25 ms·

DPReview.com to close

• dumpsterlid 4y ago
  [dead]
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  This was one of the best sites ever, if you were into photography, or worked at an imaging company (both, in my case). I'll miss their detailed analyses.
• chernevik 4y ago
  What a shame. I'm by no means a photographer but I found their reviews incredibly helpful.
• pragmatick 4y ago
  This has been my go-to source for reviews and user opinions on cameras for 20 years. This really sucks. I hope they find some other site where they can at least continue the forums.
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  This is sad because the forums on that site have been a great help to me. For a long time I would use it as an example of why "forums aren't dead". I can see though how the reviews might not be a viable business. My RSS reader learned not to show me many reviews about that site because I have a Sony, could care less about what new lenses are out for Nikon and Canon, and since I have a pretty good set of lenses I'd even feel overwhelmed keeping up with developments in the Sony world.
• ragona 4y ago
  Dang, I'm actually surprisingly sad about this. DPReview is _the_ site for extremely detailed analysis of cameras. When I want to buy something I go through their report first, and it's always extremely informative. It feels like this kind of layoff is part of an end of an era. Amazon used to NEVER cancel projects that customers were using. They just straight up Did. Not. Do. It. I once had to get approval from my VP's VP because we wanted to turn off a product with eleven daily users. 11. The number after ten. A whole lot more than eleven people used DPReview, and they provided a service that I'm not sure is well replicated from other sources. A loss for the internet, and it makes me sad that these kinds of quasi-public-good projects are getting canned across the industry. I get that big companies are not retirement homes for nerds but... with as much profit as the profit centers bring in, there was a little wiggle room for passion projects. Now it feels like that wiggle room is being squeezed right out of the industry as we all brace for the recession that hasn't quite shown up yet.
  • fetus8 4y ago
    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.
    • oktwtf 4y ago
      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 https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm [1]: https://bythom.com/reviews--books/index.html https://bythom.com/reviews--books/index.html
      • asdff 4y ago
        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.
        • PaulHoule 4y ago
          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.
• gist 4y ago
  I used to visit this site a great deal but I haven't been there in years. I don't even know how many years. Other than generally Amazon doing layoffs my guess is interest in equipment that they talk about has dropped greatly and specifically because of smartphone cameras (Iphone in particular in my case). I have an expensive Sony Camera (several thousand for the body with a $2000 lens and other lenses) and haven't used it in years. I just use the Iphone. And I am someone that had a darkroom years ago and really enjoyed photography (and made money selling pictures even). It was a big deal to me to take pictures. But it was more exclusive since most people didn't have a professional camera. Photography has changed in the sense that back when I did and enjoyed it there weren't any digital aids or easy ways to make pictures look good. Or be able to just take as many pictures as you wanted in all sorts of light conditions. And that was actually part of the fun for me. I mean even my Sony camera can't fix pictures like the iphone can on the fly. The iphone (I've had all of them now an iphone 14 pro max is what I use) is just good enough to provide enjoyment.
  • dumpsterlid 4y ago
    [dead]
  • asdff 4y ago
    The thing with this website is that it is one of those leave it until you need it situations. 10 years ago or so I was in the market for a new digital camera, and used their site heavily during that search. Of course, being a prosumer camera, it still takes great photos 10 years later, so I haven't been in the market. There was a time where upgrading your digital camera constantly was necessary, because sensors at the time struggled in low light and you saw some really big gains for a while especially in the entry level. That said, even a 2005 5dmk1 is still a great camera today as elderly as it is compared to any other piece of consumer technology, and blowing up its 12 mega pixels into a huge print down the side of a building will probably still look a lot better than doing the same with a new phone with twice as many pixels. Having pro cameras last a long time of course hurts sites that favor a customer base that is constantly changing gear and checking in.
  • dangerboysteve 4y ago
    I was in the same boat. Large Canon Full frame with IL lenses. What got me in the end was the bulk and the worry about the camera being stolen, broken, and then dealing with the media. I find I take a lot more photos all the time with my iPhone 13 Pro Max as I always have it with me.
• tylerhannan 4y ago
  DPReview has been a constant companion for the photography nerd for a LONG time now. It will be missed.
• jeffbee 4y ago
  Damn, I did not know this was part of Amazon. I assumed it essentially printed money from affiliate links.
• tonymet 4y ago
  This is likely a deliberate blow to Google. Web search for detailed camera reviews will suffer . The remnant traffic will hit Amazon Com product page.
• jerrac 4y ago
  That stinks. I was just using them in the past few weeks researching new lenses.
• speg 4y ago
  I wonder if this will affect the YouTube channel I love, Chris and Jordan! just reading the petapixel article: it does :(
  • andrewmunsell 4y ago
    Coincidentally, Petapixel is bringing Chris and Jordan on under their YouTube channel, so they will be back in May
• PreInternet01 4y ago
  Dpreview.com died when they got taken over by Amazon. Maybe the forums were worthwhile for a while after that, but the main site sure wasn't. Bigcorps just don't get what makes their acquisition targets tick. And it's not the first time that a niche-expertise site was killed by a conglomerate. I'm still pretty salty about Google strangling Zagat, to mention just one similar case.
  • TheRealPomax 4y ago
    Of course they get what makes them tick. But they also don't care what makes them tick, they care about whether they generate (temporary) income. The biggest bigcorps don't even care what the thing itself is about, they just look at "what's the return if we buy it, and if so, what will make us more money: keep running it, dismantle it and use parts of it to improve other parts of our company, or shut it down once the revenue dries up". Bigcorp operate like ant colonies, and run based on what's best for them. It's literally the defining aspect that separates small business from big business. In the former, people are in control. In the latter, the business is in control.
• acadapter 4y ago
  Why is so much of the good stuff from the internet disappearing without being replaced?
