Can you trust camera reviews for your next purchase?

If you are relying on online camera reviews for your next purchase, you could not only be wasting time but also waste your money.

It’s not just that the reviewers are snarky. It’s that many times they are inaccurate or just unfairly biased. The result? If you rely on some reviews for your next camera purchase, you’ll just end up waiting your time and money.

Today, I share some ideas to help us better sift through the noise and find the helpful information.

Things you should know about your camera reviewer

What’s the bias of the reviewer?

My college buddy Ron is a great photographer. If he wanted to photograph me with a pinhole camera, I wouldn’t second guess him. I’d trust that he knows what he is doing — the same way I’d trust him photographing anything with his Nikon. I know he’s going to produce great images.

But I’d never ask him for advice on a Canon purchase. Why? He doesn’t shoot with them. It wouldn’t be fair to him, nor would the information be reliable for me.

So when I see a reviewer constantly compare every brand of camera he reviews to a Sony, I have to wonder if there’s a bias. Luckily, most bloggers have a “My Gear” page on their sites. If all you see are Nikons and Sony’s, I’d conclude there is a bias somewhere. It doesn’t mean they can’t render an objective opinion. It does mean they voted on their bias with their dollars. I’d consider that.

Did they actually use the product in a real world condition?

It’s fun to touch and feel a camera at the store counter. That’s usually where I get my first taste of what the new gear is like. You get to hold it, peer through the viewfinder, and inspect the dials. What you don’t get is a good appreciation of what it would be like to actually shoot with it.

I remember renting a new camera model I was really excited to shoot. I knew I was going to eventually buy it, so I rented it for a Meetup excursion. This was where I was going to fall in love with my new camera and just have to buy it.

And then real life intervened. I learned to change shooting modes, I had to dig two levels deep into the menu. Ugh. To go from shutter priority to aperture priority, you actually had to bring up the menu and dial down a level. Try and find the white balance? That was hopelessly lost four levels deep. Needless to say, I saved myself a lot of money and headache.

Likewise, a reviewer can’t give you a good idea of the shooting experience if she only read the spec sheet or played with it in the camera store. There is no substitute for logging in time out in the real world. I wouldn’t trust a review where that wasn’t obvious.

What’s the background of the reviewer?

In SL 004 Can you really make money with fine art photography, Jenna Martin shared a story of one of her aha moments. She went to a conference to get critiques of her images, and each review just shred her to pieces.

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What she learned? You need to know the background of the reviewer? If your camera reviewer is primarily a YouTuber, then he will likely see video features of every camera as a game changer. If your work is primarily stills however, that advice will probably not emphasize the features that will impact most of your shooting workflow. They still gave good advice. It just wasn’t for you.

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What you should expect in a helpful review

Who is it for?

Isn’t this what we really want to know anyway? Is this camera for me? When a camera manufacturer releases a new model, they usually have a pretty good profile of their intended user. Even better, they will usually tell you in their marketing.

If the camera is aimed at a beginner audience and you are a pro, it wasn’t designed with your use case in mind. Sure you can use it, but don’t be upset when you have to work with beginner features. That’s who the camera is for.

A good review keeps that in mind and reviews it with the potential use case and shares what workarounds would be necessary if you don’t fit the intended audience.

What problem does it solve?

This is the way I like to look at potential solutions — and that’s what your new camera is on some level. It is — or should be — a solution to a problem you are now encountering with your present gear. You aren’t getting good quality in low light. You are finding that you need weather sealing for the conditions you are in. The features you need aren’t on your current model.

What problems can this camera solve? That would be helpful information in a review.

What can you do with this that you couldn’t do before?

My philosophy has always been, you upgrade your camera when the new model can help you improve your pictures or your quality of life. If you can’t see a measurable improvement in any of those areas, you can probably make do with your current gear.

What can you do that you couldn’t before. Can you shoot portraits with eye detect? Can you shoot silently at weddings? Put the features into context. How do they improve your quality of life.

How can it help you improve your images?

Sometimes when I read elaborate posts about a photographer switching brands, I wonder if they hadn’t said anything would anyone notice? Would the product be so much better that viewers would demand to know what she was doing differently?

How would the new camera improve the image quality you could produce? That’s another good thing to know in a review.

Upgrade path from other models in that line

Once I'm invested in a manufacturer, I'm interested if a new model is a good upgrade from my current camera. I'm not as interested in the race between this model and the other manufacturers. At some level, I'm invested, so comparing

Pros & Cons in context

A good review will provide the pros and cons of the new gear but not in a vacuum. You’ll have to discuss them in light of the other issues we discussed — who it’s for, what problem it solves, what does it upgrade, etc.

A small, light camera is in the pro column for an elderly person looking for something portable to take on vacation. Those same features could be in the con column for a pro who needs durability.

Features & benefits

The least interesting a reviewer can tell me are the specs of the camera. I can find that on a million websites, not to mention all the manufacturers promotional material. A review that only reviews the spec sheet doesn’t really provide much original information. Might as well get that from the source.

Overall experiences and reactions

Sometimes your feedback doesn’t fit into any scientific column. It could be simply, I had fun shooting with that gear. It might be hard to articulate other than an enjoyable user experience. That, too is helpful to know.

Either way, if you are in the market for a new camera, make sure to evaluate your reviewer as well as your review. It could save you time and money. Buyer beware!