Andrew Reid

There isn't one reason for the decline in websites like DPR and IR, but clearly the ad money has shifted to TikTok and YouTube social media influencers, and away from written articles so that is a big reason. The jazz media company that bought the magazine company that Dave sold IR to back in 2019, saw no worthwhile profit in IR's books. Not only are these sites predominantly about written articles, they are about a subject that is fast turning into a niche. Smartphone cameras are mainstream as we all know, and that means proper cameras are now about as mainstream as cassette tapes. I think AI will accelerate this retreat even further. The other general trend is that both DPR and IR were not ideal from a content point of view, it was often like reading advertising copy, as is the case with so much in the camera world in 2023. There is a lack of drama, a lack of true insight, it has all become a bit dry. The camera companies should be really worried about these two canaries in a coal mine and they won't be the last to die. It points to the fact that the camera industry should probably do something to stop the rot and support the remaining sites. Sadly they won't.

I'd rather they DIDN'T turn the A7S III into a ZV-E1 Nearly all the new features are a dumb bag of shite designed to help people with no effort to make better vlogs! What do you want from the ZV-E1 that isn't in the A7S III that you really need? As for the reason behind a lack of firmware updates, it's because the A7S III is still selling well and is already feature-packed... so it doesn't matter what Gerald says really, if it is selling well, they don't need to change it. They'd just give me a PR line and mention the firmware updates they have done, like the a1 10bit 422. I agree with you Sony is lazy when it comes to nice firmware updates vs the others, but the best option is to sell the camera and buy a Panasonic or a Fuji if you are unhappy with it. Best way to get Sony to change. On the other hand I do think the A7S III is hardly lacking in features?

Where's the chart from? Is it Gerald?

Speculative, but wonder if Blackmagic reserves a higher quality proprietary BRAW debayer for their own cameras, and uses a less advanced method for everyone else? I am curious to see how the S5 II is for moire vs the A7 IV, Nikon Z9, and the X-H2. The S1H internal recording in 6K is really nice and OLPF great to have. It's one of those camera that's just absolutely great straight out the box bare bones. Just be careful updating firmware as when I went from V1.0 on my S1H loan unit from Panasonic to 2.5 it bricked it!

What REALLY happened to DPReview?

Wunderbar.

It might not be the right target group for those uninterested in video here. Photo Camera Review on the other hand... https://www.photocamerareview.com 🙂

It just has to be kept to a realistic level of operations. Why does DPReview for example need to be based in Seattle with such expensive real estate and offices, not to mention massively inflated salaries! It would be better of with an HQ in Manchester or Berlin, and a modest office with 5 or 6 very talented employees. Also a big cost for DPR is all the custom software engineering that powers the site and forum. That doesn't make much sense, you can use off the shelf solutions that are far better than their custom forum software anyway. At the end of the day I don't think Amazon gave it much thought. They are cutting very deeply into non-core stuff and lumping things in together. They don't consider it important enough to even sell it. This is all about making 18,000 people redundant and saving money in a recession, after they hired too eagerly during covid. Those mega bucks profit at the height of human suffering during lockdowns did not go into a bank to be saved for a rainy day at any of these corporations. It's all been spent and a lot of it has gone into the pockets of shareholders! So they have nothing to get them through a rainy day. Also rockets are fucking expensive.

Well the A7S III has been out a while now hasn't it? Is it 3 years? Crazy. So they're not exactly putting the latest tech in it. You can get a used A7S III for around $3K too don't forget, although $2500 for this new is a very decent deal if it turns out to be ergonomically well designed and with some new advances. A7S IV I am sure will be 8K not 6K. The current sensor in the A7S3 is already actually a quad bayer, I think it is 48 megapixels binning to 12. They'll probably use the same sensor! Just open up the 8K mode and keep the 12 megapixel as a 4K mode / low light mode. They could also do a HDR trick with quad bayer. As is already present on smartphones with quad bayer sensors.

Sure it's early days, N-RAW might get better software support as we go along... H.265 certainly did. I don't think it does 14bit RAW in video, it'll be 12bit to achieve the higher frame rates especially above 30p.

Sounds like it'll sit between the A7C and FX3. Probably the A7C form factor but no EVF? Not expecting a mechanical shutter. I reckon they will go all electronic like Sigma Fp and FX30. Would prefer if they give it a similar body and ergonomics to FX3 and FX30, but it being more a ZV range vlogging camera I expect it to be more of a rebadged A7C with the A7S III sensor.

Yeah, I remember DC Resource too. Steve's Digicams in the early days was right up there with DPReview for prominence and usefulness! Have we gone forwards or backwards by replacing all these great web resources with social media influencers? I think we know the answer.

