NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Other => Topic started by: Snoogly on March 21, 2023, 20:28:14
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It’s a shame, and a bigger shame how Amazon is doing it. No indication that it will be left up as a read-only archive/resource.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close
More news about it in the usual places on the Interweb.
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While the site was known for a lot of "noise" and brand fighting in some of the fora, the information stored in more neutral and technically oriented fora will be a great loss. I learned a lot of my early astrophotography from the forum there, although lately I have been more geared towards the Cloudy Nights astro photography sections.
If you have any considerable information posted there, now is the time to go through your original threads and archive .pdf prints to preserve them!
I took a look at the site Wayback machine, and finding back to information does not look very feasible. DPreview offers to provide an archive of your posts and stored images (already signed up), but we will not know how useful and in what form that will be provided before it is too late to look for alternative archiving.
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It’s a shame, and a bigger shame how Amazon is doing it. No indication that it will be left up as a read-only archive/resource.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close
More news about it in the usual places on the Interweb.
Thank you for the note, Snoogly. Although I've never really looked into the fora or registered for the site, I've enjoyed DPRTV and did have referred to their reviews. Yes, it's a big loss. There is no such a technically oriented review site in Japan.
That said, Chris & Jordan may continue to create their video contents in any possible way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLikDUacsC8
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I find the DP forums particularly useful. Especially as I recently got a couple of geriatric Fujifilm X mount cameras, and the Fuji forum is very active.
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I always felt that dpreview had too much of a focus on equipment and articles seemed to be written in order to promote the sales of new equipment rather than advancement of the reader's photographic skills. They did publish occasional articles on photography topics but not all that many.
I think the DPR user comments on articles and the equipment forums contained a lot of inappropriate comments and contentious debates where there was not a lot of consideration given by posters to other points of view. A lot of the fighting was very unpleasant to read and yet it was not moderated out. It would mean I would only rarely dare to peek into the forums, expecting a lot of insults and fights between the users of different brands or products to pop up. This isn't the way a good forum functions.
Although nikongear is quieter in terms of traffic, people tend to be more civil towards each other here. I like that. I hope now that dpreview is going down there would be more traffic here (and other cites which maintain civility of discussion). Although the forum name includes "Nikon" and "gear", many of the posters are accomplished in creating photographs and clearly are very interested in photography rather than only the details of equipment.
It is interesting that the two people who created the video reviews at dpreview (Chris and Jordan) are moving to Petapixel. I guess the videos created by Chris and Jordan can be loved or hated, as they seem to do a lot of lighthearted comedy in their presentation, but I appreciate them also talking about their impression on the handling of the products and obvious issues even of a major manufacturer's product are not left unmentioned. For example it became clear from their review of the R5c that the battery capacity was a real issue.
I read that dpreview had difficulty recruiting staff with the required skills to run their lab testing. I miss Rishi Sanyal's reviews and insights. He seemed to bring a lot of knowledge to their editorial articles. I remember when the D810 came out with its press-shutter-button-twice EFCS implementation, dpreview noted that EFCS helped with sharpness also in hand-held use (including lenses such as the 300 PF which had issues with certain shutter speeds) and that they hoped Nikon would make an implementation of EFCS that would be easier to use and I believe they said they discussed it with Nikon. In the D850, the EFCS is also available in Q and Qc modes where a single shutter button press resulted in slightly slower mirror actuation (to make it quieter but also to reduce the effects of vibration) and EFCS was available in these modes even in viewfinder photography, though fps rate was limited to 3 and timing of the shots in this mode had to be learned to get it right. The D6 improves this further by offering EFCS in Qc mode at up to 5 fps. I really took a lot of advantage of this feature. As far as I know, Canon still doesn't offer EFCS in viewfinder photography on their DSLRs (though they do in LV, and have for a very long time). On mirrorless, EFCS is usually the preferred mode of use and doesn't lead to increased delay in the beginning of the exposure (as the shutter is already open and there is no mirror to move). Anyway this was just an example of identifying a technical issue that had real-world significance and working with the manufacturer to resolve the issue. Few gear test sites have that kind of clout.
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I always felt that dpreview had too much of a focus on equipment and articles seemed to be written in order to promote the sales of new equipment rather than advancement of the reader's photographic skills. They did publish occasional articles on photography topics but not all that many.