  • EdgeExplorer 4y ago
    - Great thing gets created by passionate, independent team - Thing becomes popular - Megacorp takes notice and offers eye-popping amount of money to acquire thing (or doesn't have to because the founders are in over their heads anyway with how popular thing has become) - Megacorp shuts down thing because it is a distraction from their other things which are printing unimaginable amounts of money - Rinse and repeat Consolidation of the entire internet into the hands of a few megacorps isn't just a problem because of their outsized influence.
  • readthenotes1 4y ago
    people wont pay for good when mediocre is there for free
  • asdff 4y ago
    Sites like these are almost like living fossils. They evolved in a completely different environment than today, and therefore nothing like them can evolve again today. When it first started, DP review was just doing what plenty of other blogs were doing in terms of longform, informationally dense content, because when the founders looked around at similar stuff to compare from that's what they saw, iterated on, and created. Today, the environment is different. If you want to get an audience on your stuff today, you aren't going to make a dpreview or a kenrockwell.com, because when you look around you don't see that stuff very much. You see seoified crap articles, and information drip fed over 20 mins on youtube with advertising in between. Such is the game today and how it must be played if you are to receive any views at all and get that initial userbase.
    • dhbanes 4y ago
      Ken Rockwell invented the use of SEO crap content in this space to sell cameras, lenses, and accessories.
• kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
  Very sad. I remember how happy and impressed I was when I first visited this site many years ago. It was a true pearl hidden among all the low-quality links that searching for "camera reviews" produced.
• haunter 4y ago
  Amazon is the worst
  • PaulHoule 4y ago
    After 2 day delivery became 5 day delivery I canceled my Prime. (I get deliveries from Japan faster than I get them from a warehouse in the next state.) I am in the middle of cancelling all my recurring bills from AMZN (Pillpack, AWS) and I recommend that you do the same. I can't wait to hear them say on CNBC that Prime cancellations exceeded additions.
    • noncoml 4y ago
      Same here. After 15 years I cancelled it. Also their market is now full of counterfeit and Chinese crap that you can buy cheaper on AliExpress. BHPhotovideo is the place I do most of my electronics shopping these days.
      • PaulHoule 4y ago
        Them and Adorama. AMZN is the last place I look for things, not least for the awful experience of wading through all the fake product listings. (So many posters make excuses for this, such as AMZN couldn't afford to police product listings, but I don't see Ebay or craiglist flooded with nonsense listings) What I'm seeing is that the early adopters who got Prime early on are the first ones to quit.
      • asdff 4y ago
        Honestly they need to just get ahead of the fakes and hook their site directly to aliexpress. There are honestly some great xiaomi products that are very cheap, but to get them cheaply I need to order on aliexpress which could be fast, or it could be 4 months with a 100 unit minimum order. On amazon you can also find xiaomi products, but they aren't labelled xiaomi and they end up costing 4x as much as what the same product costs on aliexpress, so I pass on them. If amazon tore down the wall, I could actually be sure I am ordering a true xiaomi product from them and I could probably get it closer to what it costs on aliexpress. Walmart has this same issue actually, somewhat worse because its easier returning things with amazon since they evidently don't care how or why you are returning things.
• ergonaught 4y ago
  Major bummer. What a great resource.
• skilled 4y ago
  Wait what? How is it possible considering that the site is one of the most well-known resources for camera/lens reviews? "The site will remain active until April 10, and the editorial team is still working on reviews and looking forward to delivering some of our best-ever content. " Are they taking it offline too?
  • avrionov 4y ago
    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.
    • beezle 4y ago
      Is Bezos also going to try to have it removed from Archive.org?
• kmos17 4y ago
  Very sad to hear this, such a gem of a site with so much in depth professional camera reviews. I can't imagine this even registers anywhere on Amazon's financial statements, such lack of care for the commons to decide to just close this down (not that I'd except anything more really of that company).
• jollyllama 4y ago
  This is somewhat of a shock. Hopefully this does not bode ill for the future of camera technology.
• jvolkman 4y ago
  It's Amazon's Reader moment.
• mikece 4y ago
  I really hope Amazon considers spinning off DPreivew.
• int_daniel 4y ago
  With all the data that is available on DPReview one could have made a nice product. Something like the IMDB for movies or Discogs for music releases. It is sad to see that it should just be closed down …
  • codersfocus 4y ago
    I'm working on something similar to that (https://cameralenspicker.com https://cameralenspicker.com) If they're really gonna shut down, I'd better backup their site and maybe use an AI summarized version of their content for my site.
  • petergreen 4y ago
    I'm actually proposing that we do!
• okasaki 4y ago
  Wow, that sucks. I had a deep parasocial relationship with Chris and Jordan. Hope they continue their youtube content somewhere else.
• Lammy 4y ago
  TIL they've been owned by Amazon since 2007 https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1690663587/amazonacquiresdpreview https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1690663587/amazonacquiresd... Will miss this site a lot :(
• steveBK123 4y ago
  Been a reader for all 25 years, sad. It has been slowly dying since AMZN purchase, and I wonder why they did in first place.. maybe were paying too much out to DPR in affiliate link income? lol. The larger problem is long-form written word reviews are dead due to the ad monetization models favoring video content. So now we all need to sit through 40min YouTube videos of blathering. It does also seem like yet another signal that FAANG is killing off all the weird "how does that make any money" side projects they've collected over the last 10-15 years.
• codersfocus 4y ago
  I am shocked. I'm about to release (...well it's technically released but not yet finished) a product in the photography space, cameralenspicker.com. I saw DPReview as the #1 "competitor" in the space, and reading this is well... like hearing your #1 competitor is dead. It really makes me wonder where this industry is headed if they're shutting down.
• Ciantic 4y ago
  This is one of the sites I still looked on camera reviews, sad to see this go. I never really cared for "community" reviews, or the user generated content, but the ones made by their team. I wonder what the review team is going to do? Usually how these end up is that those old habits are hard to kill, and the review team will return if not with the same name then under different name. I don't know how they owned things, but best would be to give out the site for their team, remove all the community features etc.
