End of an era, DPReview.com will shut down next month

[LSXPhotog]

Or when they bashed the 1D X II AF because it was performing as Canon said it is supposed to, not how they expected it to. That behavior is what really put me off DPR in the first place.

There was a time when they would admit they weren’t the best photographers in the world and would put cameras in the hands of professionals for reviews on high end bodies. I remember them reviewing the 1DX and 7D this way. And they would absolutely NEVER spend any time with the canon cameras to manipulate how the autofocus worked. They would pick it up and if it didn’t work like Nikon 3D tracking it was inferior. Haha yet canon had their own RGB+iR sensor that made it better in some ways to the Nikon. But they never would explore that and wrote it off. Yet anyone that knew the Canon AF system could dial their camera in and it would perform brilliantly.

 

[researcher]

I buy most of my camera gear used, the loss of DPReview and its extensive back catalog and gear timelines will be especially disappointing.
Not everyone needs the latest tech, and DPReview has always been a good resource to find out basic specs and features of older gear.

I wonder/hope that Amazon will be willing to sell the back content to some other site or pool of site operators to enable access to the existing content, even if its just the written reviews/specs.

I guess we'll see...

 

[Del Paso]

You do have to keep in mind that Canon gear will never ever score lower than ‘good’ at TDP. Thankfully all their reviews are comprehensive enough with samples you can inspect yourself, just skip the conclusion

Actually, nothing ever scores lower than good at TDP, even a coke bottle would be considered "good enough for the task".
But, like you, I really like his very detailed reviews, especially the camera reviews.
And his friendliness.

 

[Skux]

Actually, nothing ever scores lower than good at TDP, even a coke bottle would be considered "good enough for the task".

Sometimes it is!

 

[woodman411]

Bryan at tdp rarely says anything negative, but that's because everything has a place in Canon's pecking order of IQ, price, and size. It makes no sense for example, to complain about the size of the RF 85 F/1.2L, that's like complaining about the size of a V12 engine in a supercar, that's why you get an f/1.2 lens, for super-lens performance, right? (and the super price that comes with that). Anything he describes as simply "good" or "entry-level" or "consumer-grade" is relegated to the low end, and priced accordingly. He does have his preferences, the ones he really likes, he says he'll put in his bag or that he purchased it himself (most products reviewed are loaned to him).

 

[roby17269]

Well at least we still have Imaging Resource, who produce excellent reviews. They went through a similar crisis a year or so ago, but a rescue package of some sort saved them. It would be great if dpr was rescued, and if so, I'd like to think that they'd get rid of the comments section entirely, which ruined an otherwise excellent site. I just hope that CR isn't invaded by ex-dpr commentors, as it would be the downfall of this site.

Hmmm, there were good interesting illuminating discussions on dpreview, as well as polarized, nasty, worthless ones. DPR has/d a large population of contributors to their fora, some knowledgeable, some nice, some full of themselves, some fanbois, all sorts.
I do not see a huge difference between DPR fora and here, or with the other relevant competitors

 

[dolina]

Here's a thought.

If you have any friends on DPR's forum why not invite them to come over to our forum?

I am sure their are some looking for a new home for the coming decades.

 

[RunAndGun]

Thats' a bit unfair - the whole point of the site was to provide technical reviews, so it's inevitable that photography as an art would take second place. Nevertheless there were some excellent technique articles by contributors. I don't think you can really expect the reviews to be illustrated with great photography - they have a huge amount of gear passing through their hands and often just a few hours to use it, often in poor weather conditions, so their opportunities to take great photos are pretty limited.

Bullshit. It’s 100% fair. If you’re a photography site, there should be some good example photos shown from the cameras and lenses reviewed. And the majority of the photos I saw accompanying reviews, when I used to visit the site, were usually pretty boring and unspectacular.

I’m not trying to denigrate their hard work and I hate to see another resource go the way of the dodo, but it doesn’t change the fact that I usually didn’t see spectacular photography on that site.

 

[Zod]

Petition to STOP Amazon from closing DPReview.com: https://chng.it/vnwCcw6dFV

 

[Fischer]

Used to be my fav camera site and I contributed often. But the quality of their reviews/articles as well as the forums dropped so I left them behind a few years ago. However, the forums remained a good place to search for solutions/tips to problems and certain shooting situations and I'm sure many will be sad. Overall I think the staff brought this upon themselves - especially a couple of the forum moderators failed badly. Staff could probably take it over if they believe in the site as a business model.

