Using photo-sharing sites for research.

This is a fork off another thread.

I find photo-sharing sites to be a very valuable tool in researching purchasing decisions. There are real-world examples, often not post-processed. Sometimes the full scan is available.

I'm not saying that reviews are worthless, but that they are only part of the whole picture. The reviews allways end up picking a 'favorite' and then everyone wants that favorite. But in actual use, would it really make a difference?

I am certainly tired of hearing:
"OMG the Kwantaxorr 95mm f2.3 is 1 point better than the Generic 100mm f2.8. Buy the Kwantaxorr now and join the photo god club!"

Also, reviews do a terrible job of relaying the character of a lens. What if you want a lens with some barrel distortion? What if you want a slightly soft or very soft lens? And take a Holga for example.. if you just went by reviews, you would think the Holga is the worst junk ever.. But then if you embrace its character, it can produce beautiful results!

I agree. I do searches on flickr for films, lenses, cameras. Helps a lot getting to know what you are interested in.

Yes, I also find flickr quite useful as a source of numbers for ball-park development times for combinations that either haven't been discussed here or aren't on the massive dev chart.

Yes, I agree. I check various sites, to get a "real world" outlook.