David Kilpatrick Sholuld Head DP Review

[A1000]

It is the biggest photography forum, and it is highly biased. It is more or less a Canon site. Nikon is too treated OK. There is bias against other brands, Sony particularly. It is owned by Amazon, a large Internet company, media company too. So DP Review is no longer some privite site run by some computer nerd, as it usually is with these forums.

Can Amazon tolerate this obvious bias? Is this bias legal? How long will it take until it backfires?

There are obviously a lot more qualified people than the DPR pretty man to run such a site, people who are unbiased and knowlegable. The best is David Kilpatrick. I know no one more honest and knowlegable.

Wouldn't Amazon be better off to hire David to manage or at least to oversee that site, to bring some honesty there? David is someone, who works and writes with class, is not some ubnoxious scarry looking creature.

[David Kilpatrick]

I should really delete your post! DPreview must be a terrible job to do. It's London-based, involves managing a team of technical writers (herding cats!), is subject to high pressure, and attracts criticism like a field of cows attracts flies.

Even relatively friendly, amateur photo sites like ePhotozine are high stress jobs these days, Peter Bargh (always a very nice, easy-going guy and quite a bit younger than me) was hit by a heart attack just before Christmas, recovering well fortunately.

What dPreview actually needs is a team of writers each specialising in a different major camera system, backed by a purely technical test-lab team providing the figures and graphs but not the evaluative writing. Each review should be written by someone familiar with the system, but sections should be added providing a comment from all the other writers by name (stating the system they normally work with). At the moment they do work as a team and do review each other's tests before they hit the screen, but I don't think they have a wide enough range of specialists. I also think that with their strength as a website (and money) they could afford to have a team of top-rank shooters - a portrait studio, a fashion/beauty photographer, a wildlife photographer, a sports action shooter, a news reporter - who could be loaned each camera for a shoot, and for their comments.

This would have to be better than another round of shots of London streets all taken in an afternoon by the reviewer involved, unless they are lucky enough to take the camera on holiday and get something different. That's much like the old situation with magazines (same for me) - no budgets to get better photos taken, no time to take good ones yourself, no money to travel quickly to a worthwhile location and weather conditions to get anything better. So, each camera's picture sample pages depend entirely for their quality on what time of year the camera arrived and whether the writer could spare the time to find anything decent to shoot.

None of this is Phil's fault, it was a perfectly reasonable way to run things as a solo website owner. But with Amazon backing, they should have been the BEST in the world and provided the richest level of pictorial content, information, and comprehensive rounded views from a whole team of users - at least on major DSLR launches. Instead they have just become exactly what Phil used to do, but with a couple of extra staff writers.

David

[InTheSky]

Review is not an easy job.

And i totally respect everyone working to make them.

Technical writing is not easy at it appear and you need always good proof to bring your point. (Part of my job is to write technical architecture to demonstrate the need of different infrastructure).

Dpreview has done a lot to photography on the Internet since a long time and they have choose to expend. By expending the size of the entreprise, there is a lot to manage, and I'm sure they will correct small error they have done and be better than ever in the future.

A1000, if you want, you can try to make some reviews on your side (Pbase, flickr, etc ...). Buy or rent some lenses, experience them and share your result and your thought. This will give you all the opportunity to show us how you love Sony technology with some tests and results.

Regards,

Frank

[A1000]

I own 1 Maxxum 600si w/28-200 Sigma
I just sold one Sony camcorder (Z1) and still own 2
Digital cameras P&S Olympus, 10x zoom, model 720 or something like that - have not taken pictures with it for years - use my cell instead

I hate Panasonic from the time my Panasonic stereo broke down and the authorized service in L.A. wanted to charge me for repair during the warranty period, but I do have 2 Panasonic TV's, one Sony SW radio, used to have Sony Picturebook notebook, now have Toshiba, have Sony cell phone w 2MP camera, waiting for a small cell Cyber-Shot with 3x zoom and some 8 MP; that is all I need for photography. I am into video, although in the past I took a lot of pics.

I own JVC receiver, Boston Acoustics speakers, couple of Canon printers, Samsung monitor, so you see, not only Sony, although I must admit that I wanted to buy a Sony DSLR on couple of occassions, because of the in-body stabilization and I like Minolta cameras, but my girlfriend wisely talked me out of it claiming that cell phone is enough, which is true, only not my cell.

