Ken Rockwell

[Gavjenks]

NO.. IT DOESN'T! Really! It has a lot of nonsense... that will mislead you, and keep you in NOOB status longer than needed.... but that is YOUR choice!

Like what? I disagree. I think that if you want to get photos like Ken Rockwell's (which are indeed quite decent), then you would do pretty well in getting them if you followed all of his advice to the T. It's internally consistent like that. It's by no means the ONLY way to shoot, but it is A consistent and valid way to shoot, as a whole package.

When it fails is usually only if/when you attempt to take some piece of his advice and transplant it into a totally different shooting style. And you don't have to be a professional to realize that that is a likely consequence of doing such a thing. That's just common sense, which newbies should be equally able to figure out as anybody else.

I don't know much about welding (I'm a "newbie"), but I'm an intelligent adult, thus I still know that if I ask a professional 30 year welder what his advice is, and he rattles off a whole 18 step procedure he always goes through, that I can't just pick and choose which steps I feel like following myself, and expect to get the same results! I have to either follow the whole thing, and trust him, OR pick and choose, but no longer hold him accountable if my picking and choosing led me astray. Even as a newbie, I know that I would have to NOT be a newbie in order to alter and cherrypick advice and still guarantee its success.

That's just something that's going to be generally true of any experienced person's advice who uses any style to do anything: It might not work piece-meal.

That doesn't mean that it's "wrong" or "misleading." Wrong advice is advice that doesn't even work when you use it in the context of the whole package/Ken Rockwell style. Which there is very little of on his site. Do you have some examples of things he says that are just flat out wrong no matter what, even if you generally shoot the way he does?

And that's the fundamental problems. Newbies don't belong on his site because they don't know the difference between information and misinformation. Not everything he says is necessarily true nor relevant. His product reviews can be misleading, and in some cases he's published reviews for products that he never even used.

He usually explicitly says that his reviews are not from things he has used, when that is the case. Either that, or such items have a barebones page with nothing but manufacturer advertised stats and maybe a paragraph of editorializing. I don't see how either is irresponsible or misleading. if you can't read a disclaimer, then that's your fault, and if you trust the information on the barebones ones that don't have disclaimers, then it isn't going to hurt you much anyway, because it's all just the same information you would have got from the manufacturer. Where is the dangerous misleading happening, exactly?

"Not everything he says is necessarily true nor relevant." <-- Lol what? That's called "being a human being." As long as he isnt intentionally providing wrong information, then he is no worse than any other review blog you're going to find online. And I'm not aware of any intentionally wrong information provided. Not is the unintentionally wrong information very common, compared to any other reviewers/bloggers.



Like Derrell points out, I think that 90% of what he says is spot on, extremely insightful commentary that really works and pans out.
People get all bent out of shape over the 10% of his pages that just only "might" work or are occasionally almost certainly wrong, and then give up on the entire man, without really stopping and asking the question "Well wait, who else out there isn't wrong at least that often?"
For example, I got a good laugh out of the first or second reply to this thread where somebody suggested that FroKnowsPhoto was a much superior source of less preachy information than ken Rockwell... He's a good guy, and I like his site a lot too, but he is definitely 2-3x as preachy as Ken Rockwell is (gets extremely visibly agitated every 10 seconds, repeats himself constantly in a way that literally sounds like a sermon, etc.), and isn't really right any more often.

Who is this magical reviewer who is right 100% of the time and whose advice always works out of context? Because I'd love to go check out their site every week as my new priority if somebody can lead me to them.

 

[tevo]

I believe I understand the issue a bit better now. I too have noticed how he tends to assert that what he says is factual without actually saying it. In my experience I have bought two lenses on the basis of his good review, and found that he was for the most part accurate. However I have also seen reviews on lenses that I (previously at any rate) own where his information is misleading / inaccurate.

