Camera and lens reviewers

YouTube Influencers

YouTube influencers are an interesting bunch. Their primary motive is to make money. The more they are watched, the more advertisement money they make.

The first problem with influencers is, they are not independent. They have symbiotic relationship with camera manufacturers. Manufacturers lend cameras to influencers, as new models emerge. Often influencers censor themselves, and avoid criticising in fear of manufacturers dropping them from their list. Due to conflict of interest, their reviews are not reliable. Typically they praise products of certain manufacturers, while smearing the others.

The second problem is, influencers focus on numbers. Most of them just dump the fact sheet from manufacturers’ website without providing useful insight for users. User experience, ergonomics, haptics, build quality, reliability, and durability are often not covered sufficiently. When they provide sample pictures, they are either substandard or heavily photoshopped images. Most often they fail to demonstrate out of the box camera capabilities.

The third problem is, influencers skew their preferences towards hypes which has no meaning for serious photographers, such as video AF, face recognition, and so on.

Reputable websites

DPReview is a long standing camera and gear review portal with well managed reviews, posts and forums. DPReview has strong Photography focus and it is less prone to hypes.

ApoTelyt.com is another website designed to show detailed side by side comparisons. One thing I like about them is their ability to show proportional pictures of cameras, so that users perceive their relative sizes.

Tape recorders

This reviewer type loves to show off their presumed knowledge, by constantly talking about specifications, and using photography jargon to decorate their talk. 90% of their talk can be read from manufacturers’ data sheet.

Bokeh worshippers 

Fast lenses are great. But Bokeh worshippers simply cannot get over excessive bokeh talk. Every lens has strengths as well as weaknesses. Bokeh worshippers don’t talk about astigmatism, diffraction, chromatic aberration, OIS or lack of them.

Leica bashers 

Leica bashers try to prove Leica cameras and lenses are not worth the high price tag. They make shifty comparisons with other manufacturers’ data and cherry pick to prove their point. They typically ignore ergonomics, build quality and hidden strengths of Leica gear, such as Leica look.

Leica ministers

Leica ministers are just the opposite. They preach Leica technical specifications like a parrot and refuse to leave slightest room for criticism. Some of them may go as far as photoshopping the sample pictures to prove their point. Their symbiotic relationship with Leica is so very obvious. The irony is Leica equipment does not need propaganda.

Lost Dreams

A small shopping centre in Parramatta. Battered and bruised, we cannot imagine its past. Perhaps it has been ugly all along. A shankie town equivalent of equally disturbing modern mega malls. Polluted with dirt, rust and obsolete billboards with frozen smiles, it manifests decay of American dream copied in Downunder. 

The side wall of Roxy Theatre Parramatta. Rusted and forgotten. Gone with the days of glamour of 1930's. 

The opening on 6 February 1930 was "an event of considerable social importance" with "a packed audience and an interested crowd of several thousands in the street opposite the brilliantly-illuminated entrance".The theatre was "praised as a symbol of local progress" and the evening features 'greetings to the people of Parramatta "voiced" from the screen by several Paramount film stars. - Wikipedia

The Parramatta Council has been frantically approving new developments while demolishing past, chose to make an exception and kept a historical "real estate" building. Nothing can better represent their unashamed pillaging of heritage buildings. The only building that is worth to keep has to manifest what they do as a monument to their greed. How ironic is that.

An odd extension near the end of Victoria Road, Parramatta. In this soulless and depressing picture, colours had no success of cheering it up. I like it as a document of surreal ugliness, and ugliness only humans capable of making. 

An old fashion caravan

Sometimes it is the surprising simplicity of custom-made objects attracts us.

A hot, bone dry day.
Like wooden toys from sixties.
In this case it was this caravan.
Neat and bold.
Stark white and red.
Lines, as if cut out from cardboard.
Who would make such a thing?
It is all there, loud and clear, but mystery is unsolved.