Mean IQ Of dpreview Members?

[Snowbro]

I posted a thread to troubleshoot a bug on a camera; I was surprised at the lack of intelligence from the average user there. They could only read maybe one sentence out of a paragraph, then get locked into one tiny area. Very hostile about the possibility that the camera was experiencing a bug. I had to reiterate about 5 times, that the thread was about trying to find a workaround for the malfunction. Not that I was attacking the camera... 

After a few days of only having knuckle draggers respond to the thread attacking me, ignoring the actual camera problem, I asked if dpreview was a place to help, or attack each other. Towards the end there were multiple users that responded, saying they had the same issue. The problem started to get solved, then the moronic mod "mako2011" shut it down, saying that I was trolling and used a derogatory tone in responding (oh yeah? did you also ban the 15 ppl that attacked me for no reason, before I asked if they can read?) ?. They reminded me of the people on the HK forums; I had a pistol come with a rough chamber, malfunctioned with any ammo (provided pictures/gunsmith written analysis). The members there tried to break me, I never met such hostility (until dpreview). They were 100% certain that there could never be an issue with an HK firearm. Multiple other people posted similar threads and they were all deleted quickly. I didn't realize how many people live with an inferiority complex day to day, I might make a mini doc on it. 

I honestly feel that members here, are much more educated. We do not always agree, but at least it is not irrational (except webrunner and his dang osmo pocket!). 

[kye]

The older I get the more I realise that people are mostly fuelled by their irrational insecurities and emotional baggage.

I've also realised that people make most of the decisions in their lives (especially major ones) with almost no knowledge whatsoever.  Think about buying a house for example - it's the largest investment that most people will ever make, but look at how many people got it so wrong in the US.  Same goes with investing in the stock market - I'm not aware of even one economist that predicted the GFC correctly and that's what they do for a living.  People are completely rubbish at picking a life partner, look at divorce rates, and those are the ones that aren't still stuck in awful situations by religion, cultural pressures, or economic factors.  The general populace are so miserable overall with their life choices that a huge percentage are on some kind of anti-depressant medication.  I could go on....

So, if people live their lives with judgement so impaired that they get major investment decisions wrong, choose the wrong partners, can't create happiness in their lives, and then don't even decide to get therapy but opt for medication instead, why would you expect that they will be able to somehow transcend all that and become informed, rational, and articulate people when it comes to cameras?

The other factor in this whole thing is that the photography industry is undergoing massive change.  Most people don't adapt well to change, and those that are resisting are competing with everyone else for the traditional type of work that they're used to doing which there is less and less of.  I think this is the main reason that many photographers are bitter and angry all the time.  If you hang out in communities related to industries that are expanding, or where the typical person is new to the field and not clinging to the past then the overall attitude of people is likely to be very different.

[Snowbro]

37 minutes ago, kye said:

The other factor in this whole thing is that the photography industry is undergoing massive change.  Most people don't adapt well to change, and those that are resisting are competing with everyone else for the traditional type of work that they're used to doing which there is less and less of.  I think this is the main reason that many photographers are bitter and angry all the time.  If you hang out in communities related to industries that are expanding, or where the typical person is new to the field and not clinging to the past then the overall attitude of people is likely to be very different.

I know a guy who used to be an engineer (80/90s), the company he worked for went under. I think he started doing photography more seriously while he was searching for another job. It turned into him doing it as a professional for around 30 years. He was the classic photographer guy, light meter, backdrops, fleece vest etc. I know he also did many weddings; then the digital age hit. One of the first Nikon D3's in the state was purchased by him, he still uses it today as his only camera.. As the years passed (2005-present) I have watched him go from a happy confident guy, to a nervous, broken looking man. He has not adapted well to the times, his photos are almost straight out of the camera jpgs at maybe f10, seems as if they could have been taken with a phone camera. Editing video is wizardry to him, same with flying a drone (even though he got his commercial license for it). One time, he visited and was almost crying, that a new soccer coach at a local high school, hired someone else to take the group photos that he had taken for a decade. His relationship with his wife is hostile, she even bought a new D850 last year, with a set of pro lenses to spite him (she never uses the camera or will let him touch it). Point being; it is hard to watch someone with so much passion and happiness decline so badly. I know he is struggling incredibly financially, but he is unable to adapt with the times. Even if he did keep up, like you mentioned, there is much less work for even the top photographers. 

I love this stuff, but I don't have the guts to do it for a profession. I keep suffering through a CS/MIS degree, because I know will make much more and have better job security down the road. 

Oh yeah, about the Economist stuff: I have a few cousins who work at GS. They saw the volatility from the bad CDO's, then offloaded it to customers before it exploded. They knew... 

[webrunner5]

Did you ever rubber band that Osmo Pocket to your Snowmobile?? I want to see the footage of you crashing. ?

