Dpreview is closing - (Two Merged Threads)

[Jochen_S]

On 3/23/2023 at 5:18 PM, AlanKlein said:

How important is keeping information on obsolete equipment? 

"Pretty"? - I bought used before and the future ain't overly bright. 

[dmanthree]

On 3/23/2023 at 12:18 PM, AlanKlein said:

How important is keeping information on obsolete equipment? 

To me, the archived content means nothing. And going forward there will be plenty of testers who will publish info so we can continue to obsess over each and every pixel. And yes, PN has improved some things lately, so I'm hoping that some traffic comes this way.

[vrankin]

On 3/22/2023 at 6:18 PM, Sanford said:

Why should we assume P/N is in any better financial health than DPR. I think DPR catered to a MUCH younger crowd than we have here.

Maybe P/N is in even worse financial shape. I don't know. But as long as it's up and people invest in it, that seems a good thing to me. BTW, I'm seventy-five, and a LOT of DPR's members who revealed their age were older than I.

[mark_leha]

On 3/26/2023 at 11:19 PM, vrankin said:

Maybe P/N is in even worse financial shape. I don't know. But as long as it's up and people invest in it, that seems a good thing to me. BTW, I'm seventy-five, and a LOT of DPR's members who revealed their age were older than I.

DPR was HUGE under Phil Askey. It's not about age in my opinion. And a website cost nothing to maintain : if Bezos decided to close it down like that then must be because of something else, not just the money. But let's be honest now: DPR under Phil Askey was beautiful, hands down the best website of any kind I see around, even today. 

[david_henderson]

I don't think that a decision to close DPR with all of 14 people I think- would make any financial difference to a business the size of Amazon.  Quite frankly DPR would be incapable of either making or losing  more than a very small amount of money.

I think the root of the issue is whether DPR was remotely strategically interesting to Amazon.  It was never ever going to be really big, or make an interesting  amount of money, so why bother?  Companies behave differently regarding non-strategic side-businesses  in expansion mode or contraction mode.  Nobody fancied being asked  "what are we p*****g around with this for?

All that said,  I think DPR was a useful public service and I'll miss it.

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by david_henderson
omitted a word

[mark_leha]

On 3/28/2023 at 2:45 PM, david_henderson said:

I don't think that a decision to close DPR with all of 14 people I think- would make any financial difference to a business the size of Amazon.  Quite frankly DPR would be incapable of either making or losing  more than a very small amount of money.

I think the root of the issue is whether DPR was remotely strategically interesting to Amazon.  It was never ever going to be really big, or make an interesting  amount of money, so why bother?  Companies behave differently regarding non-strategic side-businesses  in expansion mode or contraction mode.  Nobody fancied being asked  "what are we p*****g around with this for?

All that said,  I think DPR was a useful public service and I'll miss it.

 

exactly. DPR was huge because of the digital revolution in the photography business (stills) years ago. there is a simple explanation as of why the entire photography business is dead: streaming and cell phones. nobody cares about stills anymore. the main professions used to be sports, fashion, news (printed), weddings and events. 40,000 sports pro stills operators worldwide for example became 2,000 because now I want to watch the video stream of a game and not the stills (and I am a photographer). The same with news (I want to see the video and not the stills) What's left? products (everybody buys by mail and products must be sold with a good picture) advertising and fashion (in part). The digital enthusiasts moved back to film recently and the amateurs use the cell phone instead.

I own a studio and my work is now 90% products and advertising. Nothing else. Times change , people. 

[AlanKlein]

15 hours ago, mark_leha said:

exactly. DPR was huge because of the digital revolution in the photography business (stills) years ago. there is a simple explanation as of why the entire photography business is dead: streaming and cell phones. nobody cares about stills anymore. the main professions used to be sports, fashion, news (printed), weddings and events. 40,000 sports pro stills operators worldwide for example became 2,000 because now I want to watch the video stream of a game and not the stills (and I am a photographer). The same with news (I want to see the video and not the stills) What's left? products (everybody buys by mail and products must be sold with a good picture) advertising and fashion (in part). The digital enthusiasts moved back to film recently and the amateurs use the cell phone instead.

