Canon users have the-digital-picture.com for reliable, well-written gear reviews. Do Nikon users have a similar site? Google keeps trying to send me to Ken Rockwell
Digilloyd.com - excellent, the most exhaustive reviews are pay reviews, they are worth it if you're going to drop multiple $K on gear. He's not exclusively Nikon, you'll see Canon, Zeiss, and Leica tests there as well.
Jammy Straub wrote:
Digilloyd.com - excellent, the most exhaustive reviews are pay reviews, they are worth it if you're going to drop multiple $K on gear. He's not exclusively Nikon, you'll see Canon, Zeiss, and Leica tests there as well.
Photozone's methodology for testing lenses are not always meaningful and anyhow, late to the party or besides the point (like the 70-200 v.1 reviewed a month before the v.2 was released or 24/1.4 G first reviewed on a D200); his focus is really on Canon and micro 4/3.
www.slrlensreviews.com is also a good site.
Rockwell is entertaining if anything; he inspires novices to take an interest in photography, so that's OK. His reviews typically (? magically) appear within 15 minutes after he receives the equipment, it would seem
...and sometimes with only the MTF in hand and before the gear has even arrived ...
Bjorn Rorslett (www.naturfotograf.com) is something of an authority on Nikon but his website hasn't been active now in two years; his compendium on Nikkor MF and AF lenses is an invaluable resource, representing years of first-hand experience and exhaustive testing. The breadth & depth of his knowledge of optics and photography is truly impressive and worthy of the PhD in natural sciences he apparently holds. He posts snippets now and then on www.nikongear.com, where he's a moderator and resident expert; that site is a good resource but has become an insider's club for a core of pros that chat there. Everyone else is pretty much ignored and Rorslett is typically unpleasant, irrascible and rude in his exchanges with not-so-subtle anti-American commentary and bias (by him but also other Scandinavians/Euros there) that has made it a somewhat hostile place to dialogue. Lots of solid info unobtainable elsewhere, just avoid getting involved.
Another plug for lloyd chambers. And as far as charging for reviews, We all get paid for work, why should he be any different. ALOT of hard work and effort has gone into his reviews. They are worth every penny IMHO.
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