Actually I would not mind the Micro 4/3 Olumpus. I like small cameras when I travel

My girlfriend has SE phone too - better than mine - 3.2 MP Cybershot - wanted to switch it with mine, but as she likes the color of hers, I told her to keep hers

I have Panasonic SW radio too somewhere, I just remember.

and a Sony headphone radio somewhere

That Olympus 3D camera concept - 4/3 Micro is nice, if it would take high def video

and I have Sony headphones, and couple Sony microphones, and Philips headphones

I think that that is about it

P.S. also have PALM Sony orginiser or whatever it is somewhere

[bfitzgerald]

Well A1000

You can read the nice G1 review on dp now, or course it gets a HR..and of course there are a lack of cons (these never get forgotten on Alpha reviews

But being fair, I have to agree with DK. Dp can be so much more than it is, I frequently find myself skipping many pages, out of a lack of interest. And it badly needs IMO, a hands on and very subjective shooters report. This won't be easy, it's controversial, but I find there is too much technical testing..and not enough real world stuff. Also mentioned before, the lack of comment on metering and AF, but in this one... they seemed to be at pains to point out the AF performance is just as good as any DSLR in this segment (I suggest a quick trip to the shop to find out for yourself!)
It's always hard to do reviews, without sounding like a company sponsored marketing dept..no doubt about that.

On the other hand I have felt for some time, whilst they do a decent enough job, the reviews are rather clinical, cold and don't really pull you in. Whilst I have disagreed with DK on a few things in the past, at least his wording is interesting, I want to read them..a simple buy often overlooked aspect of writing.

[A1000]

That G1 is sharper than A350. The DPR gentle man did not mention that the Sony lens is a lot cheaper than the Matsushita lens.

[PhotoTraveler]

DPR is doing what they can. Do I have issues with them at times, sure, but same goes for any website.

DPR has experienced what many companies go through when they go from 1-2 people to many. They are having very real scaling problems. And when you are still a company of less than 10, but more then 1-2 folks, it puts you in a very difficult situation. You have resources, but not enough resources to organize and structure those resources. It's the same for any company. You and a friend can run a company, maybe even 3 of you. But you get a few more, and now you need some real management to it and people just organizing the people. It's not practical to have an HR department, or standards department for 6 people. So you make due. I think overall they are managing from this side, but where you see the short comings is in consistency.

I've gone through this personally. When i started with my company, I worked at 1 location with a couple hundred on staff, and there was a a couple locations as part of the division, and that rolled into a bigger company of less than 10 thousand. Now just a couple years later, my location is several thousand people, we have been bought by a very large global corporation. Very fast growth. What worked when we were a few hundred on our own does not scale to support big company, and big company comes in and changes things. DPR is seeing this in a scaled version. Phil when it was just fill could in theory produce 100% consistent results since it was one guy. With Simon they did it right, Phil did DSLRs and Simon P&S. This still worked as there was consistency within. But phil never got to sleep or have a life (he was working 7 days a week, 14-16 hrs a day for several years from his post). So they had to grow.

Now they have various people doing reviews, and it all falls apart and they haven't stopped to restructure.

I've said for a long time that a site like DPR (or any review site) needs to split the review into 2 halves. Technical, and Opinion/Editorial.

The technical side can't have bias or anything. It's pure plug and chug. But you still have to plan it. I come from the engineering world. You have specs, test plans, test procedures, forms for filling in the data, scoring criteria and so forth. Before any review should begin, their needs to be first a official spec template, this is a sheet with a spot for every possible spec, features in a highly organized way. If a camera doesn't have X it's left blank. If a camera has something new the sheet doesn't have, time for a upgrade. This form should be posted on the website and version controlled. The data gets plugged into it. As such every time a update to this happens, it can back flow into the previously done ones. Now a straight up feature comparison can always be done, with no issues. Next every test needs a published test plan, explains how it's done, and how the scoring works to it. This is published and updated as needed. Every test states what version of the test it's done against. If something scores a 4.75, that's what it is, it's not a 5, or a "5 just", it's a 5. 4.99 still doesn't make it a 5. Once the criteria is settled, there is no grey area. As new test are needed, new test plans get put in. Old reviews simply don't have that test. If a test gets outdated, you remove it from the official test wrap up. So in the end you have a technical review. It is what it is. Unless someone messes up the testing, it's right and final, no bias. If you can't come up with a repeatable and well sounded test for something, you don't do it. DPR needs to ditch their stabilization test for example as it's not working. And no one has come up with a test for dust removal. So you simply don't test it. This represents a score if you will. It's a sum of the parts, and each sub score it posted too, all in a organized way, so a person could view the ranking by eliminated a test they don't care about (say high ISO performance, or fps).