That was also my impression, but on the flip side they did very thorough camera reviews that seemed well grounded in comparing a given model to past models and to current competing models. I found they would catch things that more casual reviewers would miss. Most of us eventually get a new camera at some point (though perhaps less so going forward as sensor improvements have largely plateaued) and I found the thoroughness and impartiality of DPR's reviews was a real help in making those decisions.
In the future, with DPR gone, with Thom Hogan bound to scale back his Nikon commentary at some point, and with Lloyd Chambers reviews being a quality but expensive service, there are going to be fewer sources of detailed camera reviews that can be trusted to be reasonably thorough and impartial.
I didn't find their lens reviews as insightful or helpful.
I think the DPR user comments on articles and the equipment forums contained a lot of inappropriate comments and contentious debates where there was not a lot of consideration given by posters to other points of view. A lot of the fighting was very unpleasant to read and yet it was not moderated out. It would mean I would only rarely dare to peek into the forums, expecting a lot of insults and fights between the users of different brands or products to pop up. This isn't the way a good forum functions.
I shied away from participating there for many, many years for that reason, finally starting up only a few years ago. During my time there I did notice that they finally seemed to be cracking down on some behavior of this sort in at least a few fora. Most of the commentary is fairly useless but there have been some nuggets of value along the way. You really have to read comments there with a skeptical eye.
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Some news here, not sure if that includes archiving/trannfering the old site (would be most interesting) or just restarting the fora. I am citing the text as the link will go away when DPR shuts down:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4705915#forum-post-66962353 (https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4705915#forum-post-66962353)
bobn2 • Forum Pro • Posts: 71,896
***News on DPRevived.com***
Following the thread on a possible successor to DPReview discussed in this thread:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4705507
Here is the news.
Three proposals have merged efforts.
The new site will be DPRevived.com, not as originally advertised PhotoForums.com.
There is an interim site https://cameradiscussion.createmybb4.com/index.php hosted by Alansh. This can be used for ongoing discussions. Registrations and posts will be migrated to the long-term site.
ComeHither has created a registration page for the new site. This will be available on DPRevived.com when the name servers sort themselves out. During that the email management@DPREvived.com won't be reachable, so pleas have patience.
I'll post again when it's back.
Also, we've been in toch with Soencer and Nasim at Photography Life. They are also proposing a solution, hopefully that will be included under a single banner.
This looks like it might work.
Edit: It looks like it is just an attempt to start another forum without archiving plans, so not that interesting at this point.
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DPReview was, at one time, well-stocked with teenagers---or adults with teenage brains---and there was a lot of stupidity.
Lately I have gotten a nostalgic feeling when I Google search something and the results include a DPR thread with posts I made in it 10 or 15 years ago.
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Some news, at least, about the camera and lens info/review database:
https://youtu.be/f9MG9XVVvCc
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To save others from spending time on the whole video, here is the link to https://digicamfinder.com/ that allows searching the web archive for specific DPR camera reviews. However the image comparison tools are not working at this time and other images are only working on the first two pages of the D500 review that I checked out. So it could look like the archiving does not go very deep or is not complete yet.
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Thanks Oivind.
Guess its been done in a rush but this place is a little unintuitive.
Hidden in grey text on the D500 page was a link to what looks like original DP review pages on this archive site
https://web.archive.org/web/20160716120110/http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d500/12
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Yes, that was what I was referring to, but beyond page 2 of that and other reviews I checked the archival is incomplete, with just text an no images.
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Yes, that was what I was referring to, but beyond page 2 of that and other reviews I checked the archival is incomplete, with just text an no images.
Not quite; the link above takes you to page 12.
I was able to read every page of this review and they contained images as well as words
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It has improved, more images are showing, but the image quality comparison images (studio scenes) do not show up for me. One could hope that what we are seeing is progress in archiving. Also, there might be a high load on the servers now. everything is very slow.
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Whilst we consider our own way forward here on NG,
some clarification over at DPReview
"Dear readers,
We’ve received a lot of questions about what's next for the site. We hear your concerns about losing the content that has been carefully curated over the years, and want to assure you that the content will remain available as an archive.
We’ve also heard that you need more time to access the site, so we’re going to keep publishing some more stories while we work on archiving.
Thank you to this community and the support you’ve shown us over the years.
Scott Everett
General Manager - DPReview.com"
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Witn the fate of DPRin mind; do read the announcement above concerning the future of Nikongear!