I think his reviews of cameras and lenses are reasonably good and reliable. He's one of very few individual people (not photo web sites that that are owned by AMAZON, cough cough) with a very large blog and a large number of followers. He has the resources and popularity that allow him access to a HUGE number of lenses, and a lot of cameras from Nikon, Canon, and Leica, so he's basically a resource for the hobby/enthusiast photographers who want some help and some evaluation points on lenses and cameras.

Ken's suggestion to go with an entirely sRGB color space workflow, for example: widely criticized by the ultra-wide gamut color space snobs, his suggested method actually WORKS BETTER when people e-mail, web-upload, and send out to print their images. And yet, the majority of web "experts" have never even TRIED capturing and editing and working in sRGB mode...

Same with the wide-range zoom lenses Nikon is making: widely criticized by many who do not own them. People who have never even fired a single frame through a Nikon 18-200 will pronounce it "crap". And so on...and so on..and yet, the actual side-by-side tests he's done showed that hey...at f/8...almost any lens is pretty close to another lens, in actual picture-taking.

It's a lot like the lens testing nuts who obsess over MTF charts, when the KEY issue is often how well a lens focuses; if it cannot hit focus reliably, the MTF can be stellar, but the pictures will be rubbish. Ken discusses real-world focusing performance from the point of somebody who knows how to shoot. The Nikon 70-300 f/4.5~5.6 VR-G for example; read his review and he will tell you the lens's biggest weakness: occasional hesitation (ie-NOT even beginning focus activation) in the AF, requiring manual, hand override. You will often NOT find anything at all like that on any of the other web sites that "test" lenses by shooting rez charts or star patterns and making measurements. So...in a way, Rockwell is mostly about how the rubber meets the road...not the lab-testy-statistic-MTF-measurebation kind of site. dPreview is owned by Amazon.Almost everything they test is Gold Star rated. cough,cough,cough.

So, I think Ken Rockwell's blog has some great information in it. Really very helpful for the hobby/enthusiast shooter. However, about once a month Ken writes something that makes me want to gently strike him about the head and face with a 36-inch long Douglas fir 2x4 board, 10 or 15 times. Gently, of course, using only one arm.

The imagery is fantastic. We need a gif of this.

 

[ronlane]

Anytime I hear someone quote Rockwell, I just assume they are a clueless NOOB... and totally discount anything they have to say.

I only quote like this ^^ and since I don't recall seeing KR on here, I'm pretty sure I've not quoted him. Going back to figure out why Charlie discounts me...... I'll be over here ---->

 

[cgipson1]

NO.. IT DOESN'T! Really! It has a lot of nonsense... that will mislead you, and keep you in NOOB status longer than needed.... but that is YOUR choice!

Like what? I disagree. I think that if you want to get photos like Ken Rockwell's (which are indeed quite decent), then you would do pretty well in getting them if you followed all of his advice to the T. It's internally consistent like that. It's by no means the ONLY way to shoot, but it is A consistent and valid way to shoot, as a whole package.

When it fails is usually only if/when you attempt to take some piece of his advice and transplant it into a totally different shooting style. And you don't have to be a professional to realize that that is a likely consequence of doing such a thing. That's just common sense, which newbies should be equally able to figure out as anybody else.

I don't know much about welding (I'm a "newbie"), but I'm an intelligent adult, thus I still know that if I ask a professional 30 year welder what his advice is, and he rattles off a whole 18 step procedure he always goes through, that I can't just pick and choose which steps I feel like following myself, and expect to get the same results! I have to either follow the whole thing, and trust him, OR pick and choose, but no longer hold him accountable if my picking and choosing led me astray. Even as a newbie, I know that I would have to NOT be a newbie in order to alter and cherrypick advice and still guarantee its success.

That's just something that's going to be generally true of any experienced person's advice who uses any style to do anything: It might not work piece-meal.

That doesn't mean that it's "wrong" or "misleading." Wrong advice is advice that doesn't even work when you use it in the context of the whole package/Ken Rockwell style. Which there is very little of on his site. Do you have some examples of things he says that are just flat out wrong no matter what, even if you generally shoot the way he does?

