I wasn’t suggesting simple replication, just a look at the various methodologies available before evolving your own which is proportionate and affordable. There is also an issue of the credibility of the site carrying the review. I have recently been exploring reviews of the Leica 50mm f/2.4 Summarit. One review suggests that it is useless, simply a way for Leica to separate the credulous from their cash, another that it is close to the pinnacle of optical perfection. Obviously they can’t both be right and, as a newcomer to the Leica world, I have no idea of the credibility of the reviewers and so the whole exercise becomes pointless. Therefore there would be some reputation building needed to validate the content - once again, quite possible given the status of some of the contributors here.
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Maybe this will be closure for you. Exposure is the wrong word.
Exposition (narrative)
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Exposition (disambiguation).
Narrative exposition is the insertion of background information within a story or narrative. This information can be about the setting, characters' backstories, prior plot events, historical context, etc.[1] In literature, exposition appears in the form of expository writing embedded within the narrative. Exposition is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse), along with description, persuasion, and narration, as elucidated by Alexander Bain and John Genung.[2]Exposition was used in the Pentax k1000 manual. 3,000,000 sold no other camera has come close.
background information = asa/iso, artificial lighting, ambient light. ect -
If you use 'exposure' to say an image is too light or too dark then yes, it is the wrong word.
Exposure is not how dark or how light an image looks.
* exposure - amount of light that struck the sensor per unit area while the shutter was open
** optimal exposure - the maximum exposure* within dof and motion blur requirements without clipping important highlights.
*** under exposed - more exposure* could have been added with the DOF and blur constraints still being met without clipping important highlights. -
'Exposure' has had an established meaning in photography for getting on for 150 years. It was formalised by Hurter and Driffield as H = Et (modern notation) about 120 years ago. That's the way it's been being used by everyone who actually knows the basics of photography for all that time. The fact that you, and others that don't know their basics and choose to dispute it is one reason what we need a set of good articles on the basics and why we need some editorial control by people who actually know something.
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Without trying to be big-headed about this, I think I likely know more about it than those people do. I've consulted on the set up of a photographic testing lab before, and I've had a career in which I've designed various types of scientific instrument. I wouldn't be in a position to criticise their methodology unless I had some idea of how to do it myself.
Maybe that makes me a 'self appointed expert', but the truth is that I've also been appointed as an expert by others from time to time. -
Right. Also don't underestimate how much time and energy would be involved with the camera company contacts (which will often happen on their own time schedule), as well as verifying what is published is the correct data in the first place (e.g. copy editing, which is tough). If just testing every camera—there were 17 in 2022—were being done with just one person, you'd still need additional resources to help them. Just dealing with receiving/returning all that gear takes a lot of time. And note that we're not talking about lenses yet ;~).
Also, don't underestimate the one thing that both dpreview and imaging-resource both provided: downloadable files and online comparisons. The former takes bandwidth that costs money, the latter takes online coding.
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I've actually given "this model" a LOT of thought. By "this model" I mean free public content that has deeper content in other forms available by subscription. It's quite doable, and there are plenty of platforms that can take care of most of the logistics for you (video, streaming, downloadable content, etc.). The reason I haven't done it is (mostly) simple: once you turn on a media outlet (subscription or free), it is a black hole for content. You must keep feeding the hole, and the higher the quality you do so with, the more likely you retain the subscribers and free viewers. But that also introduces another problem: what's the right cutoff point between the subscriber-only content and the free content? A place like dpreview had a natural cleavage point that they never exploited (again, Phil and I had arguments about this). Had "dpreview free" been news, forums, and downsized reviews, and "dpreview subscriber" been tutorials and deep reviews, it might still be in business. Might. Subscriber retention is always tough.
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Really good point - I've dealt with a bit of that before, but not on the scale we'd probably be talking about.
I understand that quite a bit better - it's something I've been looking at in some detail.
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Exactly. One thing I discovered due to the timely bankruptcy of my book publisher is that publishing 5000 copies of something where I retain all money was actually a far better choice than publishing 25,000 copies from which Amazon took 65% and the publisher another 25%.
On the other hand, it may be that the photography media business can no longer support bigger publishers and intermediaries. That's disturbing in a huge number of ways. I don't think the camera companies truly realize just what that would do to their business. I was just browsing through all the Nikon Ambassador pages, and I was dismayed at how many of those folk are inactive (or close to inactive) on the Internet. The old equation for selling cameras was essentially "high visibility endorsements." Yes, some of that has shifted to YouTube-type influencers, but that starts to get out of control for the camera companies, and over time you see things like what happened with Stuck in Customs: they're no longer promoting exactly what you as a camera company want them to, because they've found better value elsewhere.
