Moving Forward

Photographers were visibly shaken this week with the announcement that DPReview has been cancelled by Amazon, its parent company. The website will remain active until April 10, 2023.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge. Photographs have been added to serve as visual breaks.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS @ 285 mm, f/6.3, 1/4000, ISO-16000, Pro Capture H, cropped to 3718 pixels on the width, subject distance 4.1 metres

Many of you may be followers and avid readers of DPReview’s articles and viewers of its content on YouTube. The loss of a trusted information source in the photographic community is difficult for many folks to accept.

OM-D E-M1 Mark III + M.Zuiko 75-300 mm f/4.8-6.7 II @ 300 mm, f/6.7, 1/4000, ISO-6400, Pro Capture H, cropped to 2915 pixels on the width, subject distance 7 metres

As we’ve noted in a few articles over the past number of years, the decline in sales volume of camera bodies and lenses does have a direct effect on camera-related media through the loss of click through commissions on sales. Apparently DPReview was no longer profitable and Amazon decided to close the enterprise down.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 60 mm f/2.8 macro, f/5.6, 1/50, ISO-200, handheld in-camera focus stacking

We are hopeful that many of the talented individuals who were creating content for DPReview will re-emerge on some of the remaining information sources that serve the photographic community. We certainly wish them every success as they continue moving forward with their careers.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS @ 400 mm, f/6.3, -0.3 EV, 1/5000, ISO-2000, Pro Capture H, cropped to 3719 pixels on the width, subject distance 2.5 metres

A number of readers reached out with personal emails yesterday to express their disappointment with the closing of DPReview, and asked about the future of this website.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, f/9, 1/5000, ISO-1250, Pro Capture H, cropped to 3180 pixels on the width, subject distance 10.3 metres

We’d like to apologize for not posting any new content for the past week or so. This may have inadvertently created a negative perception about the future here… especially in light of the recent news.

OM-D E-M1 Mark III + M.Zuiko 14-150 mm f/4-5.6 II @ 22 mm, f/8, 1/320, ISO-200

Quite simply we’ve been very busy working on a presentation that we’ll be delivering for a US university in early April, as well as moving forward with three new e-Books on a simultaneous basis. New article content will be forthcoming very soon.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS @ 285 mm, f/6.3, 1/1600, ISO-320, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, Pro Capture L, cropped to 3767 pixels on the width, subject distance 9 metres

Since the inception of this website in January 2015 our business model never hinged on earning revenues through click through commissions from related camera gear sales. As a result the sales declines in camera gear that have occurred over the past number of years have had almost no financial effect on us.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko PRO 7-14 mm f/2.8 @ 7 mm, f/4, 1/60, ISO-200

This website continues to be funded by donations from our readers and purchases of our various eBooks. We have no plans to change our business approach in the future.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko PRO 12-100 mm f/4 IS @ 17 mm, f/4, 1/400, ISO-200

We encourage readers who are supporters of specific individuals who created content for DPReview to monitor where these talented folks surface in the future, so you can continue to benefit from their contributions to the photographic community.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS @ 400 mm, f/6.3, 1/250, ISO-6400, handheld in-camera focus stacking, full frame capture, subject distance 2.3 metres

On our part, we would like to thank each and every one of you for your continued support over the years. We plan to be with you for many years to come and moving forward with new article content and eBooks.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW files or out-of-camera jpegs using my standard process.

For those readers who are interested in calculating equivalent field-of-view, multiply focal lengths for Olympus M4/3 cameras by a factor of 2. This is the 1,265 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II @ 300mm, f/6.7, 1/2500, ISO-640, Pro Capture H, cropped to 2761 pixels on the width, subject distance 9.1 metres

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Article is Copyright 2023 Thomas Stirr.  Images are Copyright 2022-2023. All rights reserved. No use, duplication or adaptation of any kind is allowed without written consent. If you see this article reproduced anywhere else it is an unauthorized and illegal use. Posting comments on offending websites and calling out individuals who steal intellectual property is always appreciated!

5 thoughts on “Moving Forward”

  1. Thank you for telling us that you will continue posting your interesting and useful site. I was really happy to learn that Chris and Jordan won’t disappear, hopefully their new content will be as good as what they’ve produced in the past. Personally I’m migrating to DPRevived https://dprevived.com and it’s MFT forum.

  2. Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake of DPReview are moving to PetaPixel starting in May of this year. Hopefully they will be able to bring over some of the content from the DPReview site if Amazon allows this. You can view the announcement on the new PetaPixel Youtube site.

    1. Hi Ray,

      Thanks for providing the information about Chris and Jordan, no doubt they have a good number of followers. Whether any DPReview content migrates remains to be seen.

      Tom

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