Why Photography Reviewers Should Refuse to Work with Camera Brands

Introduction

My photography website receives over 50,000 visits per month. At this period of growth, most creators usually start reaching out to camera brands for collaborations, to borrow gear for review, and for sponsorship, but in this article, I want to tell you why I’m not doing that.

I consider the relationship between camera manufacturers and many reviewers to be toxic to the photography community. It’s a sham marketing ploy to sell cameras and present them in the best light possible to get consumers to swipe their credit cards. For too long, camera manufacturers have set the terms of the relationship, which is part of the reason its so poisonous.

On my website, I only review cameras that I own, which is the exception in the “review” space. I want to tell you why that is so important, and discuss 3 reasons why creators should reconsider working with camera brands.

Why Photography Reviewers Should Refuse to Work with Camera Brands - E-m1 mark ii and Olympus Pen-F

1. Useless “Reviews” are Burning People Out

Photographers are quickly getting burnt out watching the same “reviews” over and over again.

Here’s the scenario… Camera Brand X launches a new camera. As a marketing campaign, they send the camera out to big YouTube creators and website owners for the traditional 2-week “review” period. The creator is allowed to use the camera for 2 weeks and then they have to send it back to Camera Brand X.

The creator, who is probably already working on several other reviews, spends only a few days with the camera, takes a few hundred photos at most, and then makes a “review” by reading off the spec sheet and showing some unimpressive photos.

All these first-impression reviews are almost carbon copies of one another, and people are getting sick of them. It’s ridiculous to watch 10 YouTubers regurgitate the same 10 talking points.

We’ve turned ourselves into marketing shills for these camera companies and we’re churning out bad content because we play by their rules. Don’t we have any respect for our own work? Why do we allow ourselves to create this unoriginal and uninspiring content.

Instead of accepting a 2-week loaner camera. We need to be telling camera brands that if they want us to review their camera, they need to give us the camera, and we’ll have a review up in 3-months (more on this in point number 3).

We want to create original and useful content, but the camera companies aren’t allowing us to do it. Time to change the rules of the game and start demanding the time we need to make content we’re proud of.

Sorry camera brands, I’m not marketing your camera for you on your terms.

Why Photography Reviewers Should Refuse to Work with Camera Brands - Sony a7

2. Camera Manufacturers Aren’t Loyal to You… Don’t Be Loyal to Them

One of the reasons camera “reviews” are so stale, boring, and unhelpful, is that creators fear retribution from the brands if they say too many negative things about their product.

If you’re a camera reviewer who depends on the manufacturers sending you cameras to review, you have to be very careful what you say. This often leads to reviewers white-washing the truth about a camera’s weaknesses. Their reviews aren’t objective or unbiased, because their business model desperately requires the camera brands to send them the next camera they release.

There are many stories of large websites and YouTube channels being blacklisted by manufacturers for putting out a less-than-totally-positive review.

Another issue I see is that smaller creators are often ignored by camera brands during a product launch, even when those small creators are the real advocates of the brand.

I saw this during the OM System launch of the OM-3. OM System sent their camera out to all the big YouTube channels before the official launch and left all the real micro four thirds channels (which are smaller) out to dry.

Those big channels only give attention to micro four thirds when a new camera comes out, they never promote them otherwise, whereas the smaller channels advocate for them year-round, and are the life-blood of the m4/3 community. I found it appalling!

I say all this to say, if a camera brand is willing to dump you every time you say something negative about their gear, why do you work so hard to stay in their good graces? If a camera brand ignores their real fans when new products are launched, why should those real fans give them any attention when their channels are finally large enough for the manufacturers to care about them.

Time and time again, camera manufacturers have shown disloyalty to the photography community and to camera reviewers. I think it’s time we stop pandering to them!

Why Photography Reviewers Should Refuse to Work with Camera Brands - Fujifilm X-h2

3. Camera Brands Are Taking Advantage of Camera Reviewers

Have you ever stopped to think how little camera brands are paying creators in order to market to their audiences? Have you ever stopped to think how little creators are asking for that privilege?

In my full-time job, I make my money through advertising. My main website receives hundreds of thousands of views monthly and I’m compensated thousands of dollars for the ads that are shown to visitors.

Compare that to what camera manufacturers offer creators. They pay them nothing and act like their doing them a favor by letting them borrow their camera for 2 weeks. In return, the manufacturers exploit the creator’s audience, sometimes receiving tens of thousands of views.

In any other industry, those tens of thousands of views are work hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Camera reviewers are giving away the attention of their hard-earned audiences for next-to-nothing.

Creators are cutting themselves short by not demanding more from manufacturers.

At the very least, we should be demanding to keep the cameras we review. Websites and YouTube channels with large audiences should require payment for exposure on their platforms. Yes, its true that the issue of bias would still exist, but at least creators would be paid fairly.

Many of these camera brands are part of multi-million or multi-billion-dollar companies, and we are letting them fleece us. Time for them to start paying up! We shouldn’t allow ourselves to become their unpaid marketing team. If they want exposure for their new product, they need to start paying market value!

Why Photography Reviewers Should Refuse to Work with Camera Brands - Sony A7r iv

Conclusion

I’d be happy to start working with a few camera brands if I saw progress towards fixing these issues, but right now its tough. I hate seeing fellow creators being taken advantage of by these huge organizations.

As for now, I’m staying independent. I’m not taking any loaner cameras, not shilling for any brands, and not playing the camera company’s game at the current status quo.

I know we’re all just trying to make a living, but let’s take pride in our work, stand up for ourselves, and refuse to let the camera brands dictate terms.