Film reviews today: am I the only one disappointed?

[retina_restoration]

Lol they haven’t done any such thing. They promote themselves. That’s about it. And on top of it all everything about the naked guy is like nails on a chalk board. Enjoy.

And what have YOU contributed to the pool of public knowledge??! All I am hearing is a lot of b*tching about how bad everyone else's contributions are.

 

[gbroadbridge]

And what have YOU contributed to the pool of public knowledge??! All I am hearing is a lot of b*tching about how bad everyone else's contributions are.

In these cases, 'contribution' may be a little generous.

Self promotion more like.

It's disturbing that some cannot tell the difference.

 

[Milpool]

Well yeah what I’ve seen is poor quality on all fronts and I don’t think these people are “contributing” (?) anything. They are doing it basically to promote themselves, and I don’t need to have a competing YouTube channel of my own or list my contributions as some sort of prerequisite to calling this junk what it is. You see it differently. That is ok.

And what have YOU contributed to the pool of public knowledge??! All I am hearing is a lot of b*tching about how bad everyone else's contributions are.

 

[Milpool]

With an open mind I’d really be interested to hear you detail what is so problematic about the various YouTube reviewers recommended above. Because your comments above come across very light on insight and very heavy on judgement and therefore they read as a little conceited, which I’m sure isn’t the intention.

It’s been hashed out in more detail in other threads (this isn’t the first) and I’m not going into it yet again. It’s a minority opinion, heavy on judgement, and I think it is reasonable. Point taken though. Next time this general topic comes up I’ll stay out of it.

 

[retina_restoration]

It’s been hashed out in more detail in other threads (this isn’t the first) and I’m not going into it yet again. It’s a minority opinion, heavy on judgement, and I think it is reasonable. Point taken though. Next time this general topic comes up I’ll stay out of it.

we can only hope

 

[blee1996]

When you look at Internet content about film, you can treat it as glass half full or half empty. I tend to appreciate the things that I don't know and interesting perspective from other people. Of course there are biased and even wrong information, and we all err often.

The so-called "old farts" is not really about age, but more about a mindset. In which we believe we already know everything, we are always correct and the past is always better.

I will now shut up and get back to printing.

 

[koraks]

In these cases, 'contribution' may be a little generous.

At what point does someone's contribution become worthy of acknowledging it, or at least the attempt someone made?

 

[ChrisGalway]

I’ve been feeling a bit disappointed when looking for film reviews lately. Most of the time we see average scans that are considered good enough, and then those are compared with other average or even worse scans. Conclusions are often made based on poor examples rather than showing what the film can really do.

There are exceptions, but they are hard to find (Andrew O'Neill being an exception here).

I don’t consider myself an old fart yet,, but I remember reading photography magazines in the 1990s where film tests felt more serious and useful. Today it seems harder to find that level of quality with so many bloggers doing reviews.

Does anyone else feel the same?

What's missing in the reviews that I have viewed on YouTube is any kind of objective, scientific evaluation.

As a student of Photographic Technology (mid-1960s!) most of our B&W and colour film comparison experiments involved measuring and interpreting (via tone reproduction diagrams) D-logE curves, using test strips exposed in a calibrated colour sensitometer and hand-measured densitometry using MacBeth instruments and usually a range of processing conditions. Objective scientific/engineering stuff, done carefully, but of course it took a team of six of us many days to do a simple comparison.

All that's gone. Does any modern reviewer come close to rigorous densitometry and tone reproduction? Do they even understand any of that stuff? It's more than just the sloppiness of scanning parameters.

Of course I'm willing to believe there are knowledgeable YouTube film reviewers out there; perhaps others in this Thread might point me in their direction?

 

[koraks]

Does any modern reviewer come close to rigorous densitometry and tone reproduction?

Why would they? What's the purpose of a film 'test' or review today, in relation to the 1960s-1990s when film was the main medium of making a photo?
The industrial reality has changed - or even disappeared. What is left is about something else than engineering for the vast majority of people involved.

Judging today's film 'tests' by criteria from an past era that has basically ended is always going to yield funny results. It's like trying to understand a fairytale by applying criteria of conceptual logic to it.

 

[miha]

Judging today's film 'tests' by criteria from an past era that has basically ended is always going to yield funny results. It's like trying to understand a fairytale by applying criteria of conceptual logic to it.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Judging today's film 'tests' by criteria from an past era that has basically ended is always going to yield funny results. It's like trying to understand a fairytale by applying criteria of conceptual logic to it.

So you agree that the reviews are kinda pointless, and nothing more than self promotional entertainment activities

 

[koraks]

Huh? No. Not sure how you could read that in my words, not even in a manner of joking. That deduction is just...weird.