My Leica M-P 240 got sold last month due to needing the money to keep EOSHD afloat and new gear coming in. Was sad to let it go but need to sell a LOT of my inventory to keep the wolf from the door at the moment. However before I let it go, made sure to do one last shoot with it, alongside my Canon 1D C and Leica M9. As far as colour science goes, I rate the 240, M9 and 1D C right at the top of the tree. The M9 has a special look with CCD but 1D C and the 240 are very very close, and much better in low light. It got me thinking, what other cameras like the 1D C better known for video, are actually really really good stills cameras? Panasonic G9 springs to mind with the amazing EVF and very responsive performance, fast bursts, all-round very big feature set for stills. E-M1 X I think is also underrated, it feels lovely in the hand, controls are fantastic, every bit the pro Micro Four Thirds camera it set out to be. Olympus colour science and white balance always nails the look you're after. But I think the Panasonic S1H takes the prize. It's better than a Leica SL2-S. Better battery life, better screen, more features. The main strengths for stills are the best EVF on the market, even better than the S1R and GFX 100. It's enormous and 5.76m dots! AF is absolutely fine for stills in S-AF mode, decent light, native lens. It's very fast and reliable. Sure it's rubbish with Canon EF adapter and in 24fps video mode but don't mind manual focus with Leica M lenses on it - much nicer, and less heavy. Dual native ISO full frame sensor, absolutely rocks in low light. 6K / 24 megapixel is enough resolution for me and makes for much faster performance, more responsive, smaller file sizes when shooting a lot of stills. It also has XPAN style wide aspect ratio settings, one of my favourite shooting styles so you can accurately compose in these modes, looks fantastic in black and white. Picture styles even have a film grain setting. Built quality is amazing, the huge top panel LCD great for checking settings at a glance whilst leaving the back screen completely free of clutter. Shutter mechanism feels so premium, better than Leica. What's more it cost me £1800. And that's before you even factor in the FX6 level video camera thrown in for free 🙂

Nice, didn't realise you could narrow Google down to certain URLs within a domain like that. Very useful to know 👏 👏 👏

He backs his humour up with proper real world information that's why, he shows the differences, he uses the gear, he actually shoots even if its squirrels!

Amazon told them in January, some left the very next week and got a new job. During these last 3 months, it appears absolutely nobody in charge has made an effort to save the site or kick up a fuss, let alone sell what is a very valuable asset for certain other companies. It's ridiculous that Amazon isn't considering a sale. Jeff must be a bigger loser than even I imagine him to be. Although not quite as big an idiot as that guy who wasted $44bn on Twitter, the likes of which can't seem to find even .00001% of that amount to preserve 25 years of photographic gear culture.

The more I think about all this the angrier I get at the current staff there. Nearly all scurrying off the deck of the ship like DPReview is nothing but fit for the bin. If they had stuck with the site for longer than a few months it could encourage the sale to a new owner. Instead they jumped like rats off the deck and have nearly all got new jobs already. Meanwhile we're left with an empty shell of a website pending deletion. It is an absolute disgrace and a total disregard of the global camera community.

That was quick!

https://petapixel.com/2023/03/21/chris-niccolls-and-jordan-drake-join-petapixel-to-lead-its-youtube-channel/ Why can't they be more honest and upfront. DPReview TV is not closing then is it? It's getting a new logo. If I were them I would have gone indie. I don't know why they feel they have to be freelancers for a .com blog Let's face it, YouTube is bigger than Petapixel isn't it?

Perhaps! Chris and Jordan seemed very keen, almost begging for more subscribers so maybe the pressure was on to monetise the channel. On the other hand DPReview's main website has a small head count, all the gear comes on loan for free from the camera industry and they run sponsored content as well as advertising. So if it is a money pit it is a very small one especially from the perspective of a company like Amazon. It was obviously valuable enough to be bought by a company the size of Amazon and it's a key strategic part of the camera industry so the likes of Canon will be keen to make sure it stays around. In my opinion they are fishing for sympathy and a buyer. It won't be closing, just changing.

Amazon might not be to blame. Why would Amazon block the sale of the asset or content carrying over to a new domain? After all it feeds Amazon.com with thousands upon thousands of sales leads and affiliate links from Google and social media. They will want that to stick around and will probably help with the sale. It won't impact them in the slightest. Found it interesting they chose not to mention Barney Britton in their big thank you section of the video, he is after all pretty much their boss. Chris and Jordan will simply carry on - I don't know if they are employed as freelancers or not, probably are. The main losers in this are not any of the DPR staff actually, it's the users.

Indeed. No real explanation, it's all very fishy. Watch them bounce back in a week miraculously the site is saved and is going to continue under the ownership of Smugmug as Canon's in-house magazine!

They won't close. It's a big asset and will have a lot of buyers. Current staff might go over to the new non-Amazon site or they will leave and do something else, which for me would be a good thing as they're not really up to the job. DPR has a ton of camera info that would be very sad to lose from the internet, the database of specs, and historic reviews are part of the camera world's culture and it would be vandalism of the highest order if some idiot decided to delete it all rather than keep it online. It costs almost nothing to keep a website online and I am surprised Amazon is making such deep cuts at all, as DPReview is hardly likely to be a huge loss making part of the company. What are the REAL reasons the site is closing? It surely can't be due to money. Perhaps a big fall out at the top between the DPReview management and Amazon? If Amazon really are looking to save a few thousand dollars running DPReview which drives a ton of traffic to Amazon for camera purchases, then how bad must it be at Amazon?! They were hiring like crazy during covid, big profit boom, then suddenly they can't afford to run a camera blog? Even I can afford to run a fucking camera blog. I smell something fishy. Either the news is fake and they already have a buyer lined up. Chris and Jordan seemed really chirpy in their jokey closing video. Or they are all hired already by a new site and will simply rebrand the existing one. There is simply no way they will delete it. The SEO and Google links alone are worth redirecting to a new site domain. Why bin it? They're not telling the truth.

What about the Sony a1? It is definitely not behind mirrorless tech wise. Stacked sensor, 50MP, 8K, 10bit 422, and 4K/120p. It blows the R5C away. The AF is far better too.

Interesting, so they fixed this in version 4 - maybe!