To the point of dprevived, you have some questions that need answering, stat. I'll start with one: how big an audience do you think you need to become relevant?
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The answer to that is 'as big as the audience to whom its relevant'. Which likely isn't that large. My AP articles get a (paid) audience of about 8k per issue, which is much lower than I thought it would be, but viable as part of a commercial publishing organisation. They were recently sold to a publisher that specialises in niche publications, and knows how to make some money on that.
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Based on posts I've seen on DPReview, fellows discussing their age, I would not be surprised if the average age (or median age depending on how one wants to look at it ) is much higher than 50. It may be different for different manufacturers but based on what I've seen in the Nikon forum, I would expect it to be much higher there.
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"Large enough" has to be looked at from different viewpoints. Your viewpoint is that you don't need much audience. But if you're trying to get those 17 cameras to test a year, do you think the 10 camera companies involved think you're big enough to give any priority to? It's really a chicken/egg problem. Without all 17 cameras being tested, you can't attract the kind of audience that dpreview/i-r did. Without a large audience, you can't get all 17 cameras to test.
Now, there is the notion of "just start and see what you can grow." I come from Silicon Valley (born/raised/career) so I know that mantra quite well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But without a clear goal, clear strategies supporting the goal, clear tactics to support the strategies, it's really difficult to get traction with others. And for a media play, you need traction with others. Lots of traction.
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I'd guess higher. My audience age average (measured over tens of thousands of responses) is well into the 60's now.
But this is everyone's problem (camera maker, camera dealer, camera media, camera user, etc.): the group now coming into play is different. Different needs, different knowledge, no dedicated camera experience, and prefers different media (social, video). No one's really solved that problem, though I believe it to be solvable.
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I presume that Amazon runs DPR on its own servers. That means the cost is marginal for them. If they dont pay staff to run DPR, write material, etc, it runs itself for free, and it can coast for quite a while. As we see, people seem still to be posting on it on the assumption that it will actually never close down. It may in fact be the case that Amazon has left the DPR forum running just to make it difficult for this and other sites to attract enough members to make them viable. (Amazon does have a history of undercutting competitors and squeezing them out of the market.) As far as DPRForum is concerned, from the volume of traffic on their site, I do not have the impression that membership is as large as this site. Lack of interest causes me not to know about any other competitors.
So, the world is our oyster, if we will.
David
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I should take the time to state why I'm involved in this discussion and think it important enough to respond.
As I've written on my site, we've essentially lost the "common ground" points for the photography community. The magazines are gone. The big Internet sites are gone.
What we have is a wide variety of fractious and not as visible content providers, including my sites (though they continue to have high visitation). I like having a voice, but I also think the photographic community needs a place where we can hear a deep, broad variety of voices. As much as I write, I consume far more information than I produce. These days, trying to find that information is getting more difficult (I'm looking at your failures, too, Google ;~).
Curation is a good thing, but we have no reliable curators left. If my comments and questioning can help produce one, I'm all for it.
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YouTube is one of the most-used search engines. Users watch a billion hours of content every day.
Is your clothes dryer making a weird noise? Do you want your dog to be more obedient? Are you looking for the best general settings for a new camera? The first stop people make in search of answers to these and many other questions, is the university of YouTube.
Production values matter eventually but, when you're just starting out, the key is to focus your content around a subject people have an interest in, present that content in consumable chunks, and - here's the tricky part - be personable and likeable.
If the DPRevived weekly Zoom livestreams on YouTube was 4 people talking about, showing, and discussing sample photos from the gear they use (people like gear talk, especially about gear they're considering buying), the photo trips they've made (people are back to enjoying travel), or specific genres of photography (people love watching other folks talk about doing things they enjoy), the channel would build an audience.
It's also a great test bed to find the kind of camera & photography related content people have an interest in. If a subject is popular on the channel, a corresponding area on the website would also stand a good chance of finding an audience.
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I much prefer to read, it's faster and I can skip the parts of the articles I'm not interested in.
That being said, there are some very beginner-friendly and high quality channels on YouTube ( www.youtube.com/channel/UCu7_D0o48KbfhpEohoP7YSQ , for example), publishing about two new videos per month. A few most popular videos reach close to a million views. -
When my fridge started behaving I watched a few YouTube videos explaining the possible reasons and remedies. They were all wrong by a mile.