• dcanelhas 4y ago
  Their test scene and side-by-side comparison across camera settings was a great feature. I would never have purchased any of my standalone cameras if it hadn't been for DPReview.
• Oras 4y ago
  Sad news, this was my favourite site 15 years ago when I was into photography. It was the only website that you can read clear spec about cameras and see a gallery of photos taken by it.
• xlii 4y ago
  Sucks. Got a great advice on the camera there. Loved the YT videos. I doubt it'll be the end, though, as there seems that there's still need for such site (or at least I hope so).
• The_Colonel 4y ago
  Quite shocking, why not just sell it or cut staff. The site has to have significant monetary value.
  • sixQuarks 4y ago
    They have an estimated 5.2 million unique visitors per month. It's definitely still a valuable publication, it's crazy they are shutting it down.
    • themagician 4y ago
      And it’s in a segment with high cost, high margin products. Site is worth millions in terms of ad revenue and/or affiliate income alone.
• Jiejeing 4y ago
  That hurts a lot, I got in way past the point where it was acquired by amazon, but the forums were always a very nice place to interact (with its lots of weird and single-focused people, as every forum, that gives it charm). The reviews for most cameras made in the last 20 years were invaluable and very detailed, although lately they certainly struggled to maintain the quantity of content they put out in the past. I cannot imagine that cutting the maybe 30 people (tops) required to maintain the site and push content will make a difference in Amazon revenue; but removing this great online resource is sure to sadden thousands of users.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • gannonburgett 4y ago
    Former DPReview News Editor (who left after getting news of this back on January 18th) here: There were 8-10 members of the editorial team that were full time and a small group of freelancers. Add in about 8-10 more devs, who cycled in and out for the most part. So, 15-18 people, tops. By my rough math once, our entire operating cost for the year was about 10-12 minutes worth of Amazon revenue.
    • codersfocus 4y ago
      Is it true that they're not going to sell the assets, and just shut everything down? If I had connections to an investment banker, I'd be trying to see if there's an in with Amazon...
      • gannonburgett 4y ago
        I wasn’t privy to that information even before I left (Feb), but from what a few people who were/are privy to that information have told me, it doesn’t appear as though Amazon is at all interested in selling off the IP. So yea. Just shut it all down. Which is a fucking shame.
        • 4y ago
• acomjean 4y ago
  Shame. It’s probably hard as digital cameras have been replaced quite a bit by phones. I used that sight for many point and shoot camera purchases. The reviews were good and it had a good summary of all the cameras that were out there. There’s still the “Fred Miranda” board, but that’s more user lens reviews and a little dated. That site has shifted to focus on photos more than gear, which makes sense. http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/ http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/
• prpl 4y ago
  Been reading since 2008 or so, after I started playing around with old DSLRs and posited an upgrade to a D200. Will be a ad to see it go. One of the few websites I still check daily. Hopefully somebody builds an archive at least.
• msie 4y ago
  Damn, the forums were useful in debugging some problems I had with old inkjet paper. Got a nice history lesson about old HP papers.
• _gtly 4y ago
  dpreview had a great feature which is hard to find elsewhere: You could see at a glance at what date each manufacturer released each model of their hardware. This was so useful because you could then predict when new releases would come out and you'd get a sense of what was the cutting edge. At a glance you'd know which models were the "latest". I will miss this! Making sense of models of hardware from different makers is very time consuming. Wondering if anyone knows an alternative site for this...
  • colanderman 4y ago
    And compare features between models to see actually what has changed with each revision.
• m3kw9 4y ago
  The photos now are so good now that only visual-Phillies will be interested in better photos. When I buy a SLR or a phone, near perfect photos are expected
  • klodolph 4y ago
    There are still significant gaps when it comes to usability for streaming video.
• bmarquez 4y ago
  RIP. I'm really sad about this, and it's actually something that finally makes me question the Amazon monopoly. Amazon spends so much money on meh (IMO) Prime Video content yet can't keep this site online as an archive. I know that phone cameras have taken over the market in the last decade. For wide-angle lenses, they're great, but iPhones can't quite keep up (yet) with 200-300mm telephotos so I still browsed the site regularly. I'm sure some YouTubers might pick up the slack but I hate still camera YouTube reviews because you can't download the files or check image quality for yourself (DPR has this studio scene where you could compare image quality at 100% side-by-side with different cameras at different ISO's).
  • Topgamer7 4y ago
    THIS makes you question it? Not any of these: - Blatantly ripping off products listed on their site, using sales data from those products as decision making on which products to steal. - The monopolization of every market they enter - Their search listings are garbage, amazon centric and filled with junk - Anti-competitive practices such as pricing agreements for products on amazon, when listed on websites other than amazon - They downright treat their employee's as serfs, nearly across the board.
    • bmarquez 4y ago
      As an end user, a lot of Amazon's criticisms are invisible to consumers. - Amazon screws up and sends a poorly packaged product which is damaged? They just ship another one. - Amazon starts creating "Amazon Basics" branded items? Either I buy it if it's a good price, or don't if it's not. Amazon Basics actually helps fight against the flood of cheap Chinese junk by creating a branded product of acceptable quality. Stuff like anti-competitive practices or poor treatment of employees isn't even noticed by most consumers. This isn't like Walmart where both the customer experience and the corporate experience are equally poor. Taking away existing products (like DPR) or slow shipment of items DOES visibly affect the average consumer.
      • ulfw 4y ago
        "Amazon Basics actually helps fight against the flood of cheap Chinese junk by creating a branded product of acceptable quality." I am sorry, what? Where do you think those cheap cables and whatever else they sell are from? Hand made by a grandma in rural Washington State?
• sitkack 4y ago
  Would it be possible to freeze the site in place? Is it archived by the IA and the Wayback Machine?