The users provide its content, but one cannot expect the owner to keep paying the deficit while we continue to use this site.
For my part, I am not a consistent Nikon user , although in the distant past I was impressed by the first 21/4 and did briefly use an SP (but I will buy any new more compact and lightweight Nikon not having the same faults as the Zs)
I read posts here as an active photographer frequently taking trivial snaps, enjoying optical experiments, but consistently craving optical perfection (and that the camera only does what I want it to do). I currently use Nikon Z (despite its shortcomings (Size and buttonery)), for its pixelcount, VF and short mount-to-sensor distance, but use a mix of Angenieux,Kinoptik, Staeble, Leitz, Zeiss (east&west) as well as Nikon optics on it and can report that the much maligned ED-IF- 400-something did very well in the mountains this easter.
Nevertheless, this site is worth a frequent visit even for Nikon-strangers (and is much more interesting than current sales-focussed photo-mags)
Hence I recommend subscribing to keeep this infochannel open.
p.
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Thank you, we appreciate that!
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Hence I recommend subscribing to keeep this infochannel open.
Thanks for the pointer; I hadn't realized that the site experienced challenges of the financial nature. I just subscribed.
I used to subscribe to photo.net but it experienced multiple changes in ownership and moves to different platforms, quite a lot of the site functionality disappeared, and so did the number of active participants on its forums. I wonder why even the old articles had to go and be replaced by links to creativelive's video courses. I don't mind those (I have purchased a few on portrait lighting etc.) but am surprised why the old content of the site had to go. I can't imagine it took much space. I guess this is what is to be expected that hyperlinks stop working and people have to find new sources for content that was housed for a long time under the same link.
I am wondering if public libraries should archive online content or just stick to mostly conventional books on paper as their domain. I hate to admit it but I'm not reading as many books nowadays as I used to. But I feel that electronic content is quite volatile and what might seem as permanently archived may not be so. While digital media mostly work, if there is no hardcopy, it can cease to exist. Of course, hardcopies can burn in fires as well. But I have this feeling that people may not quite appreciate how easily some digital content can be lost.
Although I was not a big fan of dpreview's forums - there was so much of "I know best and everyone else is wrong" kind of attitude there, that it was painful to read. However, they did publish quality articles on technical topics and reviews. I'm wondering what Amazon was hoping to gain from dpreview and what changed their minds regarding the site's future. I can't imagine Amazon is not making enough profit. What bothers me about Amazon is that traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores don't have as good a selection any more as they used to, especially where it comes to textbooks. I understand that if a book costs 20€ more in a local store, it is difficult for a student to select it rather than purchasing online, but the local stores offered the unique option of actually assessing first hand what one is buying. I just don't feel that online stores offer that, and thus I rarely purchase books from them.
I think it'll be interesting to see what is preserved of present day digital information (say) 100 or 300 years from now, and of course, how it might be accessed, if there is a method.
Thanks for keeping this site up and running and I hope to visit more often.
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Just a heads up - don't assume that files saved to DVD disc are safe - my copy of the Nikon repair manuals has suffered corruption despite being stored away from heat and light!
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Just a heads up - don't assume that files saved to DVD disc are safe - my copy of the Nikon repair manuals has suffered corruption despite being stored away from heat and light!
I was told that most home-burned optical disks have a 5-year expected lifetime.
I suspect there are some that do last longer.
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I was told that most home-burned optical disks have a 5-year expected lifetime.
I suspect there are some that do last longer.
I have ordinary Sony-branded CD-Rs burned in 2003 that still play in a CD player or computer optical disc drive. Of course, all important music/photos now exists on multiple hard drives.
I had missed the NG financial announcement; hard to believe that there is a shortage of forum visitors/users that can't cough up €20 once a year. US$20...roughly the same amount of money as €20...isn't really very much in 2023!
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One of my CD-Rs failed only within a couple of month after I had recorded the data on it. Also, some of my music CDs suffered from the deteriorated data layer in several years after the purchase. :'(
I figured that the most reliable way to keep the digital data intact is to copy them to the new media periodically.
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One of my CD-Rs failed only within a couple of month after I had recorded the data on it. Also, some of my music CDs suffered from the deteriorated data layer in several years after the purchase. :'(
I figured that the most reliable way to keep the digital data intact is to copy them to the new media periodically.
