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Comment by fetus8 | Hacker News Reader

You're spot on, this is _THE_SITE for extremely detailed analysis of of cameras/lenses/etc. I have no idea what will end up filling the gap of losing something like this.

I hope Chris and Jordan continue on their Youtube journey and make the content they've been making, but man, there's still a need for a detailed text based site with super indepth info about modern camera equipment.

Such a bummer.

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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 minutes with an advertisement every 5, wasting both data and time to likely only end up partially informing you compared to a dpreview or Ken Rockwell article.

I think of how video game walkthroughs have gone this way. It used to be you'd find exhaustive 300k text explanations of everything in a game. Now there is a "let's play" video that goes on for 40 hours, you have to find the right video to watch, then seek to the right place in that video, it's exhausting.

The one case I found the video was better was in a certain level where the way forward was to make a jump that didn't look possible and the video made it obvious.

Try the GPTs they might know the game tricks and adapt to your specifics without search, of course if the info is prior to 2021.

It's going to tell you exactly how to compose your pokemon team to beat a gym that doesn't exist in the game

My son made it all the way through one of the older games doing all the fighting with one Pokémon, developing others just to host skills like cut. I have been disappointed with recent fire Emblem titles because level trumps the weapons triangle.

I was thinking about information extracting the GameFAQs for certain Hyperdimension Neptunia games to make a knowledge graph so I could figure out the dependency graph of what dungeons I would have to go to to get the items to craft the items that I need to craft an item I want. But then again, I’m a weeaboo.

Honestly though, video walkthroughs are an improvement (navigation aside). It's hard to describe a situation entirely via text, and having that plus a short video showing the exact situation (e.g., finding a collectible in a weird location, strategy for defeating a boss, etc.) makes things so much clearer.

I've had instances where a walkthrough with pictures still wasn't enough and had to find a video showing me something and it only became clear after that.

I recall as a kid that the Zelda OOT water temple was nearly impossible to navigate with a gamefaqs guide. Video back then would have been so much easier.

I wonder if you could start writing guides on Substack to monetize them.. I think the real problem here is that writing a 300k textbook on GameFAQs gets you a chance at winning some swag, but 40 hours of YouTube videos can actually pay out in the form of money

Then again, even though World of Warcraft sites pay guide authors, the guides are super formulaic and low quality... even though I despise video content, I end up getting most of my detailed info that way

Cue "it's all so tiresome" from Empire of Dust

> 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.

Fred Miranda was a useful set of reviews of lenses from their members.

Now it’s mostly forums Which makes sense. Once you have the gear…

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/index.php

I used dpreview in the past. They had detailed technical reviews, side by side test shot comaparisons. Really a first class site. They will be missed.

DP Review's reviews have the benefit that they use the same methodology, so comparing one camera with another was easy. For example, I can do side by side comparisons of how much noise there is at ISO 1600.

Ken Rockwell is a blowhard that copy/pastes info into every "review". His sharpness comparisons are laughable, as is his blatant fanboyism (which went from Nikon to Canon. It's funny to read the things he said about one brand 10 years ago and compare it to what he says about the same brand today). I would not put him into the same category as DPReview with a straight face. DPReview gave us the exposure latitude and high ISO comparison tools, which are wonderful for teasing apart differences in cameras. For example, I know the Z9 is 1 stop worse in high ISO noise performance than the Z7 due to its electronic shutter because I can see it in the comparison. That makes it easy for me to set my max ISO appropriately. Their reviews weren't perfect (I prefer Photography Life's, especially for the lens reviews--but they do principally Nikon reviews), but they were damn good.

Nobody does what DPReview did.

This is a sad passing, but reflects the general decline in ILC photography unfortunately.

I don't know him but I have to say I like Ken Rockwell's content. I wouldn't go to him for pixel peeping lens comparisons but for a general overview he's good.

There are also nowadays several good YouTubers in this field.

And of course there's TDP albeit Canon and Sony-only coverage there.

I liked him too when I started out and didn't know better.

There are other people out there and I recommend learning from them. Especially composition, lighting, contrast, and colors.

Take from Ken the advice to get out and shoot with whatever you have (it's good enough to shoot with if it was made in the last 15 years), ignore everything else he has to say.

On his About page, Ken Rockwell says

> To use words of Ansel Adams on page 193 of his autobiography, this site is my "aggressive personal opinion," and not a "logical presentation of fact." This website is a work of fiction, entirely the product of my own imagination and personal opinion.

and

> I have a big sense of humor, and do this site to entertain you (and myself), as well as to inform and to educate. I occasionally weave fiction and satire into my stories to keep them interesting. I love a good hoax.

and

> I have the energy and sense of humor of a three-year old, so remember, this is a personal website, and never presented as fact. I enjoy making things up for fun, as does The Onion, and I publish them here.

(All of that are his own words!)

If you enjoy his writing for entertainment, no problem. But don't take anything written there as fact.

K-Rock has more than 200% the opinions of a normal human and is more than half trolling in all his reviews, but at least he knows how photography works, which is better than all the comments on this page claiming ILC digital cameras take "actual pictures" and smartphones take "fake AI pictures".

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 can say about Ken is his admonition to get out there and shoot, which is what a newbie needs to hear. Doesn't need to be perfect, just get out there and get that practice in.

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.

Rockwell is entertainment sprinkled with some useful insight - but you have to be very careful with him.

Please do not recommend Ken Rockwell.

Try Fred Miranda

Those sites are a fraction of DPReview's content.

In all seriousness, where is DPReview's content going? Forums of over 1,000,000 posts. Solid reviews of older cameras. All gone, hopefully to some archival site.

It's really surprising to see that content just disappear. Reminds me I need to backup my hard drive...

> I hope Chris and Jordan continue on their Youtube journey […]

Joining PetaPixel in May:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6T3qWI2c-Y

* https://petapixel.com/2023/03/21/chris-niccolls-and-jordan-d...

And their "The end of DPReview" video:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLikDUacsC8

They'll planning a few 'closing videos' before things are completely shutdown.

There’s still https://www.lenstip.com/. English version of Polish site optyczne.pl. What’s funny, team from this site criticized dpreview for being not scientific enough.

petapixel, flickr groups there is 500px (this is more image oriented)

100asa -- for more professional photographers, and

photrio.com for the film camera, and film-development crowd.

I do not like petapixel -- because they ask me to register with google or discuss not interested in any of those...

I am surprised that dpreview was owned by Amazon. Never knew about this.

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