• asdff 4y ago
  Here's a 2007 article from when they were acquired by Amazon. It seems at the time this made sense. Jeff Bezos identified the website as the source of truth in the digital camera field and sought to own that source and have it direct customers to his website. The founders were naturally overwhelmed and busy as founders of any company are, and were promised resources to make their jobs easier and let them build out the features they wanted (anyone know what these were? as far as I know dpreview has been about the same as its always been in terms of features). https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1690663587/amazonacquiresdpreview https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1690663587/amazonacquiresd... Today, maybe it no longer makes sense from Amazon to hold onto dpreview. Maybe the source of truth for most people has moved on from high quality texual sources, to other sources. Perhaps these are youtubers who amazon supplies affiliate links instead in order to capture this market. It goes to show to never trust the hand that feeds you to look out for you, you can and will be cut once its deemed convenient and prudent, and the larger the company you hitch your wagon on the more likely are they to behave like a cold large company.
  • pcurve 4y ago
    I cannot believe that was 16 years ago!
  • ckozlowski 4y ago
    > Jeff Bezos identified the website as the source of truth in the digital camera field and sought to own that source and have it direct customers to his website. I wonder if that's the key point. It was Jeff's project, and like Alexa, is no longer protected now that he's no longer there.
  • eddiewithzato 4y ago
    The rise of youtube is the cause to me. Websites that specialize in niches are not as profitable since Youtube pays so much better due to their ads. Along with the huge userbase and easy content search. Today people go to youtube first for reviews
• calme_toi 4y ago
  It's my go-to site before buying any camera related stuff. But I guess it's not making any money for Amazon. Do you know what kind of website would make money? The buzzfeed style equipments websites. Those full of lists of top 10 best vlog/instagram cameras/tripods. Each item on the list starts with some affiliated links, beneath them are some bullets of pros cons, and every couple of graphs there is a google ads. I feel exhausted reading them. Please can anyone recommend alternatives?
  • nunez 4y ago
    That's what the people want. Reading is a dying art. No time; everyone is too busy and the Internet is too vast. It's all about videos and twitter-sized text.
• mrandish 4y ago
  Wow... I've been reading their comprehensive reviews and news for over 15 years. DPR got me into DSLR videography as a hobby which I've spent well over $10k on – much of it at Amazon. This really sucks as I don't know of another source I consider as authoritative for objective, thorough reviews and analysis of not only product but technologies and trends. Super disappointed in Amazon for not at least keeping the 25 years of content online. If nothing else, recent reviews will be valuable for another 1 to 2 years and instructional content for at least 5 years. A bigger loss is that the overall site content documents much of the first 25 years of serious digital photography – an important and unique historical record due to the consistency of the editorial focus and review format. And Internet Archive is unlikely to capture it well due to so much CMS-based chart and hi-res RAW content in test reviews. (BTW, I don't agree with those saying mobile photography/videography has (or will soon) make DSLR/mirrorless irrelevant. As useful & impressive as mobile imaging is, larger formats and interchangeable lenses still enable important capabilities for pros, semi-pros and serious hobbyists that mobile can't.)
  • solarmist 4y ago
    It’ll never be irrelevant, but like medium format it’ll become niche. Even more heavily skewed to professionals. So 10x-100x smaller than in photography’s hay day. (My guess is 1980-2000’s.)
  • digitallyfree 4y ago
    This really is an issue with many online magazines/boards/etc. with a treasure trove of information that shut down on a whim. I understand that continuing to operate the site and produce content isn't profitable, but the cost of running an official read-only archive is a drop in the bucket for the corp. Having a third party archive and distribute such a large amount of copyrighted content also starts to get legally iffy. When the Bioware RPG forums shut down there was a lot of debate from the users on the best ways to save the content and distribute it in a legal fashion. There are movies and shows out there which were written off by the studios and are only available illegally. Honestly the official owner should take the initiative and ensure that future generations can enjoy the content - but of course they don't care and will just move on to other ventures.
  • 4y ago
• BooneJS 4y ago
  dpreview was my main source for getting into photography. I was a faithful reader for many years.
• nunez 4y ago
  Wow; had no idea that Amazon purchased DPreview. End of an era.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• twen_ty 4y ago
  Checks date - it's not April 1st. This is incredibly sad - and also makes me angry how big corporations like Amazon can destroy communities just like that. DPReview wasn't just about in-depth camera reviews which they pioneered and excelled at but also about the forums where photographers of all level of skills and interests would come together to share their passion and thoughts. This more than anything else would be a massive loss. What's next? IMDB?
• marricks 4y ago
  This is one of the first review sites I got into, and really set the standard for what I came to expect from reviews. I fell into and out of photography a lot but I was always left wanting... this, exactly this in whatever other tech things I was interested in. I learned a lot reading the review, and trusted them a lot. I just recommended them to a sibling a week ago for a camera rental. These days I don't get emotional or attached to websites (or companies) but this one hits, and hard.
• TheRealPomax 4y ago
  I assume a full site mirror will be submitted to the @internetarchive? Because it would be insane to pull 25 years of detailed information that cannot easily be found elsewhere off the internet just because your dad doesn't want you living at home anymore.
  • blagie 4y ago
    Probably not. This is an incredible knee jerk. It's closing with 2-3 weeks notice. This does not reflect well on Amazon. This could be sold, spun out, archived, given back to the founders, or many other things. 20 days is not enough time to do anything worthwhile, though.
    • TheRealPomax 4y ago
      Small note: this doesn't reflect on Amazon. Barely anyone knew Amazon owns them, and once the site's gone, no one who didn't use dpreview will look unfavourably at Amazon for it. This was a great website that most of the world didn't use which is why Amazon can just pull the plug with literally no repercussions =(
      • duffyjp 4y ago
        Unfortunately I agree-- no repercussions at all. I've been visiting the site basically from the beginning and had no idea Amazon bought them. I guess I missed that one blog post from 2007. It's such a shame.
