so pulling it out takes only slightly less effort than pulling out the camera, only because the phone is smaller, but I realize most people keep their phone glued to their hand).

But even my 15+ year old DSLR (a low-end Nikon D40) takes better photos than my 2022 smartphone. I have large (4ft wide) cropped prints on the wall from that camera which have great quality, the And my newer DSLRs are even better than that.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#324

Post by jjav »

op00to wrote: post #74
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.

I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

> I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

Only you can judge what is "everything I want", but that's a surprising statement.

Phone cameras can't come close to the quality of even a full frame DSLR, anything medium or large format is light years ahead of phone quality.

So I can only think that quality wasn't what you needed/wanted, but then why would you have been shooting large format film?

Re: DPReview.com to close

#325

Post by throwaway290 »

valarauko wrote: post #209
throwaway290 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research before buying, troubleshooting after buying. I'm not a pro but a diehard enthusiast so most months I don't visit it but when sorting out gear I can spend days on this stuff and most of it is on DPR because that's the only place where people congregate specifically to discuss gear's obscure features and niche applications like astrophotography. Can it do bracketing and interval shooting together? How bad is r…

I've spent a fair bit of time on the site, but only on the reviews. Sounds like the forums were where the real action is/was.

If you needed it you knew it. You would Google something and the only result would be from a DPR thread. I didn't go to the forum specifically or even registered there.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#326

Post by jjav »

asdff wrote: post #48
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

Sites like these are also dying breeds with their days numbered. Informationally dense, text and figure, lightweight websites are not being made anymore. Sites like dpreview or Ken Rockwell are pretty clearly holdovers from days long gone and sensibilities long abandoned. Today, all that information that could be read in 5 minutes on dpreview is drip fed to you in video form from a gesticulating talking head, over 25…

> Informationally dense, text and figure, lightweight websites are not being made anymore.

I want you to be very wrong, but I guess you're sadly mostly correct.

Informationally dense, text and figure, lightweight websites is all I want, those are the only useful ones.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#327

Post by lmm »

mod50ack wrote: post #301
vwoolf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of people discussing sales numbers; here is one article showing the decline in terms of both lens and interchangeable lens cameras shipped: https://bythom.com/newsviews/real-camera-economics.html . Lenses appear to have declined by about 66% from 2012 to 2022. Cameras, by a little under 50%. This decline makes sense to me. I have a Fuji XT4 which I like a lot, but, also, starting around the iPhone 13…

Phones definitely cannot compete with ILCs in the applications that photographers use. Phones fundamentally lack the larger sensors and specialist lenses that allow ILCs to produce the images they do. Yes, phones can blur stuff to fake bokeh, but even very basic things are not accounted for in phones. What phones can do is replace dedicated cameras for the basic photography needs of many consumers. Point and shoot ca…

> Phones definitely cannot compete with ILCs in the applications that photographers use.

That's overly broad. A lot of what photographers do doesn't need those capabilities (hell, some photographers work with literal children's toys), and the niches where you need them are getting smaller all the time. There are a few things you still can't photograph well with a phone (e.g. birds in flight), but that's a long way from being all photography.

> The fact that you can't stop down the aperture on the lenses in 99% of phones is a major limitation.

My last two phones have been able to do this, FWIW.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#328

Post by Espressosaurus »

astrange wrote: post #313
Espressosaurus wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just say I'm not impressed with his compositions and his "color". There are plenty of other people who do a much better job with their photography that I find more worth reading. DPReview were one, Photography Life, Cameralabs, and on the video side Nigel Danson (I don't like his clickbait thumbnails, but his content is top notch for landscape), and Backcountry Gallery for wildlife. About the only good thing I…

The problem is that he has all the correct opinions, but since he has every opinion, he also has all the incorrect ones. But he's right when he says resolution doesn't matter even if you're making a billboard, SLRs are not the best kind of camera ever made and never were, and that normal people shouldn't get Leicas.

Resolution matters if you're using it as a wallpaper or printing to look closely. I have photos I've cropped heavily and while I will cheerfully share them via text, they don't hold up to even display on a 4K monitor (~8 megapixels). Which is fine, but don't tell me resolution doesn't matter. It does matter. Though you can push it anywhere from a little to a lot if your target is low resolution anyway, like Instagram, or a billboard which covers a small fraction of your field of view. And if your lens isn't capable of resolving those fine details anyway then you can downsample happily and only miss out on a small amount of detail (see: every cellphone lens ever mated to a sensor with > 1 megapixel resolution).

Resolution isn't the only thing, and it certainly isn't more important than composition, lighting, and the moment. Resolution is something you can throw money at. It's a lot more expensive to throw money at composition and lighting, because those all require time and skill. The moment you can throw money at and just hold down on continuous-release-high. Sometimes it works out!

For the rest, SLRs are a way of capturing an image and one that makes a set of tradeoffs that has seen market success. There are others. Leicas are a fashion statement that is functional. They're like a much more expensive and more niche Apple. And like Apple, they do have a solid product for what they're shooting for, but that doesn't justify the price premium. Ken Rockwell's derision towards LeicaMan is amusing. I'll give him that.

But he's wrong about resolution. I've seen the difference between an 18-300mm consumer lens and a 100-400mm pro lens. I've seen the difference between the capabilities of the consumer camera body and the pro body that costs 5x as much. You're not paying for nothing, and it does make a difference. Is it worth the price differential and extra size and weight? That's a different question that has different answers depending on your tolerance for such things.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#329

Post by lmm »

tagrun wrote: post #316
bdavisx wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, my wife and I used to do wedding photography and from that period we have 2 Canon 5D Mk II's and 2 40D's along with 3 L lenses, some primes and a few cheaper zooms. There's absolutely no reason we would ever need another camera. Even people with a single body wouldn't ever need another one unless they broke it.

I'm guessing you don't record videos then. In terms of video capabilities, Canon 5D Mk II is limited to 8-bit 4:2:0 1080p H.264 recording at 30fps, maxing out at 12 minutes of recording. That is a far cry from 10-bit (or 12-bit) 4:2:2 4K, 6K or even 8K RAW or ProRes at 120fps or higher with unlimited recording from a similarly priced camera in today's money. (It's also limited in terms of RAW photo as well though: th…

Videos are not what most people mean by "photography", 10-bit is mostly a gimmick (there are situations where it gives a real advantage, but they're niche), and higher-than-1080p resolutions are honestly pretty marginal a lot of the time. 30fps is pretty awful though.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#330

Post by throwaway290 »

numpad0 wrote: post #318
vwoolf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of people discussing sales numbers; here is one article showing the decline in terms of both lens and interchangeable lens cameras shipped: https://bythom.com/newsviews/real-camera-economics.html . Lenses appear to have declined by about 66% from 2012 to 2022. Cameras, by a little under 50%. This decline makes sense to me. I have a Fuji XT4 which I like a lot, but, also, starting around the iPhone 13…

> I can go on a rant about the number of clicks necessary to wirelessly transfer from camera Yeah this is a huge unaddressed issue that must be hemorrhaging users out of cameras. It’ll need a substantial rework in cameras and perhaps phones too, but I’ve seen enough times that the display of LCD taken and uploaded on social media and they must know that’s being done. They could make a phone-camera hybrid, with or wit…

These android-based cameras you talk about exist but not sure why any serious photographer would use one. When I need the camera I need it now, not wait for the camera app to decide to boot. Also, posting the result on social media as is is a thing of the past, people do post processing now and pros use raws. To develop a raw well you gotta use a proper big screen.
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