And that's the fundamental problems. Newbies don't belong on his site because they don't know the difference between information and misinformation. Not everything he says is necessarily true nor relevant. His product reviews can be misleading, and in some cases he's published reviews for products that he never even used.

He usually explicitly says that his reviews are not from things he has used, when that is the case. Either that, or such items have a barebones page with nothing but manufacturer advertised stats and maybe a paragraph of editorializing. I don't see how either is irresponsible or misleading. if you can't read a disclaimer, then that's your fault, and if you trust the information on the barebones ones that don't have disclaimers, then it isn't going to hurt you much anyway, because it's all just the same information you would have got from the manufacturer. Where is the dangerous misleading happening, exactly?

"Not everything he says is necessarily true nor relevant." <-- Lol what? That's called "being a human being." As long as he isnt intentionally providing wrong information, then he is no worse than any other review blog you're going to find online. And I'm not aware of any intentionally wrong information provided. Not is the unintentionally wrong information very common, compared to any other reviewers/bloggers.

Like Derrell points out, I think that 90% of what he says is spot on, extremely insightful commentary that really works and pans out.
People get all bent out of shape over the 10% of his pages that just only "might" work or are occasionally almost certainly wrong, and then give up on the entire man, without really stopping and asking the question "Well wait, who else out there isn't wrong at least that often?"
For example, I got a good laugh out of the first or second reply to this thread where somebody suggested that FroKnowsPhoto was a much superior source of less preachy information than ken Rockwell... He's a good guy, and I like his site a lot too, but he is definitely 2-3x as preachy as Ken Rockwell is (gets extremely visibly agitated every 10 seconds, repeats himself constantly in a way that literally sounds like a sermon, etc.), and isn't really right any more often.

Who is this magical reviewer who is right 100% of the time and whose advice always works out of context? Because I'd love to go check out their site every week as my new priority if somebody can lead me to them.

You like and admire KR? You want to shoot like KR? Go for it...

Anytime I hear someone quote Rockwell, I just assume they are a clueless NOOB... and totally discount anything they have to say. ;-)

Anytime I hear someone like Rockwell, I just assume they are a clueless NOOB... and totally discount anything they have to say. ;-)

Anytime I hear someone defend Rockwell, I just assume they are a clueless NOOB... and totally discount anything they have to say. ;-)

Anytime I hear someone admire Rockwell, I just assume they are a clueless NOOB... and totally discount anything they have to say. ;-)

 

[cgipson1]

I believe I understand the issue a bit better now. I too have noticed how he tends to assert that what he says is factual without actually saying it. In my experience I have bought two lenses on the basis of his good review, and found that he was for the most part accurate. However I have also seen reviews on lenses that I (previously at any rate) own where his information is misleading / inaccurate.

I think his reviews of cameras and lenses are reasonably good and reliable. He's one of very few individual people (not photo web sites that that are owned by AMAZON, cough cough) with a very large blog and a large number of followers. He has the resources and popularity that allow him access to a HUGE number of lenses, and a lot of cameras from Nikon, Canon, and Leica, so he's basically a resource for the hobby/enthusiast photographers who want some help and some evaluation points on lenses and cameras.

Ken's suggestion to go with an entirely sRGB color space workflow, for example: widely criticized by the ultra-wide gamut color space snobs, his suggested method actually WORKS BETTER when people e-mail, web-upload, and send out to print their images. And yet, the majority of web "experts" have never even TRIED capturing and editing and working in sRGB mode...

Same with the wide-range zoom lenses Nikon is making: widely criticized by many who do not own them. People who have never even fired a single frame through a Nikon 18-200 will pronounce it "crap". And so on...and so on..and yet, the actual side-by-side tests he's done showed that hey...at f/8...almost any lens is pretty close to another lens, in actual picture-taking.

