World's Largest Imaging Magazine - Trash rag.

[NikoSperi]

I can only laugh at these clowns. I sometimes out of desperation at not finding reading material pick up some garbage photo magazines. This last case is an issue of Popular Photo and Imaging - what always proves itself to be a walking advertisement trash rag, repleat with the "digital rules, film is dead" mantra. One of the typical articles there includes drivel titles such as, "If you don't own a digital SLR... you've run out of excuses."

The next article concerns panoramas - and drones on three pages about how to stitch photos together on your computer. I found it amusing that the sample shots were made with a Mamiya 645 and a $20-30k dollar Phase One P25 back: typical gear for the readership of Popular Photo! Of course not one single mention is made of the multitude of cameras that can shoot panoramas straight onto film...

So after suffering through this biased selection of topics, one arrives at the two feature articles that actully talk about photography. The first is Playboy photographer Arny Freytag talking about his career shooting centerfolds of Playboy bunnies. Here, in a little corner, one discovers that he shoots centerfolds with... a Canon 1Ds MkII? Try again. A Leaf Aptus digital back? Nope. A Toyo 8x10 or a Fuji GX680 onto Kodak slide films! The supporting photos are sometimes shot on a little Canon EOS-1N... again on the same films.

Interesting...

The next article, on how to get your travel shots out of the tourist trap, follows on the footsteps of pro travel photographer Blaine Harrington... who showcases his images from around the world, using... a Nikon F4 and Velvia or an Xpan.

So, if I understand correctly... Pop Photo says if you're not using digital, you are less than a dungbeetle in the Karmic chain... yet all the photos they show amazingly use film. Hmmm... What a waste of paper and my $4.50.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Yes, _Outdoor Photography_ is the same way--pushing digital in all the technical articles, but only film images are good enough to show in the portfolios. I don't particularly read either of them.

 

[Sean]

Yes, _Outdoor Photography_ is the same way--pushing digital in all the technical articles, but only film images are good enough to show in the portfolios. I don't particularly read either of them.

I find it unreal how they do this, it just makes no sense. It's like having a magazine devoted to Classic Ford's, then the "show us your ride" section is full of people showing off Harley Davidson Motorcycles.. I try to avoid most of those rags like the plague.

 

[John Bartley]

The need for publications to follow the marketplace is understandable. It's the purchasing public that I don't understand. I don't buy magazines normally, but I think that if I were to run across an article that I really liked in a magazine that I really didn't like, I'd buy that issue of the magazine anyway. I see it as extracting what I can use and ignoring the rest. I've never understood the need to sell ones product by bashing others. I tend to distrust sellers who can't sell their product based on the products qualities. The general public however seems to thrive on being told why they shouldn't buy "X" rather than why they should buy "Y".

just my $0.02

 

[NikoSperi]

... if I were to run across an article that I really liked in a magazine that I really didn't like, I'd buy that issue of the magazine anyway...

Well, yes. That's exactly why I buy Playboy: the articles I like in the magazine I don't And that's why I picked up this particular issue of PP&I

 

[Monophoto]

The thing that I find really sad is that when I first got involved in photography, Pop Photo was a great publication that featured a regular series of articles that was very helpful and inspiring for a new photographer. Writers such as David Vestal, Bob Schwalberg, Cora Wright Kennedy, and Ralph Hattersley contributed excellent articles, many of which I clipped and filed for future reference.

On the other hand, there was a second publication, Modern Photography, that was nothing more than a compilation of advertisements. Then, Modern went belly up - and amazingly, the publisher of Pop Photo fired his editorial staff and hired the team that took Modern down the tube as the replacement! That's when I cancelled my subscription.

A similar example is Petersens - when it first appeared, it published excellent learning material, and it also included a neat series on do-it-yourself equipment. I still have the first several years of issues and refer to them from time to time. But over time, they also were transformed into a shill rag for manufacturers and the New York retailers.

That said, we have far more magazines to choose from today, and while there is a lot of junk out there, there are also more good publications than there were in the early 1970's. In those days, there were basically four magazines - Pop Photo, Modern Photo, Petersens, and Camera 35, and three good books out of four wasn't bad. Today, the selection on the rack at Borders is vast - most are either shill rags or totally focused on digital, but there are some good ones - View Camera, B&W, Lenswork, PhotoForum, Photo Canada, Black & White for example. PhotoTechniques is ok although a bit geeky.

My one irritation is that many of the good publications today are bi-monthly - and my sense is that they are all published in the same months. So there are long gaps between fixes!

 

[Claire Senft]

I have a subscription that cost me $7.00 a year and is a total waste of money. Frequent are misstatement of facts and their bias is ridiculous.

Case in point: A couple of months ago there was a article on tele-converters and using them on your digifex. The conclusion...they will work as good on your digiflex as they once did on your film camera. Apparently, at some point they they stopped working with your film camera.

I would love for a group of APUG members to write enmass and tell them they will no longer buy any of their rags.

 

[bjorke]

not buying doesn't tell them anything

instead, buy other ad-less magazines, so that your preferences show up in the magazine-trade magazines -- all publishers are ultimately driven by the bottom line, which is why almost all rags are thinly-veiled catalogues these days

 

[Peter Williams]

A Toyo 8x10 or a Fuji GX680 onto Kodak slide films! QUOTE]

Hell, I've got a GX680! Now where are those models ...