Trustworthy reviews, where?

[keepright]

All this make me wonder who we can trust, which photographers or sites actually know what they are doing and don't care if its Nikon Leica or panasonic.

When something has caught my eye, I usually head to the big "puppy mill" sites first – the ones that mate up a lens to a camera, fire it until it won't take any more, and crank out as much seemingly-significant results as possible. I find these useful for a quick apples-to-lemons comparison, but don't take them too seriously.

(…says the guy who based his last lens purchase on an optical distortion graph.)

The least-useful individual reviews are the "five star" crowdsource sites, such as the ones found on online stores. However, I'll use them as an indicator of overall popularity and they can provide some leads for alternative products. I bought an audio recorder that I first learned about through a review of something else, but not without a lot of other research.

My most trustworthy sources of information are the individuals who are experts in their field and whose opinions and backgrounds I know. Roger Hicks, of course, but also Mike Johnson, Michael Reichmann, David Hobby, and others: if they say they like something, even in a passing reference, I'll pay attention.

There are other individuals that I'm familiar with, in an internet kind of way, who work as counter-indicators for me. Some love everything, and get paid by the word for it, while others are mercurial and prone to hyperbole. But ironically, even if I think what they write is a crock - k`rock? – that's also a very trustworthy source of information.

But lacking those things, what I look for are reviews or discussions where there's plenty of background to let me know what the reviewers' experience and expectations are; these are what I enjoy reading, and what I endeavour to write on my own reviews website. Context matters just as much as the results, and reviewers who don't give it are as bad as the ones who don't know the difference between a test and a trial. Ultimately what I like to see is someone who's passionate about the subject, rather than the equipment, and is able to provide the insights that only come from actually using the gear.