      • blagie 4y ago
        > no one who didn't use dpreview will look unfavourably at Amazon for it True, but many tech nerds (who make decisions about services like AWS) visited dpreview. Right now, I won't use GCP or anything related to Google in business settings because of about a dozen similar decisions which impacted me. There's a finite budget of decisions like this which a company can make before people lose trust, and it impact business.
  • superkuh 4y ago
• tmalsburg2 4y ago
  I learned a lot from DPReview about photography, but I also learned a surprising amount from them about what excellent writing looks like. Sometimes I read long reviews about cameras that I wasn't even interested in just because the writing was so good.
• gesman 4y ago
  I'm sure there would be a line-up of good-willing buyer(s) for DPREVIEW. This is an exceptional portal with second-to-none depth of photo technology coverage. It feels like something is missing in "we're closing" message. Cost is not the problem these days. Pending lawsuits? Blackmail from deep pocket disgruntled vendor?
• noveltyaccount 4y ago
  I was just thinking about this site the other day. I was on a trip with an older DSLR Nikon D3200 and a Samsung S21 Ultra. Most of the time I had to look at metadata to tell which photos came from which, a fact that I found staggering. I thought back to how critical DP Review was 10–15 years ago and how much our phone cameras have closed that gap. Remarkable.
  • nunez 4y ago
    100%. I stopped using SLRs back in 2010 or so. Phone cameras weren't good enough to surpass them by then, but I knew that this is the direction that everyone was going and lugging around a camera while traveling was a pain. Fast-forward to today, where you can get excellent photos and videos in almost all light conditions thanks to huge advances in computational photography and bigger lenses. The only advantage that SLRs bring are interchangeable lenses. Not sure how strong that moat will hold up though.
• anonu 4y ago
  Goes to show nothing lasts forever. Sites like dpreview were great, but probably not monetizing like it did in the earlier days of the web. People get their superficial reviews from Amazon product pages and silly "top 10" sites and don't really care for the indepth analysis.
• outofpaper 4y ago
  It's a real pity that Amazon isn't allowing the team to take the site and continue to manage it. Crazy that in these times it makes more sense to lay off and shut down a site like DPreview.
• jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Sad news. I've never bought a digital camera without first checking that website. Invaluable resource. I've been following their youtube channel as well for a few years as well and they just did an episode on this: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLikDUacsC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLikDUacsC8 This does make you wonder if this was the only possible outcome for Amazon or whether they are just too indifferent/lazy to make an effort to sell this to somebody else. I bet there would have been interested parties that could have taken over. It's the kind of bean counter move where the effort of finding out the answer to that question was balanced against the potential benefits (millions?) and disregarded for some reason. I don't buy the notion that this was not salvageable. It's an institute and a great brand with a loyal following. That has got to be worth something. From the sounds of it, not all is lost, the two people behind the youtube channel sound like they will just continue on their own. They grew the channel to 400K+ subscribers. So that's not nothing. I hope Amazon does the right thing with the content of dpreview.
  • visarga 4y ago
    Probably it was all to report reduction in headcount.
  • Espressosaurus 4y ago
    This was always the likely outcome given the decline in camera sales. They're not going to be making money hand over fist with hockey-stick growth, which is what it takes to justify your existence at a company like Amazon. I'm surprised they ever bought DP Review in the first place. As a purchase it makes no sense for a company like Amazon.
• ge0rg 4y ago
  This is so ffffing sad to read. I've only recently become an active user of the forum, as it's the last island of active Samsung NX mirrorless camera users (some of which run Linux), and it was really great to have a polite and civil discourse with other nerds sharing the hobby.
  • freeAgent 4y ago
    That reminds me of another great loss. I wish Samsung hadn’t ended the NX line. The NX1 was an amazing camera and Tizen was adapted perfectly for it IMO.
• egorfine 4y ago
  This is incredible. Have we really come to an era where so few people care about cameras and taking good pictures that it warrants a shutdown of _the_ camera review site?
• valarauko 4y ago
  Lots of people here saying they used to visit this site regularly. I'm curious as to what they got out of it (some people say they used to visit the site daily). I can see the value when you're looking to buy a camera, and reading reviews makes sense to me in that very narrow context. Besides that, why visit a camera review site daily? How frequently were people buying cameras? Professional photographers, sure, I can see the appeal.
  • mihaaly 4y ago
    Daily is unrealistic - how many days of a year they have update for a particular interest? - but regularly when you are interested in cameras, following product news even if you are not buying right now, or soon, it is good. To be informed! I did so several years ago (once or more per week). Now... not so much. Less time for photography. If I had more time, this could have been different.
    • valarauko 4y ago
      I mean, I kind of get it. Back when I was looking to buy a camera, I was on the site quite a bit. For me, the equivalent place to hang out, read reviews or discuss techniques were the forums of home-barista.com in the late 2010s. Lots of coffee innovations now commonplace came from there. I wasn't necessarily looking to buy an espresso machine or a grinder, but it felt like a place where people more knowledgeable than me in an interest of mine were pushing the boundaries, out in the open.
  • throwaway290 4y ago
    Research before buying, troubleshooting after buying. I'm not a pro but a diehard enthusiast so most months I don't visit it but when sorting out gear I can spend days on this stuff and most of it is on DPR because that's the only place where people congregate specifically to discuss gear's obscure features and niche applications like astrophotography. Can it do bracketing and interval shooting together? How bad is rolling shutter? Can I adapt this old lens to that body, what about flange distance? Do you want to find out before you shell out $2000 that you have saved up, or after?
• solarkraft 4y ago
  I'm not surprised but sad. They were amazing. To the point at which I wondered how they were profitable.
• Magi604 4y ago
  RIP DPReview. Great place to consume in-depth camera and lens reviews and get input from real users through the forums. I can proudly say I had an image selected as a winner in one of their annual "best photos of the year" contests.
• greendave 4y ago
  Looks like the Amazon acquisition finally caught up. Sad, as DPR was a great resource and had an interesting community, at least until about 7 years ago when they started leaning in more to video content and less into deeply-technical reviews and discussions.
