FAQ

We get lots of email, feedback and forums comments from people asking the same questions about the site. This FAQ is designed to help answer those questions.

• Can I email you?
• What about your ethics?
• What's a preview / review?
• What do "pre-production" and "production" mean?
• How come you gave camera X a Highly Recommended in 2004 and the new camera Y only a Recommended this year?
• In what order is your review 'overall conclusion' rating?
• Can I get a list of reviews sorted by your rating?
• How come my camera X doesn't appear in your four banners on the front page, isn't this favoritism ?
• How come you represent brand X more than brand Y ?
• How come you've not reviewed camera X yet ?
• You said you're working on a review of this camera, how come you've not posted a review yet ?
• I'm posting on the forums, is my email address protected?
• Can I copy your news / reviews / articles / etc. and put them up on my site?

Can I email you?

I really prefer it if you use our feedback page, I get well over 200 emails every day and thus it's very unlikely that I will be able to respond to any email sent. All feedback sent on our feedback page is read.

Please note, we can not and do not answer requests such has:

• "I need your advice on x"
• "When are you going to review x?"
• "Are you working on a review of x?"
• "I need a manual for my camera" *
• "I need a driver for my camera" *
• "Which camera should I buy?"
• "What's better x , y or z?"
• "I've got $x which camera should I get?"
• "Do you know about the rumoured x?"
• "When will my camera be replaced?"

* These questions will be answered on your manufacturers website

What about your ethics?

The authority and credibility of this site has been built on over 7 years of quantitative, consistent and totally transparent testing, with all results available for inspection, and unmoderated feedback through the user forums ensuring all visitors have the right to question our conclusions. Products are supplied for review on the understanding that the manufacturer / distributor has no right to influence the final conclusions or ratings.

No content is ever written in exchange for money, gifts or the promise of advertising.  No advertising will be accepted unless it is with the understanding that advertising on the site does not guarantee any coverage for the advertiser whatsoever, be it news, reviews or other editorial.

Manufacturers may request the re-testing of certain parts of reviews (within reason) or the correction of mistakes (with notation to the original) however requests for changes of subjective content such as reviewers opinion will be ignored.

We will never attempt to mislead visitors by mislabelling previews as 'reviews' and will never attempt to draw in visitors from search engines by the use of the word 'review' in articles, tags or URL's (hidden or not) where the article in question does not have any quantitative measurements undertaken on our own premises.

Our writers are expected to uphold absolute ethical neutrality. We always strive to maintain the perspective of a potential purchaser.

All products are provided to us 'on loan' and are returned at the end of this loan period (typically 2-3 weeks). In some circumstances we may ask for this loan period to be extended for the purposes of comparison. We have no reason to believe that any product has ever been 'specially prepared' for review, we have in the past compared our test results with those of purchased models and found no differences. Should we ever discover a manufacturer attempting to do this we would of course immediately publish this fact. We have also received 'DOA' (Dead On Arrival) products which have to be replaced.

What's a preview / review ?

Editorial definitions:

• Preview
  • Product photography supplied by manufacturer
  • May include some photos taken in-house
  • Covered with as much detail as is available at launch
  • All work carried out by our staff
  • Includes
    • Photographs and description of camera
    • Detailed specifications

• Hands-on Preview
  • Based on a pre-production or production quality camera
  • Camera must have been used at our office
  • Product photography taken in our studio
  • Some supplementary photos may be provided by manufacturer
  • All work carried out by our staff
  • Includes
    • Photographs and description of camera
    • Detailed specifications
    • May include a description of function and operation
    • May include screen / menu captures
    • May include preliminary timings and performance measures
    • May include a user report

• Review
  • Requires a production quality camera
  • Camera ‘used in real life’ before testing commences
  • Product photography taken in our studio
  • Some supplementary photos may be provided by manufacturer
  • All work carried out by our staff
  • Includes
    • Photographs and description of camera
    • Detailed specifications
    • Description of function and operation (may include screen captures)
    • Timings and performance measures
    • Image quality measures
    • Competitive camera comparisons
    • Conclusion based on test results and experience with the camera
    • Samples gallery containing unmodified original images from the camera

What do "pre-production" and "production" mean?

A pre-production digital camera is one prepared in a small batch for testing and training purposes. These small numbers of cameras are normally quite difficult to get hold of, however we often request them to enable us to deliver reviews to you more quickly. Typically finish quality (and even sometimes image quality) is not as good as the final product and we therefore clearly mark reviews based on pre-production cameras. A production digital camera is the same as one from the shelf in your local electronics store, it's made in the same mass production batch as all other digital cameras and will have a full serial numberr.

How come you gave camera X a Highly Recommended in 2004 and the new camera Y only a Recommended this year?

Ratings are given at the time of review based on the state of the competition. Camera Y may well be a far better camera than camera X but it receives only an 8 (or whatever) because of its performance in comparison to other cameras in the same category at the time of review. It is impossible to rate cameras based on a 'future prediction'.

In what order is your review 'overall conclusion' rating?

Best to worst:

• Highly Recommended
• Recommended
• Above Average
• Average
• Below Average
• Poor

Can I get a list of your reviews sorted by rating?

Yes you can, just click here.

How come my camera X doesn't appear in your four banners on the front page, isn't this favoritism ?

The four banners on the front page help to promote our last ten reviews, if we've not reviewed your camera or your favorite brands camera yet then it won't appear there. The system works like this:

First banner: Latest review posted on the site

Second, Third, Fourth banner: randomly chosen from the last 9 reviews (by date)

Thus, posting a new reviews pushes the oldest review off the list and that's why you may suddenly see a banner disappear. All reviews are available through the reviews link on the side menu bar. Try it, go to the front page and hit refresh a few times, each time you'll see a different 3 banners (after the 1st fixed one).

How come you represent brand X more than brand Y ?

We're an independent review site, as such we're at the whim (to a certain extent) of the manufacturers. We do all we can to represent all brands fairly, if one manufacturer drags its heels loaning us review equipment then we can hardly be blamed for not being able to review those cameras. We have in the past taken alternative routes to get our hands on cameras which are unavailable directly from the manufacturer. We work very very long hours producing the most detailed reviews we can, even if we receive a camera today you won't see a review for at least two weeks.

We always try to be as objective as possible in our reviews and receive a lot of praise for our straight talk and detailed tests.

How come you've not reviewed camera X yet ?

Probably because the manufacturer hasn't sent us a review sample or that they have and it's simply too pre-production (too flaky, not representative of final product) to review. We also have a limited amount of resource to review cameras, we'll often select the most interesting / innovative or popular camera to review in great detail rather than trying to review everything in a shallow manner.

You said you're working on a review of this camera, how come you've not posted a review yet ?

Because our reviews are the most comprehensive and detailed on the net, it takes us considerably longer to produce our reviews than some of the other sites. Our normal turnaround time for a single camera is 10 working days (not that the weekends normally stop us) and if we have more than one camera in then that may impact on how long it takes.

I'm posting on the forums, is my email address protected?

Yes, in a word. Please refer to our full privacy policy for details.

Can I copy your news / reviews / articles / etc. and put them up on my site?

No. Please read our copyright statement. If you're interested in licensing material from the site then please contact us.