It's a lot like the lens testing nuts who obsess over MTF charts, when the KEY issue is often how well a lens focuses; if it cannot hit focus reliably, the MTF can be stellar, but the pictures will be rubbish. Ken discusses real-world focusing performance from the point of somebody who knows how to shoot. The Nikon 70-300 f/4.5~5.6 VR-G for example; read his review and he will tell you the lens's biggest weakness: occasional hesitation (ie-NOT even beginning focus activation) in the AF, requiring manual, hand override. You will often NOT find anything at all like that on any of the other web sites that "test" lenses by shooting rez charts or star patterns and making measurements. So...in a way, Rockwell is mostly about how the rubber meets the road...not the lab-testy-statistic-MTF-measurebation kind of site. dPreview is owned by Amazon.Almost everything they test is Gold Star rated. cough,cough,cough.

So, I think Ken Rockwell's blog has some great information in it. Really very helpful for the hobby/enthusiast shooter. However, about once a month Ken writes something that makes me want to gently strike him about the head and face with a 36-inch long Douglas fir 2x4 board, 10 or 15 times. Gently, of course, using only one arm.

The imagery is fantastic. We need a gif of this.

I would prefer a video.. OF IT happening! lol!

 

[amolitor]

Who is this magical reviewer who is right 100% of the time and whose advice always works out of context? Because I'd love to go check out their site every week as my new priority if somebody can lead me to them.

Me, duh. Pay more attention, dude.

 

[ronlane]

Anytime I hear someone quote Rockwell, I just assume they are a clueless NOOB... and totally discount anything they have to say.

Who is this magical reviewer who is right 100% of the time and whose advice always works out of context? Because I'd love to go check out their site every week as my new priority if somebody can lead me to them.

Me, duh. Pay more attention, dude.

Wait, wait, wait. THIS is worth quoting. Welcome back Andrew or is that Manaheim, pretending to be Andrew? Got to get my quote right. lol

 

[flow]

I've only really looked at the product review stuff on his site. But isn't EVERY product review (no matter who wrote it) mostly opinion, and heavily based on context and personal needs? If I look at reviews for a new vacuum and see "this vacuum does a fantastic job on stairs" - well, glad they liked it, but I don't care because we're in a single-level home. It's the same no matter what you're trying to buy - you have to consider the source's use and your own intended use. That's not a 'photographer' thing, it's a 'smart consumer' thing. If a purchase is worth seeking out reviews first, it's worth getting them from more than one source to be sure your view is balanced.

 

[manaheim]

Wait, wait, wait. THIS is worth quoting. Welcome back Andrew or is that Manaheim, pretending to be Andrew? Got to get my quote right. lol

I think I was just insulted!

 

[cgipson1]

Wait, wait, wait. THIS is worth quoting. Welcome back Andrew or is that Manaheim, pretending to be Andrew? Got to get my quote right. lol

I think I was just insulted!

Yepp. insulted! lol!

 

[alv]

It would seem that TPF has a negative inclination towards mention of Ken Rockwell as well as the content of his website. I'm curious - was there some incident that led to this disposition? I don't really care for his photography, but the reviews are pretty innocent right? Beyond that, what is [your] preferred place for gear reviews? I find KR to be fairly accurate in his review of products, making his website very convenient; I am open to other sources.

what other sites are can be recomended

 

[snowbear]

KR is the patron saint of MWACs, GWACs & fauxtographers!

He does have some helpful information mixed in with the horsestuff, the problem is noob's can't always tell the difference between the two. I have found a LOT more valid and helpful information on this site.

 

[cgipson1]

KR is the patron saint of MWACs, GWACs & fauxtographers!

He does have some helpful information mixed in with the horsestuff, the problem is noob's can't always tell the difference between the two. I have found a LOT more valid and helpful information on this site.

Charlie,

You are a wise man!

Charlie.

 

[amolitor]

TPF has its own collection of prejudices, mixed advice, as well as wildly varying ideas about what's important and how to teach.

Pick your poison, basically. If it works for you, great.

 

[Steve5D]

You know, I guess I'm just not interested in blasting him simply because I don't like what he says. I'm not really interested in blasting him because he's a hack, or a douche, or because he talks about things he has no actual experience with, or because he presents his opinions as though they are, and should be respected by all as, gospel.

There's plenty of that running around right here at TPF...