Trusted reviews or reviewers on camera gear.
- Thread starter Blacktop
- Start date
I expect to get flamed for this, but .....
KenRockwell.com: Photography, Cameras and Taking Better Pictures
KenRockwell.com: Photography, Cameras and Taking Better Pictures
donaldjledet
Senior Member
Jared Polin is ok.
but mostly dpreview andNikonians,Nikonites,
but mostly dpreview andNikonians,Nikonites,
Ken is OK, mostly (if you know how to read "between the lines"). I mean, the man is obviously paid to help selling certain models of lenses and cameras, but at least, he does not pretend he isn't (paid for).
Other options: Photographyblog often shows a lot of pic samples, but their "conclusions" suck just as often, then there are Welcome to Photozone! and Photography Equipment Reviews with their straightforward and concise reviews...
Other options: Photographyblog often shows a lot of pic samples, but their "conclusions" suck just as often, then there are Welcome to Photozone! and Photography Equipment Reviews with their straightforward and concise reviews...
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Ken is like a unattended garden. After pulling a butt load of weeds you might find something edible.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
The problem is that some people can't tell the edible from the weeds. Then they eat something the is not good.
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
My go to: DXO Mark Labs
Took me a while to get a handle on using their site but it's premium, objective information.
....
Took me a while to get a handle on using their site but it's premium, objective information.
....
Mouth full of nettles perhaps?
One more time about the good old K. R.: what should be taken with the utmost care ("with the grain of salt", or, is it a spoonful of salt?) are his general ideas and advice to beginners. Example: he NEVER shoots RAW (why should he, he wonders...). In addition to this, he advises NOT to use FINE jpg setting ("normal" or "standard" is good enough, so why should anybody waste their memory card's precious space?). What he does not tell is that this way the photographer is wasting something much more precious - the density of pixels, ability to enlarge/crop/make huge prints etc. Then, he thinks that the lens hood is just a gimmick - the hand above the front end of the lens is sufficient (he doesn't report on whether this method is applicable when shooting hand-held, with a fullframe + the flash unit for the sake of a fill-light...). Etc. etc....But his lists of specs (especially when it comes to lenses) are quite comprehensive, info is presented in the right order, and the attached photos mainly show what had been written within the corresponding text(s), so Mr. Rockwell's reviews should not be dismissed altogether.
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I really like Photozone.de for lenses, I find their results/ratings to be extremely accurate to my experiences. I'll also read all the user reviews on BH, Amazon, ect. I like user reviews but you do have to discount some. I enjoy some of the stupid user reviews too, it gets 1 star for reasons like "package arrived late", "seller sucks", "I thought it was for a full frame"..., the list goes on for miles. Unfortunately these unrelated negative reviews skew the overall score. I love it when they give it a high rating and post terrible pic as an example
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Nathan Lanni
Senior Member
Thanks Rick for the tip about Photozone.de.
I like DXO.
Their data is very comprehensive and one thing they do is sort of equalize (normalize?) the various data such that you can make broad comparisons between camera makes and models as well as lenses of various manufactures on different cameras.
I find their "Which Lenses are best on ____ (fill in your camera model)" rather interesting. Say you have a d7100, or D600, but it also also allows one to look at a lens on one camera, say D7100 and then look at DXO's data for the same lens on a D600/D610, say if you want to upgrade someday. They also have an overall scoring system plus several sub-categories called Sharpness, Transmission, Distortion, Vignetting and Chromatic Aberration. I find these measurements far more comprehensible than manufactures' MTF charts, which apparently can't be compared from manufactures' charts to another. DXO's system is not perfect but it's a place to start.
I find Ken Rockwell rather interesting, and some of his information is pretty good. But his info has to viewed as just one point of reference. He's definitely very opinionated, and his reviews tend to be somewhat skewed because some of his advice would appear to be coming from a mainstream pro photographer, but if you read his background it's hard to tell what his real background is. Seems he he has technical background in digital imaging and claims to hold several patents.
Jared Polin is a little crazy - sniff testing new gear? Huge Fro. You can glean a few things from him here and there but he's more entertainment in my book. Some time back he dedicated one of his Youtube videos railing on Ken Rockwell because as noted Ken thinks shooting RAW is a waste of time and Jared promotes RAW big time.
FWIW
I like DXO.
Their data is very comprehensive and one thing they do is sort of equalize (normalize?) the various data such that you can make broad comparisons between camera makes and models as well as lenses of various manufactures on different cameras.
I find their "Which Lenses are best on ____ (fill in your camera model)" rather interesting. Say you have a d7100, or D600, but it also also allows one to look at a lens on one camera, say D7100 and then look at DXO's data for the same lens on a D600/D610, say if you want to upgrade someday. They also have an overall scoring system plus several sub-categories called Sharpness, Transmission, Distortion, Vignetting and Chromatic Aberration. I find these measurements far more comprehensible than manufactures' MTF charts, which apparently can't be compared from manufactures' charts to another. DXO's system is not perfect but it's a place to start.
I find Ken Rockwell rather interesting, and some of his information is pretty good. But his info has to viewed as just one point of reference. He's definitely very opinionated, and his reviews tend to be somewhat skewed because some of his advice would appear to be coming from a mainstream pro photographer, but if you read his background it's hard to tell what his real background is. Seems he he has technical background in digital imaging and claims to hold several patents.
Jared Polin is a little crazy - sniff testing new gear? Huge Fro. You can glean a few things from him here and there but he's more entertainment in my book. Some time back he dedicated one of his Youtube videos railing on Ken Rockwell because as noted Ken thinks shooting RAW is a waste of time and Jared promotes RAW big time.
FWIW
I don't stick to a specific gear reviewer. I have specific friends who already have the equipment that I would like to have so their opinion weighs a lot to my decision but the ultimate and final decision remains with me. My photography equipment is only a fraction on what he has in his arsenal.
Re: Photozone.de is also another good source. They have Nfoto who has been doing a lot of Nikon lens reviews especially with IR photography. They run nikongear.com.
For various equipment including tripods and landscape type (luminous landscape):
Browsing Areas
For lens reviewers, this cost subscription especially for Zeiss lenses.
diglloyd - Blog
Another more reputable guy is Nasim Mansurov
Reviews
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Browncoat
Senior Member
Ken is more like the manure you put on the garden.
Interesting site... Used to hang around nikonians but not sure if it's worth the membership anymore.