[Snowbro]

1 minute ago, webrunner5 said:

Did you ever rubber band that Osmo Pocket to your Snowmobile?? I want to see the footage of you crashing. ?

No, it got confiscated by the TSA in its waterproof housing. They thought it was some sort of battery powered, perverted sex toy, that could be used to assault other passengers with. 

[webrunner5]

Well when you start swinging it around and yell, who is into rough sex, that might be a trigger you know! ?

[Snowbro]

I did no such thing, I am not Alec Baldwin. 

[Kisaha]

@Snowbro what is the CS/MIS thing?

There is not exactly job security, you said this guy was engineer, nothing had more security than that in the 90s and 00s, I was in University studying that, specialized in the Energy department, while I was studying and working part time in video, and then the market collapsed completely, and suddenly there were too many engineers.

There are only a few decades left to most of us here, either you are 30 or 60 years old. For me, I better go get stressed doing sound on a TV series or go out shooting a documentary than rot in any office or being a corporate stooge!

[Snowbro]

1 minute ago, Kisaha said:

@Snowbro what is the CS/MIS thing?

There is not exactly job security, you said this guy was engineer, nothing had more security than that in the 90s and 00s, I was in University studying that, specialized in the Energy department, while I was studying and working part time in video, and then the market collapsed completely, and suddenly there were too many engineers.

There are only a few decades left to most of us here, either you are 30 or 60 years old. For me, I better go get stressed doing sound on a TV series or go out shooting a documentary than rot in any office or being a corporate stooge!

He could have got another job, he didnt feel like moving & started getting easy cash doing photos. 

Computer Science & Management Informatjon Systems. I am doing CS & Business school (accounting/econ/finance etc). 

I build custom high end CMS sites for companies at the moment. I also provide them with content through photo & video. I can either do this for a business or on my own again after school. If creative work falls through one day, I can pivot to more CS work since I know how to program. 

[webrunner5]

Very few people ever have a job they really like. It is pretty much about the money if you have a family to support. Pretty much any job gets boring after awhile. Might as well just pick one that you make a lot of money and go do stuff you enjoy that year on your off time.

[kye]

1 hour ago, Snowbro said:

I know a guy who used to be an engineer (80/90s), the company he worked for went under. I think he started doing photography more seriously while he was searching for another job. It turned into him doing it as a professional for around 30 years. He was the classic photographer guy, light meter, backdrops, fleece vest etc. I know he also did many weddings; then the digital age hit. One of the first Nikon D3's in the state was purchased by him, he still uses it today as his only camera.. As the years passed (2005-present) I have watched him go from a happy confident guy, to a nervous, broken looking man. He has not adapted well to the times, his photos are almost straight out of the camera jpgs at maybe f10, seems as if they could have been taken with a phone camera. Editing video is wizardry to him, same with flying a drone (even though he got his commercial license for it). One time, he visited and was almost crying, that a new soccer coach at a local high school, hired someone else to take the group photos that he had taken for a decade. His relationship with his wife is hostile, she even bought a new D850 last year, with a set of pro lenses to spite him (she never uses the camera or will let him touch it). Point being; it is hard to watch someone with so much passion and happiness decline so badly. I know he is struggling incredibly financially, but he is unable to adapt with the times. Even if he did keep up, like you mentioned, there is much less work for even the top photographers. 

I love this stuff, but I don't have the guts to do it for a profession. I keep suffering through a CS/MIS degree, because I know will make much more and have better job security down the road. 

Oh yeah, about the Economist stuff: I have a few cousins who work at GS. They saw the volatility from the bad CDO's, then offloaded it to customers before it exploded. They knew... 

Ouch..  sorry to hear about your friend.

They used to say that the only things you can count on are death and taxes, but they've added another one now - change.  We certainly do live in the times of Adapt or Perish.

I have a CS background but have generalised as my career progressed, and I now work across the whole organisation, which means primarily working with people.  Human behaviour and organisational behaviour do change, but it's pretty slow, and I do get a kick out of it once in a while, so I'm probably better off than the majority of people, even though most of it is pounding my forehead against granite.

CS/IS is a difficult area to be in because if you're technical you're having to learn new tech constantly.  In comparison to non-technical careers it's like jogging to stand still, running to progress, and sprinting to have a good career.  My dad was the head engineer of desktop computers in a large educational institution (10,000+ students, 6+ campuses) and when he retired one of the things that he said to me was "I don't think I have another operating system in me".  He went through all the major OS's from CPM to DOS to Windows 7 in his career and that constant burn was one of the reasons that made me move away from the technical side of things.

