DPreview to be shuttered. [ not anymore]

[amirm]

I just checked and they had 3 times more visits than us:

I bet they had a lot more than 3 people running it though! It is possible they had a large staff given the Amazon backing and were costing the company millions per year to run.

 

[cavedriver]

PS: Anyone that thinks this is related to smartphone taking over from larger sensor cameras with good lenses has no educated opinions on real photography.

I'm surprised you would say this. For anyone that has lived through the death of film and remembers all the infrastructure, businesses, and knowledge it took to keep film working, surely one would appreciate that large sensor cameras represented something and that something has been significantly diminished. Besides my numerous film cameras, and a primary full frame digital (which I now refer to as the "big camera"), I've owned a whole series of "prosumer" point and click cameras. Cameras like the Panasonic LX-7 and Canon G-series. For the last year+ I've finally completely abandoned those cameras as travel devices with the purchase of my Google Pixel 6. The sensors and built-in processing on that thing are just so far beyond what was available in the travel cams 5 years ago that there's no going back. And this is someone that values image quality and has the experience of printing my own large format images. When I extend this to the general public that used to be happy with Kodak Fotomats in parking lots, it's clear as day. Of course I would not argue that the pro market is not alive and well and the integration of video has reached quite a height, but what portion of DPReview's business was casual consumers, people that were shoppng for all those point-and-click cameras? 20%? 50%?

 

[cavedriver]

I just checked and they had *only* 3 times more visits than us:

fixed it for ya

 

[boogers]

How sad! They have been around since the early days. I still remember the buzz when digital cameras first came out. I really wanted a Nikon Coolpix 950, but I had no money at the time. So I bought a Canon Digital Ixus instead. I read dpreview voraciously, getting excited with all the new cameras that were coming out. For me it was a huge revolution from film photography. I could take as many photos as I liked! No need to change film canisters every 36 shots! And ... although film aficionados thought otherwise, I thought that even lowly 2 megapixel images looked cleaner than film.

Same here. By the time I could afford to spend $1k on a camera, I got the Coolpix 990. I never bought another digital camera again. I still break it out once in a while to take some killer pics. Basically, the new high end cellphones pretty much killed cameras and tablets.

 

[boogers]

I'm surprised you would say this. For anyone that has lived through the death of film and remembers all the infrastructure, businesses, and knowledge it took to keep film working, surely one would appreciate that large sensor cameras represented something and that something has been significantly diminished. Besides my numerous film cameras, and a primary full frame digital (which I now refer to as the "big camera"), I've owned a whole series of "prosumer" point and click cameras. Cameras like the Panasonic LX-7 and Canon G-series. For the last year+ I've finally completely abandoned those cameras as travel devices with the purchase of my Google Pixel 6. The sensors and built-in processing on that thing are just so far beyond what was available in the travel cams 5 years ago that there's no going back. And this is someone that values image quality and has the experience of printing my own large format images. When I extend this to the general public that used to be happy with Kodak Fotomats in parking lots, it's clear as day. Of course I would not argue that the pro market is not alive and well and the integration of video has reached quite a height, but what portion of DPReview's business was casual consumers, people that were shoppng for all those point-and-click cameras? 20%? 50%?

I would surmise 90% of the market is find with cellphone pics vs full frame DSLR. You just have to ask:
1. How many consumers leave their pure digital cameras in automatic mode?
2. How many times consumers bring both their high end cellphones and digital cameras out all the time?
3. How often do consumers use their digital cameras on a yearly bases?

The above response is the reason why the consumer market is pretty much dead. The prosumers only carry the high end market. There is little to no market for low/mid level cameras. Using the automobile industry, the manual transmission is pretty much on life support even in the high end market.

 

[pablolie]

... but what portion of DPReview's business was casual consumers, people that were shoppng for all those point-and-click cameras? 20%? 50%?

The clear problem with DPRview unfortunately was an ad-only business model, and not try to extend it to a subscription model for enthusiasts (not pros) that have been loyal followers.

I got the new OM Systems OM-1 and good heavens, with the glass I have (meaning high apertures including Nokton 0.95 stuff) it absolutely obliterates anything even my new S23 Ultra can ever hope to do in creative photography. Latter is great for great snapshots, but nothing beyond that.

 

[Dimitri]

Elon hasn't made any large purchases this month....

 

[pablolie]

...

The above response is the reason why the consumer market is pretty much dead. The prosumers only carry the high end market. There is little to no market for low/mid level cameras. Using the automobile industry, the manual transmission is pretty much on life support even in the high end market.

The digital camera market is over $20B a year (https://www.statista.com/outlook/cm...-multimedia/digital-cameras/worldwide#revenue) and projected to grow (admittedly a a low CAGR). Hardly a dead market.

The problem was that in the past many people who should have never considered buying a sophisticated camera... did. Things have settled on the new normal that was rational all along. Smartphones take amazing snapshots (I use mine all the time), but as for aspirational photography - nowhere near.

 

[jsilvela]

Another sad case where a project/company gets bought and eventually shut down.
This is movie super-villain behavior.
I understand a company deciding that some project is not a part of their strategy going forward.
But why not sell, spin-off, put on lower staff, open-source, or other such alternatives.
Or, take a page from ASR and ask the long-time users for donations to keep the site going.

