DPReview is shutting down

Boyd

Boyd

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Jul 31, 2004
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Been awhile since I visited since I'm not in the market, but this was always one of the best sites for information on digital cameras. No more; they are closing down in a few weeks and then completely going away soon after.

www.dpreview.com

DPReview.com to close

After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview will be closing in the near future. This difficult decision is part of the annual operating plan review that our parent company shared earlier this year.
www.dpreview.com www.dpreview.com
 
It is quite a shock to the photography community. It was the go to for accurate information about cameras and lenses. I used to ask questions on the forum and received answers from Australian and European photographers.

Just another indication that people who use DSLR's are a shrinking demographic, and people who use Smartphones are the future.

Speaking of which, the new Samsung smartphones uses a trio of lenses and "AI Optimization", which is a euphemism for faking photos. The Tony Northrup Youtube video below revealed a shocking and very depressing trend. Smartphones now have technology beyond 'computational" photography. The phone will fake moon photos, and other photo details using AI. The AI "optimized" a picture of an apartment building windows, and replace the windows with gibberish hieroglyphics.

 
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Yes, it's a brave new world with AI and I don't think society is ready for it. I thought this was sometime off in the future, but now it appears to have arrived. Glad that I had a successful career as an artist/designer and retired when I could. I suppose artists will adapt as well as they can, but the future is certainly going to be different and what was already a difficult job market is bound to get even tighter. The arts have always been slow to accept technological change and that is not a good sign.
 
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AI is popping up everywhere. in photography and video programs. I tested the free trials at My Edit. It sorta works, fixing problems in some areas and messing up in others. I look forward to when it matures.
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Of course, there are many AI-enabled tools that have some exciting possibilites. But that isn't what I was thinking of. We're just about to the point where you can give a prompt such as "misty morning pinelands bog with a lone eagle on a dead tree in the style of Jon Holcombe" and it will spit one out. That does not bode well for artists.

But it's even worse for designers who, unlike artists, create artwork to please a client. Why hire a real person when a computer can do that? You don't have to argue with the computer if you don't like the results, it will make more until you're satisfied. Aside from the obvious displacement of real people, it puts more power in the hands of big tech companies and makes people more dependent on their servers.

It's still early, but I'm concerned about where it will lead...
 
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Boyd said:
Of course, there are many AI-enabled tools that have some exciting possibilites. But that isn't what I was thinking of. We're just about to the point where you can give a prompt such as "misty morning pinelands bog with a lone eagle on a dead tree in the style of Jon Holcombe" and it will spit one out. That does not bode well for artists.

But it's even worse for designers who, unlike artists, create artwork to please a client. Why hire a real person when a computer can do that? You don't have to argue with the computer if you don't like the results, it will make more until you're satisfied. Aside from the obvious displacement of real people, it puts more power in the hands of big tech companies and makes people more dependent on their servers.

It's still early, but I'm concerned about where it will lead...
Click to expand...
Programs like Mid-Journey are spectacular in what they can do, and the demographic who care about "authenticity, originality and credibility" is diminishing. Movie are based on video games instead of classic novels (some are really good). Musicians make music in Pro Tools and Auto-Tune instead of learning to play guitar like Pat Metheny, keyboards like Herbie Hancock, or sing like Patsy Cline.

I am often tempted to composite images - mist can be generated, animals placed in the middle of the otherwise boring stream. And there is really nothing wrong with it, except then it is no longer representative of reality. What if some misty morning, I am standing in the middle of the Oswego River and a 10 point buck comes walking around the bend? And I manage to get an in focus shot in good light? If I were faking images no one would believe it, but if it were real, not AI, then it actually means something. I think it is better to have an authentically average shot than a Photoshopped or AI generated stunning shot.
 
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Yes, I saw this news and it's highly disappointing. It's part of a long decline in quality, "real" sites that are information-dense and staffed with knowledgeable people who actually care about the topics they're writing about (such as this site!) It's much easier and cheaper to do short format video content, or to produce throwaway listicle-style sites with no real depth. You don't even need human writers anymore, you can just have a large language model automatically generate fluff for you and SEO it into search results to drive your ad sales. You can do this with zero actual interest in the site content. It seems the future will be awash in this type of garbage, even more so than today.

DPReview was bought by Amazon a long time ago and it must have printed money for them in the form of affiliate links for most of that time. Now they've laid off the entire editorial staff and can't even be bothered to foot the small bill of hosting the content as an archive; the entire site will be completely removed. Archive Team is working on saving the site content.

All that said, I did like their long-form video reviews, and the guys who hosted DPReview TV will be moving to PetaPixel and continuing to make videos, so at least that part will continue under a different channel.
 
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All very true. However, this could also be compared to the demise of gps-themed forums such as GPSReview, GPSPassion, GPSTracklog and LaptopGPS. I was a moderator for many years at GPSReview and IMO it really was the best site for reviews and forum discussion. One day it just vanished with no warning. It was sold to a big corporation around Y2k and the founder, Tim Flight, apparently did quite well in that deal. I think we can see a direct correlation between the rise in smartphone technology and and decline in interest in traditional gps and camera hardware. The companies that own these older sites no longer see a profit and just dump the whole thing.

Recently became a moderator at GPSFileDepot, another old site that is still hanging in there. The main interest there is the large archive of free, user-created Garmin maps. There used to be a lively discussion of map-making technical issues and new GPS hardware in the forums. Virtually nothing now. The original owner, Dan Bloomberg plans to keep it online for the foreseeable future. But he's sort of an "absentee landlord" and with no moderators, the forums literally overflowed with spam. So I was happy to accept when he asked me to help, because I want to have at least one place where it's possible to discuss GPS. Unfortunately, it's still mainly a spammer's playground, but they don't last very long with a new sherrif in town. :D

I'm also a moderator at DVinfo.net which was one of the first sites dedicated to the new miniDV cameras such as the Sony VX1000 and Canon XL1 around Y2k. That site is still owned and managed by Chris Hurd and he has no intention to discontinue. There's a pretty low volume of posts these days and only a handful of regulars, but there's a lot of knowledge in those old posts.

OTOH, I'm a moderator now at MacRumors and things are certainly hopping over there with over 10,000 posts a day and more than a million registered users. Have already banned about 50 spammers and it's not even noon yet. :D
 
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"Yesterday, Everett finally had something to share: DPReview.com and its "current core editorial, tech, and business team" were acquired by Gear Patrol, an independently owned consumer technology site founded by Eric Yang in 2007. The deal had already closed as of yesterday, June 20."

"Everett's post says that the site will continue to operate as it was before, with all editorial coverage and site features remaining the same, and all historical content accessible."

arstechnica.com

Camera review site DPReview finds a buyer, avoids shutdown by Amazon

Amazon layoffs were supposed to shut down the 25-year-old site back in April.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
 
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