I tell the people that I mentor that if they want to get a pay rise they either have to go up, out, or deep.  "Up" is getting promoted through the ranks, which means that you stop doing whatever it was you were good at and change careers into management, which is a completely separate skillset, and which is why most managers are incompetent.  "Out" is starting your own business and either consulting or doing some kind of contract work, which means you get paid more than before for the same work, but you've taken on all the risk of not having any work and earning nothing.  "Deep" is becoming very knowledgable about a very specific thing, you will get paid a lot because your knowledge is rare, but you have to keep up-to-date and if you happened to be the worlds most knowledgable person about fax machines or steam engines or whatever then bad luck because you bet your whole career on the wrong tech.

[sanveer]

There are a lotta whacko in the world and online forums are placed where the seriously weird ones find an outlet. Yesterday some female parked her car next to mine so close that she was unable to get out. Then started pounded with her hand, on my car window to ask me to move forward. And then started yelling abuses when I ignored her. If it wasn't a female she would have been punched. 

I also think the news of constant conflict and intolerance by the news and lawmakers, all over thr world, has seriously exacerbated the problem. People are being turned into some kind of zombies.

One cannot deal with them well. I tried a clever repartee once on 43rumours and my comment was banned and the admin didn't bother reading the stupidity of the comment to my original post. I didn't bother to drive myself nuts, trying to explain things. I assumed the admin was also a semi zombie and he has his own genuine biological reasons.

Here on eoshd, there has been a case of some psychological lunatic Egypyian scamster, who has been probably the whackiest of them all. Apart from that we have our daily or weekly outburst, but it is civil in most cases. Nothing that one cannot take.

I just pray we keep it civil (and helpful). 

[kye]

I think two of the biggest challenges that we face in photography, and which starts fights, are:

1. People make different kinds of films.  
   I just started another thread with a great BTS from an adventure film-maker who shoots everything 60p so he has flexibility in post with which things he can use for slow-motion.  This makes sense for adventure film-making, but would be stupid in narrative work where slow-motion plays very little part.  If I had a zillion dollars then the best camera for narrative work might be an Alexa, but if I'm going to jump out of a plane it sure wouldn't be (extreme example) but also if you're running a studio for a game-show then the Alexa is probably also not the best choice.
2. People see differently and have different tastes.
   Lots of the talk about colour science is about taste, but some people can't see colour that well and don't care.  Some people are much more sensitive to motion and care about the 180 degree shutter, whereas others are sticklers for blowing highlights and chase high DR cameras with low noise and >8-bit outputs to ensure that the foreground looks good and the highlights aren't clipped.

Most of the "this camera/lens/mic/preamp/tripod/etc is better" arguments are really people judging equipment according to their individual sensory perceptions, their workflow priorities, and their shooting situations and then thinking other people are stupid because other people have different perceptions / workflows / and shooting situations and evaluate differently.

I think the solution is for people to be more curious.  If someone says something you disagree with, instead of disagreeing with them, try asking them why they disagree, or how they came to that conclusion.  This is how to cool a situation and learn something as well.

[BTM_Pix]

2 hours ago, sanveer said:

Jere on eoshd, there has been a case of some psychological lunatic Egypyian scamster, who has been probably the whackiest of them all. 

Which, to bring it back to the OP's issue with DPReview, is quite telling as everytime I look in the comments on a news story on there he is seemingly one of their respected voices of wisdom.

7 hours ago, Snowbro said:

They reminded me of the people on the HK forums; I had a pistol come with a rough chamber, malfunctioned with any ammo (provided pictures/gunsmith written analysis). The members there tried to break me, I never met such hostility.

I imagine the escalation potential of internet arguments in a forum where you are all armed must be pretty next level.

[BTM_Pix]

7 hours ago, Snowbro said:

I didn't realize how many people live with an inferiority complex day to day, I might make a mini doc on it. 

You could use the strapline "Guns don't kill people. People with inferiority complexes with guns kill people".

[Snowbro]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

Which, to bring it back to the OP's issue with DPReview, is quite telling as everytime I look in the comments on a news story on there he is seemingly one of their respected voices of wisdom.

I imagine the escalation potential of internet arguments in a forum where you are all armed must be pretty next level.

Haha, fortunately, no. Most gun owners are just regular people & have one for their home, or shoot a few times a year for fun. I find some irony in the fact that areas with the highest gun restrictions, have the highest gun violence. It seems to reduce the amount of law abiding citizens that have them, not affecting the criminals (they don't have legal guns anyway). When you hear about gun death statistics in america, they fail to mention that most of those are someone commiting suicide with one.

There is very low crime where I am from; people know that they can't break into your house late at night to rob you, without potential consequence in the form of buckshot. If there ever is universal gun restriction that is successful, then people (criminals) will just smuggle them (like in all countries that they are banned), or go back to using sharp/blunt objects. I personally do not think much about it, everyone gets so worked up on both sides of the spectrum. I enjoy the freedom to protect my home effectively, but take it for granted most of the time, I rarely shoot. 

