Digital camera reviews suck.
Here’s several reasons why digital camera reviews and review sites suck:
- Canon vs. Nikon: Its like Mac vs. PC, Ford vs. Chevy, or Honda vs. Toyota. Both sides think their product is better, and argue constantly.
- Megapixels: Really, megapixels shouldn’t be the goal. Good pictures are the goal. megapixels != good pictures.
- X is better than Y: The best reviews are comparative, and the worst reviews are comparative. The problem is that comparative reviews require knowledge of 2 products instead of 1, and the 2 products are chosen (sometimes poorly) by the reviewer.
- Pro vs. amateur: Great sites like photo.net are chock full of all kinds of people, pros and amateurs alike. When someone comments or posts a review, you’ve got no idea what their level of knowledge and expectation is. A novice can think that a $100 digital point and shoot takes better pics than a disposable 35mm, and a pro will think that a $5000 DSLR setup isn’t as good as the medium format rig he’s got back in his studio. Both opinions are basically pointless for most “middle of the road” people, and don’t really convey any useful information.
- Lens confsion due to DSLRs: Entry level DSLR’s don’t have a “full frame” sensor, and this confuses the market quite a bit. The problem is that the same lens can have different behaviors on different cameras. Thus, when someone says that the lens is “too long” or “too short” for a given task, you need to know the context, and its usually not provided. The same thing goes for example photos — unless you know the sensor size, you don’t know that you’ll get similar results. If you’re trying to compare maximum aperture (and thus, sensitivity) of 2 point and shoot cameras, good luck! You’ll have a heck of a time finding comparative sensor sizes!
- Lack of stats: For some reason, everyone has focused on megapixels as the only viable stat for digital cameras. What about numbers to measure chromatic aberration, center and edge resolution, softness, contrast, etc. There just don’t seem to be any. It makes reading camera reviews somewhat more akin to wine reviews: Its got lot of body, smoky overtones, and finishes with a bit of falloff and softness when wide open.
- Fancy-schmancy features: Image stabilization, ultrasonic dust cleaning, on camera image editing, face detection algorithms. Are these truth or fiction? Useful new features, or a bunch of bull? You get to decide, but only if you buy the right camera first.
- Is this how I take photos?: When reading reviews, it seems as many of the reviewers use the camera on a tripod, in bright studio lights or sunlight. Is that how I’m going to take photos? Where are the example shots of handheld indoor at night without flash? Thats where I want to be able to take great photos. I EXIF data could encode stuff like whether the camera was handheld (and how steady!) I’d be super excited!
Ugh. It makes decision making so hard. I fear that I’ve fallen into the trap of “a better camera will make me a better photographer.” I know its not true, but at least I can try, right?
