Two thumbs up on that! You have good taste!
June 26, 2023
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Indeed - that probably helps as well! I appreciate it because - as what I assume to be the second most famous piece of music in a 5/4 rhythm - it helped popularize (at least a tiny bit) that underappreciated and underrepresented time signature 😉. (Don't get me started on the absolute tragedy most of our modern music presents in that regard...)
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Mauvais ton in this context sounds like snobbery. Is this just about Pros? OK, I'm asking you. What site would you nominate as having a better repository of accessible information than DPR? The reviews go back to the earliest days of digital photofraphy. Further, the search functions enable anyone to tap into a vast collection of posts in both the forums and News covering "how to" subjects also going back to the beginning of digital cameras. Cameras and general gear covered range from top end to basic models. Forums are forums so they need to be read with some discernment but still, the accumulation of information at DPR is vast. It covers pretty much every camera that has been released in the digital era. Lens reviews and discussion are also comprehensive. Same for software and auxiliary gear.
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Snobbery, or a question of appropriate expertise? DPReview is very much a site for gearheads - the clue is in the name. It started and has lastly continued as a section of the consumer review industry. That's aiming at a particular type of consumer, and sometimes is only marginally connected to the actual process of gear selection. More often it's simply about constructing tier lists or allowing readers to confirm their preferences. You see this all the time in the comments after DPReview reviews. Rarely do you get responses such as 'It's a shame that the AF on the xxxx doesn't track so well' - it tends to be 'Obvious bias from DPReview'. The review industry tends to concentrate on synthetic metrics that produce simple numerical results, because that's what the tier list people want. You don't get nuanced and knowledgable information on the factors that might be important to a particular photographer. And that's a particular fail for professionals. What they are interested in is whether a piece of equipment satisfies their own specific requirements, not where it comes in some abstract tier list. And given that most professionals operate in a quite restricted and specialist market, some of those requirements might be quite esoteric. My experience, knowing quite a few professional photographers, accords with Iliah's, they'd be very unlikely to use DPReview to inform their equipment decisions - and also not find very relevant the equipment properties that the review industry promotes.
But all of it has the problem that uncurated information always does. It's of very variable quality, it contains many errors and false information - simply because the people compiling it didn't have the required expertise. The staff are generally journalists. The founder was a graphic designer. As I said in an earlier post, Richard Butler deserves praise for his efforts to produce articles that were actually informative and not erroneous but his articles just went into the canon, the old, faulty, misinformed articles are still there. You can dredge up one of Phil Askey's diatribes on the depredations of pixel density and nothing will tell you what complete nonsense it was, and that the subsequent progress of digital photography showed that beyond doubt. I still got that stuff quoted back at me when I was still active there. As for the specification lists, sure, but there's nothing there that couldn't be produced using an aggregator form the manufacturer's spec lists, because that is all it is. And I find, when I want to go back to the spec of some old piece of equipment, my search generally doesn't end up at DPReview. Still, that's a bit irrelevant, because I don't think anyone here is proposing that this site becomes a repository of old camera specifications.
I don't agree with that. None of those is comprehensive.
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You are missing the point. We are discussing the appeal of DPR to the mass of photographers. People want that information. As I said, forums are forums and they need to be read accordingly. You may want to argue with ultimate accuracy of some reviews but I'd suggest that the DPR collection remains the best repository of such info for most photographers. We are discussing why people go to photo sites and the future of this site. I'm suggesting that DPRevived cannot compete with DPR in this area so it shouldn't try to do so. Are you arguing that it can?
I'd make the same challenge to you. Name another site that has the depth of information available that can be found on DPR?
Note, I'm not a DPR advocate, I use this site. I'm considering what might be successful for this site. -
I don't think I'm missing it at all. We were discussing more specifically the appeal of DPReview to a subset of photographers, namely, in this case, professional ones. The real point is that with DPReview going on, this site will not supplant it, and nor should it. It needs to fill in some gaps that DPReview doesn't fill - and there are plenty. That was the point.
It's the best repository for people that want that kind of review - no-one does it better. So I wouldn't propose that this site goes in for trying to out-DPReview DPReview.
No, I'm arguing precisely that it can't and shouldn't.
There's no site that has the depth of DPReview type information that DPReview has. We're no longer in the business of trying to provide a replacement for DPReview. We're in the basis of providing something that provides something complementary. If that comes to reviews, then ones that do things that DPReview doesn't. There's a whole load of equipment data that can be produced that DPReview doesn't even attempt to capture. IME people that like reviews don't just stop at one site anyhow, they'll look at everything.
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Got a link
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I remember an article in NYT quoting Phil saying pixel size over pixel quantity. They (NYT) stated as a fact backed by DPR tests that Canon EOS 50D was worse EOS 40D because it has 15 megapixels, while 40D has 10.
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My GFX 100S must be awful.
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Quantity over quality, and I would add that while DPR has some good information it also has a lot of bad information.
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I hear the noise from 3.76µm pixels.
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Then did you and Iliah actually read what I had to say? I'm responding, as someone who chooses to be on your site, to a request for suggestions as to the future directions of the site.
1. I noted the difficulties of getting enough followers to keep a site viable. I suggest that the biggest draw wiill continue to be something that offers what DPR can offer and that they have this market segment sewn up. Yes, I agree that the info there is a mix, it is forum based after all. Never the less, it's one of the first places I'd look for many things. Example. Check the discussions currently there on a camera of particular interest to me, a rumored new Sony A7C. I'd dismiss most of the comments but check the contributions from Prof HankD. That's of considerable interest to me and I'm more likely to find it on DPR than anywhere else. Yes, like all info I receive from any quarter, I don't auto swallow it. Approaching sources with some discernment is the way sources should always be viewed. It hardly warrants the sniffy rejoinder from Iliah.
2. I then went on to outline where I think there may be gaps in photographic discussion sites that DPRevived might fill. That was the argument. Iliah and Bobn2 instead launch attacks on my view of DPR because it isn't for "professionals." Yes, I continue to think you missed the point.OK Bobn2. could you be more precise about the niche you see DPRevived meeting? You suggest that there are areas of gear review still to be covered authoratively. Seriously? Do you have in mind a pro elite elite site where esoteric items that aren't found elsewhere might be reviewed? How does this sit with having a big enough base to make the site viable so the resources will be available to do the kind of testing you and Iliah wont dismiss? Even Roger Cicala can only cover a relatively small part of that field.
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Hi,
Yes. Terrible. So bad, in fact, you really ought to send it to me to live on my Shelves of Obsolete Electronics. Right next to that Nikon E2. ;)
Stan
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This thread reminds me of this song:
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I can remember all the geeks burying there heads in the sand after i posted that the a7s3 was a 48 meg sensor when all you guys thought it was 12 🤔🤔
and dxo posted the performance as not even close to the a7S2 12 LARGE pixel sensor . Phill was right and you guys were wrong. -
and just think how terrible the diffraction is going to be using a 10x objective 😁 you need at least 5um pixels.
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That's a t-shirt. Sales wouldn't make a person Bezos rich but might put a child or two through college 😎