I'm sure you've already heard the news, but to recap, Yesterday, after 25 years of operation, the photography website DPReview.com announced that it would be shutting down shortly. The DPReview web team posted about it, and Jordan and Chris from the DPReviewTV team made a video shortly after. 

The reason for shutting down was linked on the site - taking you to a January update from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, where he informed Amazon employees that the company would be eliminating 18000 roles from the company. DPReview is owned by Amazon and was, unfortunately, included entirely in the round of layoffs. 

And it doesn't look good for the DPReview site itself, either. In its post about the closure, the DPReview team said that the site will be active until April 10th, 2024, after which the site will be locked. The most worrying part is that the announcement made it unclear how long the site would remain public after it stopped receiving updates.

DPReview.com represents one of the world's most extensive digital archives of photography information. To see it completely disappear from the web would be a significant loss to the photography and videography communities. In their announcement, they said they would be helping people download their media off the site, which is a positive.

The point of this video isn't to be sad about the closure of DPReview. It's to reminisce about my favourite times with the DPReview and DPReviewTv and go through my gear history.

This video will be slanted in favour of DP Review TV as I'm much more of a video watcher than an article reader. However, the site was and still is, for the time being, an excellent resource for photography and videography. The site's form section was established in 1999, and I can vividly remember using it to ask questions about the first camera I purchased in 2017.

The first camera I ever purchased was the Panasonic G7. A drag and drop 4k workhorse with some advanced features. I had this camera while I was in university and used it to shoot a few student films.

Today I shoot on a sony system because of DPReviewTV. I was getting serious about video production right as the Sony A7iii came out, and I remember watching video clips from Chris's video review on the camera, which sold me on buying it. I still have this camera today, which I use for photography gigs. I'm pleased that I went with the e-mount because it has allowed me to get a significant investment out of e-mount lenses.

Even after I got my camera, I continued watching DPReviewTV and browsing the form. I watched the follow-up video when Canon EOS R and Nikon Z6 came out and thought I still liked my camera. But the race between the brands was getting a lot closer.

You can bet I watched a video every time a new e-mount lens came out. I remember using their videos to decide on my 24-70mm lens, watching them to see if the 75-180mm Tameron would live up to the hype, and every video related to equipment that I had and for video production. They also helped me more recently when I expanded my business by purchasing an Fx6 and an Fx3 to retire my a7iii essentially.

My name is Josh Diaz. Today I run a production company which is called Videos by Josh. I'm based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba and serve various commercial clients and small businesses. I do video editing and winnipeg video production using the knowledge that media companies like DPReview have given me over the years.

My full service video production company also uses Adobe Premiere Pro to run it's post production for stock video, social media, corporate videos, roalty free and music video projects to name a few.

DPReviewTV was one of only a few essential camera channels you needed to watch as a camera enthusiast. And then DPReview.com was that wealth of knowledge that they built on the backend, which made the entire platform so unique in what it offered to creatives.

One bright spot to this story is that Jordan and Chris, the hosts of DPReviewTV, announced that they would be moving over to PetaPixel.com, so the video and audio content can keep coming. I hope all DPReview staff can transition to another organization.

To all those who work and have worked at DP Review over the years, I'd like to thank you for the information, Education, and entertainment. The decisions you made on your site and youtube channel certainly influenced my decisions as a creative professional.

Josh Diaz is a filmmaker and video editor based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.