Didn't mean to get the thread off topic, by mentioning the mouth breathers over at hk forums lol

3 hours ago, sanveer said:

There are a lotta whacko in the world and online forums are placed where the seriously weird ones find an outlet. Yesterday some female parked her car next to mine so close that she was unable to get out. Then started pounded with her hand, on my car window to ask me to move forward. And then started yelling abuses when I ignored her. If it wasn't a female she would have been punched. 

Yeah, this is true. I have encountered a few very crazy people, that seemed to have nothing to lose. I won't mention all of them, but I had one that was as bad as someone in the bird box movie lol. I was leaving an event in Reno,NV (first & last time there), we were behind someone that was holding up about 50 cars. His car was running, so it likely was not broken down. He didn't move for 5 min, the driver of our vehicle honked finally. A 40 year old red headed guy got out of the car and ran up with crazy eyes, bashing our window with his bare hands. He was punching it as hard as he could, you could see blood all over the window. He didn't break it, I just laughed, but I am glad someone like him wasn't packing heat lol. I learned after high school that your pride isn't worth dying over. Growing up, you could settle a dispute outside with someone in a gradeschool mutual combat ha. I have confronted people calling me out (over random dumb stuff, like accidently locking eye contact in public etc.) then seeing them pull out a knife or something. You never know what someone will do, it's not worth it imo. I saw a video of a guy who was confronted by two people at a gas station (did you disrespect me type of deal?!), he won the fight. Then the aggressors came back and shot him as he was driving away.. 

[Kisaha]

How old are you @Snowbro? 

If guns were legal in the UK, I am sure there will be more a lot more murders than now.

And then when does it stop? If you have a hand gun, criminals get military automatic rifles, when you get an automatic military rifle, they get an RPG! I do not believe that is the solution, and what I learned in my life is that if you have a gun, better be ready to use it - that means to become a murderer yourself, and keep your guns away from kids!

[BTM_Pix]

19 minutes ago, Snowbro said:

Haha, fortunately, no. Most gun owners are just regular people & have one for their home, or shoot a few times a year for fun. I find some irony in the fact that areas with the highest gun restrictions, have the highest gun violence. It seems to reduce the amount of law abiding citizens that have them, not affecting the criminals (they don't have legal guns anyway). When you hear about gun death statistics in america, they fail to mention that most of those are someone commiting suicide with one.

Yeah, the number of gun related deaths in the UK and the US per 100K of population does have the same rough correlation to the number of guns per 100 people in each country so its not actually disproportionate.

It makes a big difference to the overall figures despite that correlation though when in the UK we have 4900% more people than guns and the US where there are roughly 18% more guns than people.

I completely respect your right to follow your own country's laws by the way, particularly in the context of protecting you and yours in the face of that level of heat that everyone else is packing

 

13 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

If guns were legal in the UK, I am sure there will be more a lot more murders than now.

I'd be responsible for most of them on an average walk down the high street, thats what scares the shit out of me about them !

If guns were legal here though, all of the murders would be very British and done in a passive aggressive way with a silencer at long range so as not to make a fuss.

 

[Snowbro]

26 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

How old are you @Snowbro? 

If guns were legal in the UK, I am sure there will be more a lot more murders than now.

And then when does it stop? If you have a hand gun, criminals get military automatic rifles, when you get an automatic military rifle, they get an RPG! I do not believe that is the solution, and what I learned in my life is that if you have a gun, better be ready to use it - that means to become a murderer yourself, and keep your guns away from kids!

Don't really want to get into a debate, not the correct type of forums lol. In a respectful way, I would like to link an article from Bloomberg, published in 2018. It shows the number of homicides in London actually increased for awhile, after they had passed the Firearms Amendment Act in 1997, it did not drop until 2005. It is now rising unfortunately; you can also see that the number of burglaries is much higher in the UK vs US (490 US 716 UK) as per 100,000 population. I learned in economics, that association is not always causation, so I cannot claim to know 100% the links here. I doubt any of us are experts in this field, it is very complex. All I can say is, I wish people were not so selfish and crazy. It would be nice to never have to worry about protecting yourself, sadly our world will likely never be that way. 
 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-19/why-london-has-more-crime-than-new-york

[kye]

I think there's too many people concerned with defending themselves against the people with big problems and not enough concern for actually fixing those problems in the first place.

Then again I live in a country so full of socialist communist lefty hippies that the conservative government used a massacre as an excuse to take away all our guns, and now as a forty-something I live in complete repression with only the fact that neither I, nor anyone else I know well, has been directly impacted by gun violence.  Naturally, I'd rather be packing serious heat and going to funerals like all the free countries out there.  But maybe that's just me?