 

[Dismayed]

The world is going to hell.

 

[JeffS7444]

I’ll miss DPR for awhile, but over time will forget about it, just as I’ve mostly forgotten photo.net, Luminous Landscape, Steve’s Digicams, Compuserve, eWorld - and the rec.photo Usenet newsgroups.

 

[amirm]

Luminous Landscape

Really miss this. It was must read for me at the time. Even bought a subscription to video series.

 

[amirm]

Steve’s Digicams

Oh, didn't realize this closed as well.

 

[Kegemusha]

I was an avid visitor of the site and many other photo sites, I do still have my fancy old digital camera and take a lot of pics, pity they close it.
A couple of weeks a go I was there checking a camera model specification.

 

[Astoneroad]

I’ll miss DPR for awhile, but over time will forget about it, just as I’ve mostly forgotten photo.net, Luminous Landscape, Steve’s Digicams, Compuserve, eWorld - and the rec.photo Usenet newsgroups.

"Resistance is Futile" The arrow from order to disorder is... lethal.

 

[anmpr1]

The digital camera market is over $20B a year (https://www.statista.com/outlook/cm...-multimedia/digital-cameras/worldwide#revenue) and projected to grow (admittedly a a low CAGR). Hardly a dead market.

Some stats I ran down--accuracy not guaranteed. Only FWIW:

Total camera sales in 2021 were down 6% from 2020. 8,361,521 units shipped. [That seems like a small number, and I was surprised about it.] Of that group, camera's with interchangeable lenses totaled 5,348,271, representing an 0.8% increase from 2020. Compact (all in one) cameras were down 16%. Mirrorless cameras outsold SLR by a million units, an increase of 67% from previous year. China was the single largest market for stand alone cameras.

Contrast: 1.43 billion smartphones were sold in 2021. Each with at least one camera feature.

The stand alone camera is not a dead market. But as it survives it'll no doubt be more for the pros, and hardcore hobbyists. As a camera non-enthusiast, I own two very out of date digital cameras. But I don't know where they are. In a box somewhere. However, waifu and I have three sometimes smart phones (I hate to admit that), plus two tablets, all with cameras. I think that describes most folk's situation when it comes to the need for cameras.

Interestingly, in the recent Chinese sci-fi television series, 3 Body Problem, the main character falls into 'the trap' after using a Leica rangefinder, and then developing some mysterious pictures in his dark room. Very retro. Chinese TV shows all feature record players (and sometimes tube integrated amps) when depicting domestic living rooms. So perhaps there's a lesson, there?

 

[mhardy6647]

What a shame. I thought they were by far the largest site for camera reviews/discussions. I suspect this has a lot to do with Amazon than camera business. While at Microsoft, I was running a small team that was bringing in $20M in revenue. One day the CFO for the division wrote an email saying basically, "that is all? why don't we put them on Windows where we make a lot more money." That was the end of that effort. I call it the "round off error." When the larger business is worth billions, even successful efforts are dismissed as not mattering (to stock price).

A very large Pfarmaceutical company I worked for (for a while, after they bought the large biopharma that employed me) tended to use the term budget dust for such ventures and their cost (or revenue generation, for that matter).

 

[DonH56]

Wow, missed this, and just when I planned to get back into photography. Both DPreview and Steve's gone, terrible news. Those and Imaging Resource were always my go-to sites. It looks like https://www.imaging-resource.com/ is still going, but darn! I remember when DPReview started, must have been around 2005 or so? Was nice to have additional reviews and such.

Did not realize Amazon could kill DPReview. Amazon is making a lot of changes lately, must be suffering after pandemic-related business dropped? I just got notice that the print magazine subscriptions I signed up for my wife are also going away.

 

[Keith_W]

Wow, missed this, and just when I planned to get back into photography. Both DPreview and Steve's gone, terrible news. Those and Imaging Resource were always my go-to sites. It looks like https://www.imaging-resource.com/ is still going, but darn! I remember when DPReview started, must have been around 2005 or so? Was nice to have additional reviews and such.

I think it was 1999 or maybe earlier

In addition to drooling over the Nikon Coolpix 950 I mentioned earlier in this thread, DPReview helped me pick my first DSLR. Before this I shot film with a Canon Ixus APS camera and a low end Canon film SLR, I can't remember which. By 2003 I was starting to earn good money so I had to pick between a Canon 10D, or a Nikon D100. Both cameras had 6MP sensors, but it seemed as if Canon's CMOS sensors had an edge over Nikon at the time. For a while, Nikon had trouble sourcing high resolution sensors. The Nikon pro camera, the D2H, had a laughable 2.1MP sensor whilst Canon's 1DS (Mk.1) had an astounding 11MP. Astounding at the time, that is.

If you look at both 10D and D100 cameras from the front, the styling is still pretty contemporary. It's only when you look at the back that you realize how much we've moved on:

The Canon 10D won. I ended up shooting with Canon for another 12 years, with new camera purchases guided by DPReview.

 

[Rednaxela]

Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake Join PetaPixel to Lead its YouTube Channel

The new home of Chris and Jordan!

petapixel.com