• BeetleB 4y ago
  This is absolutely shocking. Shutting down the site for DSLR enthusiasts. Just ... amazing.
• hristov 4y ago
  This is a little disappointing. Shipments of interchangeable lens cameras (the bread and butter of dpreview) have been going down since 2010 due to the increasing quality of cell phone cameras. However, at this point, both shipments of interchangeable lens cameras and lenses are stabilizing and growing slightly. And at about 6 million camera bodies and 10 million lenses per year these shipments are not insignificant. Especially considering that the average prices of these units are pretty hefty. So my point is it is still a pretty significant industry and it still deserves a review website. That is one of the unfortunate things of large companies buying niche sites like dpreview. They look at everything at the 10 000 feet level and kill the website even if demand for it still exists. I do hope the dpreview editors find a way to continue their work at a new site in the near future.
  • Zak 4y ago
    > Shipments of interchangeable lens cameras... have been going down since 2010 due to the increasing quality of cell phone cameras. I'm a bit skeptical of that. Phones almost eliminated the market for the lower-end fixed-lens cameras that made up the majority of camera sales. People mostly bought those because they wanted to capture memories and share interesting things they saw with their friends and families. Phones do a fine job of that now, and are more convenient. Most of those customers never bought interchangeable lens cameras. ILCs are for people who want to do photography in some sort of serious sense. Phones won't replace ILCs for that market any more than a multitool replaces a set of screwdrivers for a mechanic. The biggest thing stopping people from buying new ILCs is old ILCs. I have a seven year old Olympus. If I spent $2200 on the new one, I'd get a bit faster burst rate and an autofocus system that's better at tracking certain subjects. If I switched to a different system in the same price range I'd get slower burst rates in most cases, but a bit better noise performance and dynamic range. I could sell my current camera body for about $500, making that a $1700 upgrade for... not a whole lot of improvement.
• ben7799 4y ago
  Definitely sad as this is a site that has been around and is/was an important early website. However I don't really think it's much of a loss for photography. DPreview was always pushing the whole equipment acquisition as the goal part of photography that always seems so weird. They would regularly talk about how you needed some new camera and willfully ignore alteration to your technique that got better results without needing the new equipment. Their forums and comments were always ultra dramatic and controversial with all kinds of brand bashing & cheerleading and other stuff that had little to do with photography. I think it was OK at first as all the tech was new, as time went on it became more and more counterproductive. I actually think smartphones getting people off the train of ever fancier cameras every few years actually helped photography due to: - Better UI - don't need to relearn a new camera constantly - Always have the phone, so everyone got more practice - Forced use of prime lenses made more people start moving around to frame their photos - People started to forget about the tool and just use it I'm still holding a pretty high value amount of camera gear, probably higher value than any other hobby I have. But it doesn't get used as much, and I"m constantly thinking of selling it off. I guess a lot of that being a result of no longer really caring about the specific types of photos the expensive camera gear facilitates.
  • vr46 4y ago
    100% this. Not only will I not miss it, I'm glad it's going, I found the reviews to be extended advertising for camera manufacturers and retailers, and the forums were packed with know-nothings arguing over cameras they'd never used.
• thih9 4y ago
  Is there more context? Or any un/official reason behind the decision?
• breakingrules 4y ago
  [flagged]
• khazhoux 4y ago
  A real shame. I've been visiting dpreview since 2000. Just a couple of days ago, I noticed all their review videos on front page featured the same presenter, and it gave impression they're down to just a couple of people running the site.
  • Zak 4y ago
    The video reviews ("DPReviewTV") are a mostly-independent team who did the same thing previously as "The Camera Store TV" and have already announced a deal with Petapixel. https://petapixel.com/2023/03/21/chris-niccolls-and-jordan-drake-join-petapixel-to-lead-its-youtube-channel/ https://petapixel.com/2023/03/21/chris-niccolls-and-jordan-d...
• drumhead 4y ago
  When I was a camera buyer this was the site to go to if you wanted the best information and opinions. Shame to see it go but the camera market now isnt what it was 15 or 20 years ago.
• redindian75 4y ago
  Phil Askey's Photo Review (DPReview's old name) was a pioneer in camera reviews even in back 1998/99 when I first encountered it. I remember it was run from Singapore with the url philaskey.net/~photo or something. He used to review cameras in such clarity and detail that it was so popular among digital camera nerds. Huge loss!
  • sunflowerfly 4y ago
    I was trying to remember the old name. I believe it was just Phil running a blog solo? Content was slow to appear but incredible quality when it did. It would be great if someone took it back to its roots.
    • reagle 4y ago
      https://reagle.org/joseph/2013/photo/photo-net.html https://reagle.org/joseph/2013/photo/photo-net.html
    • redindian75 4y ago
      Found Phil's interview - https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/5323285840/phil-askey-founders-interview https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/5323285840/phil-askey-fo... http://photo.askey.net/ http://photo.askey.net/
      • mbajkowski 4y ago
        What a trip down memory lane, thanks for this. I was running a hardware review aggregator site in the 90s, and dpreview and the above provided quality content. When search engines were not great and link sharing / exchanges were useful, what a time it was.
• 1024core 4y ago
  Why shut the site down? Why not spin it off? I'm sure it could survive as an ad-supported site, as it used to before being taken over by Amazon.
• Apreche 4y ago
  I sure hope archive.org is on top of this. This is about as big of an archive emergency as there can be.
• jmyeet 4y ago
  This is a little bizarre. Some of you may not know that Amazon went through a phase of buying the #1 site in every space. DPReview is the one for cameras. There were others (eg IMDB). Amazon's strategy seemed to be to drive traffic to their site by buying these sites. Digital camera sales fell off a cliff. I think they peaked at about 2010-12. Now we're at less than 10% of those sales, possibly less than 5%. Of course because of phones. I still like specialist cameras that do things phone can't (eg 300x zoom, 1000fps recording). But these are now niche products. it seems strange to shutter the site however. How much upkeep does it really require? You can pause actual reviews so all you have to do is add new cameras when they're released, which isn't that often these days. You can even close the forums if you don't want to moderate them. it's similar to the Google Reader argument: it simply can't be that expensive to maintain.
