Damn, I Didn't See This Coming (notice to photographers)

dpreview.com to shut down. LINK

That’s really sad. Before I became a flashaholic I used to visit dpreview almost as often as I now visit BLF. To keep myself up-to-date on the latest and best analogue, and later digital, camera’s I could not afford.

Ouch! Yes, I too frequented dpreview a LOT! Still check cameras there fairly often. Gonna miss em for sure!

Acquired by a huge corporation, one known for giving workers terrible working conditions and paying significantly less than a living wage, while its owner repeatedly breaks records for wealth and profit. To keep profits rising, corp does massive layoffs, and cannibalizes or shuts down the smaller companies it acquired, many of which provided great value to the world and would be fine if they were independent. With each one, the world gets a little darker. But the corp’s profits keep rising, benefitting almost no one.

R.I.P. DPReview, 1998-2023. Killed by a greedy landlord remembering it existed, during a gratuitous bulldozing binge, to make room for another sweatshop.

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Sad.

Digital Photography Review helped me tremendously when I was getting started as a photographer , helped me make the right decisions on camera body purchases as well as lenses.

All too common.

Such a shame. For so many years a wealth of info for the photo bugs and related subjects.
The forums could give advice on almost anything.
All the Best,
Jeff

Wikipedia says Amazon is the owner

Yes. You’d think that one of the world’s most profitable companies, run by the world’s 3rd-richest man, with some of the world’s biggest data centers, could afford to keep one of the web’s oldest and most-loved forum / review sites running. Especially since it takes few enough people to run that they could all fit in my kitchen simultaneously.

But no. Apparently Bezos’s private space ship needs another cup holder or something, and he’s sure not going to pay for it himself! After all, one doesn’t get that rich by doing what is right.

I recall an interview he did a few years ago. He happened to have a good week, and got some media attention. The amount of money he gained in one week – personally, not even counting his companies – was enough to nearly double the pay of everyone at Amazon for a year, raising half a million households out of poverty. And he could afford to maintain that every year for the rest of his life, if he wanted. But when asked what he was going to do with all that money, his reply was basically, “I don’t know. Maybe go to space or something? lol”.

And then he did. Instead of dramatically improving the quality of life for his workers, the people whose labor made him rich, he chose to build a rocket in the shape of a giant penis and take a joy ride to space.

That is the kind of person, and the kind of reasoning, behind many of the big corporate layoffs lately… including the shutdown of DPReview.

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I can’t add much to that without breaking a bunch of BLF rules.

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Yeah, what you all said already ^^^^

I used DPReview a lot when shopping for cameras, and when seeking answers to questions about a new camera. I’m very sorry to see it go.

Well, that’s a shame. I haven’t been there in years after finding Steve Perry’s forum (Backcountry Gallery.) However, I did find it a decent resource when I was first starting with photography. I hope it is archived somewhere for reference purposes, even if there wouldn’t be any more interaction with people.

SO much valuable information will be lost in those forums, especially on vintage camera/lens information. It’s sad to see it go.

Sad, but their camera reviews were a bit lacking tbh.

That describes just about all the organizations I have worked for during my current lifetime.

That’s how capitalism works.
Sad to see that so many valuable information will be destroyed.

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shutterbug magazine

Thanks for the heads up! I have some links to some very useful articles/reviews I’ll save.

Very sad news. Dpreview has been one of the best, unbiased resources for photographers for decades. Further justification to avoid using Amazon when at all possible.

Well, there goes Imaging Resources as well.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/9097452022/imaging-resource-closed-following-acquisition-by-new-owner

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