I have not lost any data on my own CD-R's, DVD-R's or Blu-ray discs but I have had failed burns happen on each. Fortunately the software does warn about that and then one can try again with another empty disc. However, I don't handle those discs I keep them stored away, only accessing them when I have been unable to find the primary copy.
I was told that if one doesn't frequently use the optical disc drive, it can stop working reliably (I assume from dust buildup or some other reason). I can't recall that happening to me, though.
I think the problem I am facing today is that I have so many images that it would be impractical to burn optical discs. I would really have to cull the images to a very tight set in each project to make it practical. However, on a semi-regular basis some of my hard drives fail and so there doesn't seem to be any easy way to ensure the images are preserved over long periods, unless great care is taken in the organization and making regular copies. That can be very time-consuming.
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I have not lost any data on my own CD-R's, DVD-R's or Blu-ray discs but I have had failed burns happen on each. Fortunately the software does warn about that and then one can try again with another empty disc. However, I don't handle those discs I keep them stored away, only accessing them when I have been unable to find the primary copy.
I was told that if one doesn't frequently use the optical disc drive, it can stop working reliably (I assume from dust buildup or some other reason). I can't recall that happening to me, though.
I think the problem I am facing today is that I have so many images that it would be impractical to burn optical discs. I would really have to cull the images to a very tight set in each project to make it practical. However, on a semi-regular basis some of my hard drives fail and so there doesn't seem to be any easy way to ensure the images are preserved over long periods, unless great care is taken in the organization and making regular copies. That can be very time-consuming.
When my audio CD or CD-R failed, the CD player or the CD drive could play or read other CDs without problem. On the failed audio CDs, their metal-coated data layer became translucent (almost transparent) and I could see through them very well! So, I suspect that the data layers were not reflective enough anymore to kick back the laser beam shone from the pickup onto the disc.
These only happened only on the discs manufactured in Europe...
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The price differential for media made by premium grade manufacturers and shall we say "economy grade" manufacturers was considerable. Maybe a case of getting what one pays for?
Sad that the failure issues have taken years to manifest themselves. Most of my data CDs have fared OK thankfully. My Sony external reader/writer seems to do a better job on the more marginal CDs than those readers inbuilt on my legacy PCs.
When my audio CD or CD-R failed, the CD player or the CD drive could play or read other CDs without problem. On the failed audio CDs, their metal-coated data layer became translucent (almost transparent) and I could see through them very well! So, I suspect that the data layers were not reflective enough anymore to kick back the laser beam shone from the pickup onto the disc.
These only happened only on the discs manufactured in Europe...
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Meanwhile (having not looked for over a week) I see the demise of DPReview is taking longer than originally threatened
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Meanwhile (having not looked for over a week) I see the demise of DPReview is taking longer than originally threatened
Yup. And new articles have been added as if nothing had happened. :D
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Amazon would walk over our dead bodies if it's convenient for them, maybe they did the announcement to get a few more clicks...
Meanwhile, I acted and paid my subscription to NG, was the right thing to do!
Ciao from Massimo
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Yup. And new articles have been added as if nothing had happened. :D
I recall they said that they are still adding content while archiving (i.e. gathering material to users who requesting their contributions to be sent in some kind of an archive). They also said they had decided not take the site offline (originally they said it was to stay online as a read-only site for some time but would eventually be deleted). I don't this can be expected to be a reversal of the decision to close the site from new content.
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I recall they said that they are still adding content while archiving (i.e. gathering material to users who requesting their contributions to be sent in some kind of an archive). They also said they had decided not take the site offline (originally they said it was to stay online as a read-only site for some time but would eventually be deleted). I don't this can be expected to be a reversal of the decision to close the site from new content.
Hopefully Amazon just forgot about it!
But in reality this is just a temporary reprieve.
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richardhaw.com lives...thanks to you! :o :o :o
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More articles published on DPReview, even an initial review of the Nikon Z8...
The more I think about it, the more it looks like they threw a stone in the pond to see the effect on readers...
Ciao from Massimo
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The news of the death of dpreview did not come through - bought up by Gear Patrol and will apparently continue as before:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/8298318614/ (https://www.dpreview.com/news/8298318614/)
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I was never a frequent visitor to DPReview but it was a valuable resource for those times I was considering the purchase of a used camera. I'm glad it's going to continue and the review articles will be preserved.