• balletto 4y ago
  I'm guessing (but only have anecdotal info) that Amazon more broadly is taking the broom to many little things.
• daneel_w 4y ago
  A shame. DPReview is hands down the most methodical and thorough review platform for digital cameras. I wonder if there's enough time to mirror the content on such short notice.
• wcerfgba 4y ago
  What is required to transition the site to community ownership?
• firstSpeaker 4y ago
  I have such fond memories of searching and reading to choose my next lens maybe a 1.5 decades ago.
• sourcecodeplz 4y ago
  I don't understand why they can't just keep it online as a static site.
• GoofballJones 4y ago
  The articles were great. The comments/forum sections were one of the levels of Hell.
• mobilene 4y ago
  What bums me out about this is that the site will disappear. For people like me who collect cameras and review them online, DPReview is a gold mine of info on cameras from the digital age.
  • Ikatza 4y ago
    No Internet Archive mirror?
    • pabs3 4y ago
      ArchiveTeam are planning on working on one, they probably welcome help: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview
      • mikae1 4y ago
        Good, but from previous experience they don't make these archives available to the general public.
        • pabs3 4y ago
          AFAIK this is mostly incorrect. First the crawler archive URLs to files in WARC format, which are uploaded to archive.org, which then imports the files into the Wayback Machine. For ArchiveBot jobs, you can find the WARC files for the completed jobs for any domain from the ArchiveBot completed jobs website. For other types of jobs, including custom ones like DPReview.com the process is similar but involves more machines due to their more distributed crawling process. It all ends up in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine though. https://archive.fart.website/archivebot/viewer/ https://archive.fart.website/archivebot/viewer/ http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=ArchiveBot http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=ArchiveBot
          • pabs3 4y ago
            Woops, forgot the end bit. There is only one non-public archiving job that I know of, and that is for YouTube videos only.
• EchoReflection 4y ago
  maybe time for some enterprising/interested individual at https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ to start going through...
• julieturner99 4y ago
  I just checked and my account shows posts and replies from 2002-2014. 2014 is about 2 years after I bought my last non-smartphone camera (I bought a Panasonic GH2 in 2011 or 2012). As much as I love high-quality photography, I've been able to make do with my iPhone ever since. So in that sense it's not surprising to see dpreview go away, as I am likely similar to many others in my changing habits. But I really hate that it's going offline. So much knowledge is captured in those forums -- not just specs and tech but technique and ideas. What a shame. Wish it was staying up but dormant.
• seanp2k2 4y ago
  You know what they say: Capitalism Breeds Innovation! /s
• seanp2k2 4y ago
  If anyone is looking for a somewhat comparable replacement, https://www.rtings.com/camera https://www.rtings.com/camera is the best I know of. Their monitor and TV reviews are amazing too (that's how I found out about them a few years back).
• dboreham 4y ago
  In years past this was one of my favorite sites (from before the Amazon acquisition). Then A few years ago they blocked one of my posts. I don't remember the specifics, probably I included a link to another site. Anyway suffice to say the post wasn't commercial or spammy or negative. I deleted my account and never visited the site again. It was quite hard to delete my account iirc.
• shaman1 4y ago
  I don't see why at least they don't keep it in read only mode for longer - e.g. a few years - until the content becomes obsolete. This will alienate many Internet dwellers and make the Amazon brand sink even lower. Surely it doesn't cost them much.
• dahwolf 4y ago
  Sure enough the camera market has drastically shrunk, but even then it is bizarre to have the singular most popular website/community in the industry, with a treasure chest of 25 years of content, only to wipe it out like it never happened. As for this faith being "in the stars" as so many suggest, note that until very recently they had open positions. And as far as I know, plans to rebuild the entire site. It wasn't exactly on its way out, rather it seems a casualty of the current economic panic in tech. Even if this was meant to be, the ramp down is close to criminal. Extremely short notice, no interest in selling it to another party, no plan to keep it online long term, no archival. Nothing. This part of the web which I hold dear to my heart is on its way out. Long form, quality content, deep community (most of the time). Not only have smartphones disrupted photography itself, it has also changed content consumption. From long form to short form. Quantity over quality. And community engagement is shallow. Discovery is under pressure as Google, Facebook, the like starve the web. The rise of AI chat bots will nuke the remaining debris. It's quite telling that the site's 2 main reviewers (which are great) can fairly effortlessly move on as they were clever enough to build a following on their Youtube channel. You see a similar effect when journalists build a following on Twitter, in a way they become independent of their employers. It's just another sign that independence will wreck you. Google and social media are the traffic controllers of our digital existence. You play on their platforms or you cease to play at all. At least, you'd be on a safe and stable platform? Well, no.
  • rockzom 4y ago
    The lack of archival is the biggest problem I have with any of this. Imagine if Wikipedia were taken offline in 2048, with one month notice.
  • JamesAdir 4y ago
    This is not "panic" in tech just corporate politics. Some middle manager wanted to shutdown this site for several years and didn't have the approval of higher managers or consensus with others. It's the same with Amazon Smile program. It's meaningless for Amazon in terms of cost, and imho it causes much more harm in communities like non-for-profits in the case of Amazon Smile or photography hobbyists in the case of DPReview.