 

[dolina]

Petition to STOP Amazon from closing DPReview.com: https://chng.it/vnwCcw6dFV

dpreview will become read-only on the short term until someone gives Amazon a good enough offer for it.

Just like Yahoo selling Flickr to SmugMug it will be updated for today's digital camera marketplace.

 

[Zod]

I hope so, but DPReview's statement is still pretty vague:

The site will be locked, with no further updates made after April 10th 2023. The site will be available in read-only mode for a limited period afterwards.

 

[Del Paso]

Well at least we still have Imaging Resource, who produce excellent reviews. They went through a similar crisis a year or so ago, but a rescue package of some sort saved them. It would be great if dpr was rescued, and if so, I'd like to think that they'd get rid of the comments section entirely, which ruined an otherwise excellent site. I just hope that CR isn't invaded by ex-dpr commentors, as it would be the downfall of this site.

Imaging Resource???
26 lenses in "Latest lens reviews", and not one single Canon lens...

 

[entoman]

Hmmm, there were good interesting illuminating discussions on dpreview, as well as polarized, nasty, worthless ones. DPR has/d a large population of contributors to their fora, some knowledgeable, some nice, some full of themselves, some fanbois, all sorts.
I do not see a huge difference between DPR fora and here, or with the other relevant competitors

That really surprises me, it's very rarely that anyone on CR resorts to rudeness, but I found the dpr comments section quite hideous, and the moderators quite prejudiced/biased towards some viewpoints/commentors. I'm differentiating here between dpr comments section, and dpr fora - the latter are generally a more knowledgeable and genuine crowd.

 

[entoman]

Bullshit. It’s 100% fair. If you’re a photography site, there should be some good example photos shown from the cameras and lenses reviewed. And the majority of the photos I saw accompanying reviews, when I used to visit the site, were usually pretty boring and unspectacular.

I’m not trying to denigrate their hard work and I hate to see another resource go the way of the dodo, but it doesn’t change the fact that I usually didn’t see spectacular photography on that site.

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[roby17269]

That really surprises me, it's very rarely that anyone on CR resorts to rudeness, but I found the dpr comments section quite hideous, and the moderators quite prejudiced/biased towards some viewpoints/commentors. I'm differentiating here between dpr comments section, and dpr fora - the latter are generally a more knowledgeable and genuine crowd.

I did specifically reference the fora in DPR. I must admit that, while I was regularly reading and sometimes contributing to the fora, I did not use the comment section much at all, especially since they had started mixing previews and reviews, meaning that you could read a review and find comments attached to it that were 5 months old at the time the review was "published" and full of irrelevant stuff

 

[John Wilde]

Petition to STOP Amazon from closing DPReview.com: https://chng.it/vnwCcw6dFV

 

[entoman]

Petition to STOP Amazon from closing DPReview.com: https://chng.it/vnwCcw6dFV

A petition won't stop Amazon, all they are interested in is maximising profit, and they have a pretty terrible reputation for the way they treat their own staff, let alone their customers. The only realistic option is for another company to buy dpr and pay the staff (and replace some of them).

IMO, any new owner then needs to keep the fora but get rid of the toxic comments section, or at least find some unbiased moderators. Include more technique articles, illustrated with photographs to inspire us.

Negotiate longer term loans of cameras, or buy them for long term testing, so that they can be put through their paces by experts in the fields of sports, wildlife, landscape, portraiture etc who really understand what makes one camera better than another for their particular genre. There's always been too much emphasis on the latest pre-release cameras, and not enough attention to extended testing in the field.

 

[kubelik]

this explains why the "full" review for the R6 Mark II was so incomplete. over time I've found that as a committed Canon shooter, The Digital Picture is ultimately more meaningful to me than other sites that spend most of the time cross-comparing cameras from different brands, I really care about how the various Canon cameras and lenses stack up against each other

 

[bdeutsch]

Sometimes it is!

View attachment 208030

Technically, that's a Coke can not a Coke bottle. ...Just saying...

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