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DPReview.com to close

dpreview.com

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Re: DPReview.com to close

#71

Post by johnvanommen »

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.

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.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#72

Post by layer8 »

pjc50 wrote: post #43
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…

Gloomy prediction: based on Samsung Moongate, the next logical step after the smartphone camera replacing the DSLR is AI replacing the smartphone camera. Or at least substituting for underlying camera quality. Take a 10MP image and have the AI fill in the detail. Or remove detail (see the google advert for editing people out of your holiday photos). Or put in some detail that wasn't there.

Smartphone photos are already heavily ML-processed, with actual details and colors being replaced by what the model thinks looks best. The moon thing was just the most blatant example.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#73

Post by mrandish »

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 years of content online. If nothing else, recent reviews will be valuable for another 1 to 2 years and instructional content for at least 5 years. A bigger loss is that the overall site content documents much of the first 25 years of serious digital photography – an important and unique historical record due to the consistency of the editorial focus and review format. And Internet Archive is unlikely to capture it well due to so much CMS-based chart and hi-res RAW content in test reviews.

(BTW, I don't agree with those saying mobile photography/videography has (or will soon) make DSLR/mirrorless irrelevant. As useful & impressive as mobile imaging is, larger formats and interchangeable lenses still enable important capabilities for pros, semi-pros and serious hobbyists that mobile can't.)

Re: DPReview.com to close

#74

Post by op00to »

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.

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.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#76

Post by asdff »

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.

Its enough of a boom for a small company like fujifilm to justify producing more cameras and lenses and even start up and grow a medium format mirrorless ecosystem. Fujifilm in particular struggles to keep up with demand which is probably not easy given global shortages, but it goes to show there is a market. It's not the market it was in 1995 or 2005, but its a market no less because there's always a demand for the best image technolgy can do.

Phone cameras will always look worse than their contemporary full size counterparts just due to physics, so the pros and prosumers will always be in demand of a dedicated rig even if their iphone looks like a spider on the back. Not to mention even today just from an OS standpoint, no phone has feature parity with even the first dslr released since phone manufacturers "childproof" camera features that pro camera manufacturers assume you don't need your hand held to use. Usually you have to resort to a third party app if you want to set a manual exposure, you know, something any photographer since 1860 could do that we now deem to be "too advanced" for modern humans.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#78

Post by taude »

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…

Yeup, I used to be a regular at dpreview a long time ago, certainly before I bought my first DSR the Canon 20d. But even before that when I was still buying point-and-shoots.

I probably haven't been back since about 2014, though, when I upgraded to a Fuji XT mirrorless system, which I haven't even used in five or six years now....

Re: DPReview.com to close

#79

Post by FollowingTheDao »

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.

The only people who think Smartphone Cameras take better pictures than SLRs are not photographers.

It is not just low light, it is depth of field, exposure control, the minimization or absence of computed exposures.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max and only shot in RAW mode. That is the best I can do. Saving money fro a mirrorless camera so i can start shooting again.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#80

Post by dylan604 »

pjc50 wrote: post #43
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…

Gloomy prediction: based on Samsung Moongate, the next logical step after the smartphone camera replacing the DSLR is AI replacing the smartphone camera. Or at least substituting for underlying camera quality. Take a 10MP image and have the AI fill in the detail. Or remove detail (see the google advert for editing people out of your holiday photos). Or put in some detail that wasn't there.

new from Samsung. it's a black box perfectly square just to make Jobs turn over in his grave. there are no lenses, but it's the most incredible camera you've ever seen. it has a microphone where you tell it the image you want...

"I want to see a picture with me at the Grand Canyon with nobody else in the shot at sunset after storm has just passed with a rainbow in the background"

waits a few seconds, boom. post to social, get lots of envious comments about my cool vacation.

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