The other side of it is the opinion/editorial side. This is where DPR has headed over time, as the reviewers are putting in their randomness. Such as suddenly deciding their is a problem with their nose hitting a button when using it with the wrong eyeball. Sister model of the camera has no such issue, nor did any camera for years, suddenly there is a problem. For this the main control would be the reviewer should post a basic profile of them, what they like in cameras, what they don't. How they currently use gear. This like everything else can be updated as they change. Now when the person writes their bit, it's just about opinion things, like feel, control layout, ease of use, style and so forth. And the reader can look at the background on the person and get a better view of what they are saying.

Now when you do this. You can truly understand the cameras review. You can see from the technical stuff, of what you have interest in, how the cameras match up. Also you can determine what reviewers match up with you.

I think some reviewers do this well. Michael Richmann is clear on what he likes, and doesn't do technical reviews. Over time it's clear to me that I have very similar opinions to him on gear (I just don't have his budget). Thom Hogan I'm hit and miss on. Phil Askey I'm pretty much a total miss. Kiklop at dyxum I'm pretty much in line with. And then strangely I've never exactly figured out DK, I think I'm more similar than different, but honestly you throw me at times.

When it comes to reviewers of cameras, I don't think many have any form of actual test engineer background (I have some). So I get very frustrated by them. Some folks have tried to go this path. Klaus at Photozone is one. He is trying to do it, but he's one guy, resource limited, and is testing something that becomes difficult to test. But he's on the right path trying to be consistent as he can be. What I posted above sounds boring and tedious to most folks. But in reality it's not. It's straightforward when set up, and get easier as time moves on. And when you have a vast amount of consistent data, you gain value fast.

One place the problems with DPR come obvious is simply the time for them to do a review. Once they get a production camera with production firmware. The first part of the review, the technical side should be very quick and set up where an intern could do most of it in a day or 2. DPR doesn't have any cool test that take long time. If I was reviewing cameras, I would be having test that take a long time (couple days), but that's because they would be long battery cycling test for each camera to get real battery life info as one example. I would also be getting multiple bodies to do a double check. And one of those would most likely be sacrificial and be destroyed by the end. The other part of the reviews should not take these guys long. As DK says, you don't have the ability to do much other than wonder around london for a few hours taking photos, come back write some comments. Have others do the same. Compare notes, re-read the manual on where you went wrong, go do the same with some other cameras, then take the test camera out a few days later for round 2 to again check yourself after you have learned a few things and the conditions of the first day, both things like weather and location, and the state of yourself have changed.

The idea they take so long tells me they have no proper organization, and they don't have black and white methods to an answer. Further they are trying to mess with their opinion too much. For a staff their size, I would say the later part takes 2 weeks, 1 day each week for each staff member, and they have their follow up day the next week. And this part could be almost completely done with pre-production stuff. If the production one has some changes, they can adjust for that quickly.

[bfitzgerald]

The A200 "nose job" was one of the most puzzling comments I ever read on a review.
You know me, I have no fear of pointing out weak spots, and you can say many good, and a few not so good things about the A200. But, being a left eye shooter, I found it impossible to change AF point with my nose, despite making a deliberate effort to do so.

It might have been a valid comment, with the 5d..I had that problem a few times. The pad is not as firm on the KM, so it is possible to move AF point by accident. But it's not so easy on the A200, in fact its a challenge!

It's comments like this..that make it hard to understand how dp operate in some ways. I think they got caught up in the technology moment, with the latest review..whilst I only had a brief play with a G1, IMO, there are areas of weakness that are glossed over..and not mentioned. It's very hard to be impartial with reviews, but I think they can do better


I might be alone on this, but I am uncomfortable with a review site being owned by a major on-line retailer. Not pointing any fingers, but I do not feel it is appropriate.

[Greg Beetham]

Top post PT.
Greg

ps. I think also in a review the accessory aspect should get some time, like what remote controllers are available and how useful they are, what system flashes are available and usefulness and so on..and some tests as well.