• pixelmonkey 4y ago
  Sad news. A guy named Ken Rockwell runs a solo operation publishing reviews of cameras and lenses across the DSLR / mirrorless ILC market. https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm Example review of the recently released Canon R7 (a nice mirrorless camera I own): https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/r7.htm https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/r7.htm Note that his review style is to start with sample images, and then kick off his prose/text review. So you have to scroll a few pages until the "Introduction". That starts here: https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/r7.htm#intro https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/r7.htm#intro
  • freetime2 4y ago
    Ken Rockwell's reviews are not really comparable to the in-depth reviews that DP Review built their reputation on, though. Here's their review of the Canon R6 m2 for comparison (unfortunately they haven't done an in-depth review for the R7 so I can't provide an apples-to-apples comparison): https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-r6-mark-ii-in-depth-review https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-r6-mark-ii-in-dep... DP Review also has a YouTube channel that is separate from their website reviews, and offers a more casual and entertaining format. He's their video review of the R7: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0Zb0WjQKILY https://youtube.com/watch?v=0Zb0WjQKILY
    • pixelmonkey 4y ago
      I agree. I was just providing an alternative given the reality.
      • freetime2 4y ago
        Yup fair enough. Another reviewer that I like is Gordon Liang of Cameralabs. He's mostly a YouTuber these days, but he also runs a website that I think is pretty good: https://www.cameralabs.com/ https://www.cameralabs.com/ I expect that Jordan Drake and Chris Niccolls from the DP Review YouTube channel will also be starting a new channel.
• jacooper 4y ago
  Why does amazon even own Dpreview.com?
• tamade 4y ago
  Why not find a buyer? Plenty of traffic and monetization
• e12e 4y ago
  > What will happen to my content? > You can request a download of all the photos and text you’ve uploaded to the site. This will be available until April 6th, after which we will not be able to complete the request. Would be nice if they'd organized to make sure content lived on at the Internet Archive?
• firecall 4y ago
  Well that is a shame! That site is a part of industry and digital photography history! The incredible rise of the dSLR and digital compact cameras was astonishing. Then to have the industry smashed by the iPhone and Android is equally so.
• ksec 4y ago
  Just wondering, How much is Dpreview actually worth and what is the cost of operating it? This is sad as we continue to see old, professional, decent online publishing decline.
• ulfw 4y ago
  As a relic and few remaining photo enthusiast I will not buy any photo or related gear from amazon.com anymore. End of story. 23 years I've been on dpreview always daily. I loved watching dpreviewTV too. (doubt the 'Camera Store' in Calgary will be able to take them back) This is ridiculous for a company as rich and huge as amazon. Go shut down IMDB next so I won't buy any movies from you anymore either.
• getlawgdon 4y ago
  Well, shoot. This one hurts. One of my favorite no-nonsense places to get info or just browse. And smartphone cameras are getting good but they're not remotely close to real cameras. Had a 13 max until my new/much better s23 ultra and the best shots on either absolutely pale compared to my Lumix G3, now quite long in the tooth.
• mrelectric 4y ago
  This is great sadness, especially now that Mirorless and DSLR are picking up in popularity again.
• sinuhe69 4y ago
  It’s not exaggerated to say DPReview is an important bit of history. Wonder if anyone will go archive them before it’ll vanish forever? It’s really sad.
• pabs3 4y ago
  ArchiveTeam are starting a project to put this on archive.org, I expect they will welcome help. https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview
  • eatbitseveryday 4y ago
    What does help look like?
    • pabs3 4y ago
      Pastebin lists of URLs that you know of and send the links to them to the IRC channel. There may also be a bunch of coding to do, I don't know enough about ArchiveTeam to tell what needs doing, but its probably either URL enumeration or similar. Also because of rate limits, the job will need a lot of IP addresses. These will be gotten by individual users running the Warrior. So if you have a suitable machine/network for that, please take a look: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Warrior https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Warrior
• STELLANOVA 4y ago
  Hope there is someone inside current DPreview web team who is going to put complete site (codebase, db, storage) on torrent... That would be really nice (run DPreview locally in docker). :)
• 75dvtwin 4y ago
  I am guessing that all these businesses that looked 'cheap' to the money-making, investor-darlings machines (the FAANGs) -- will now get closed. The inflation apparently, does not just affect the currency value -- it also corrects the value of salaries compared to the outcome. I am also expecting that 80% of the companies behind the 2,600 apps in this list: https://theresanaiforthat.com/ https://theresanaiforthat.com/ will close those efforts down within 2 years. The next iteration of businesses/sites that come in place of dpreview -- will be ad-ridden, small budget enterprises like emulsive.org
• Semaphor 4y ago
  As someone working for a slightly older, different language competitor: ouch.
• walterbell 4y ago
  https://om.co/2023/03/21/amazon-shuts-down-dpreview/ https://om.co/2023/03/21/amazon-shuts-down-dpreview/ > The saddest part of the shutdown is Amazon’s decision to keep the site in “read-only mode for a limited period” after the shutdown on April 10th. That is a shame considering how valuable a resource has been for the internet from the beginning. It is even more disappointing because Amazon is the largest cloud provider in the world, and letting this live on wouldn’t even cost them a damn thing.
• ganesh7 4y ago
  I don't think I'll miss it. This is what happens when you sell out to Amazon, haha.
• jeffreygoesto 4y ago
  "No such bucket" error?
• Friedduck 4y ago
  There’s a larger story about consolidation on the web and longstanding franchises getting folded into others are going dark. The economics of cameras have changed but I fear that the market for independent reviews has cratered and made it much more difficult get honest unbiased information. I checked: I’ve been active on DPreview for 19 years.
• scaradim 4y ago
  will that be archived somewhere?
  • hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263635
• ngcc_hk 4y ago
  History need the site info to be kept.
• petergreen 4y ago
  If all users requested their data and then pooled it together, we can build a simple version of DPR to keep things alive. And maybe even build it into a new/modern version. I've put together a quick google form to see if people want to try this plan https://forms.gle/2aGQtnQGw6SJCqVE7 https://forms.gle/2aGQtnQGw6SJCqVE7 Obviously there's much more content than user data.. but i'm sure we can keep it alive too
  • petergreen 4y ago
    I've now laid out the plan in better detail here https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/120wkz4/lets_just_build_a_new_home_for_dpreview/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/120wkz4/lets_j...