I own a studio and my work is now 90% products and advertising. Nothing else. Times change , people. 

Even photojournalists seem to be a dying breed.  By the time they're sent to the disaster scene, all the good shots are over and were caught by amateurs using their cellphones who were there during the emergency - both stills and video which the news people scoop up for a dime and show on the evening news channels and cable shows.  

[MrAndMrsIzzy]

Long time member there.  Just went to delete some stuff I had posted back in December.  That's how I found out.  D--n shame.  It was a good site....Izzy

[samstevens]

2 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

By the time they're sent to the disaster scene, all the good shots are over and were caught by amateurs using their cellphones who were there during the emergency

The amateurs may have captured immediate emergencies but not all journalistic photos have to do with such spontaneous emergencies. And, even before and after the fact of an emergency, there’s plenty a good photojournalist can do to tell more of the story, provide context and visual insight, and accomplish what many amateurs cannot. Maybe photojournalists are fewer but not dying. Hopefully, good news services will continue to benefit from their work. 

Edited March 31, 2023 by samstevens

[PapaTango]

DPR fills a completely different space from PN.  It always has been about discussing the intricacies and tiny tech specs of equipment.  It never was about discussing images and learning about the skills of photography.  It is unlikely that PN will see but a very few drifters from the diaspora that will happen on the 10th.

Not only is the site being scraped in totality, but is like a broken mirror fracturing into many bright shards.  The Canon Powershot board (193K threads) was one of the first to set up a new forum space.  Others followed and there will probably be at least a dozen small clique sites emerging up to the shutdown.  As with any internet property, the reality comes when the server hosting bill comes due again in a couple of years...

Edited March 31, 2023 by PapaTango

[Sanford]

This could all just be an April Fools Day joke...

[mark_leha]

On 3/31/2023 at 12:08 AM, samstevens said:

The amateurs may have captured immediate emergencies but not all journalistic photos have to do with such spontaneous emergencies. And, even before and after the fact of an emergency, there’s plenty a good photojournalist can do to tell more of the story, provide context and visual insight, and accomplish what many amateurs cannot. Maybe photojournalists are fewer but not dying. Hopefully, good news services will continue to benefit from their work. 

tell the story? to whom? the journalists replaced the PJ positions and jobs, not really the amateurs. And this is going on since..5-6 years now. There are agencies (AP, France press, Reuters, Getty) covering only the major events now in stills. The rest comes from the cell phones of the journalist and not a staff PJ anymore (again this is OLD news actually). For "sports" it gets even worse. Now ask yourself this (simple fact): your fav team... you wanna see the video highlights of a game or the stills? in any case printed publications are dead. Only google pics stands (because it's free and thanks to the money that they paid to kill the orphan works they are de facto the biggest stills agency in the world (free in exchange of your data)

[Ken Katz]

The "crops are saved!"  Apparently, DP Review content will be archived :  https://www.dpreview.com/news/0507902613/dpreview-closure-an-update

[mark_leha]

On 4/8/2023 at 12:40 PM, Ken Katz said:

The "crops are saved!"  Apparently, DP Review content will be archived :  https://www.dpreview.com/news/0507902613/dpreview-closure-an-update

the equipment reviews and editorials were first class , so it's a good thing. But the forum moderators (working for free) are desperate. ellis vener (amateur) begging to stay in touch with him and publishing his email. LOL Phil sold the site to Bezos, made a lot of money and disappeared. Good for him.  Bezos closed it immediately when it wasn't making money.  Chris and Jordan found anther gig right away and probably kept the camerastore sponsor (they don't work for free).  good for them. but the free moderators need to pause and get out more, fresh air.  don't stay attached to social media in a room 24hr for free. That's idiotic LOL