Camera Labs

Hi everyone, thanks for participating in the cameralabs forums - it's great to have you all here, but I'm aware traffic in our forum is declining. I'd like to try and make things better, but we need a different approach.

I'm the first to admit I've not been spending much time on the forums here - as many of you know I'm currently travelling, so have very limited time on the internet. Literally about an hour a day online. So when I am online, I'm generally publishing reviews, which as you know are still coming at a rate of at least one a week, often two. So while the forum has slowed down, the main editorial side of the site is operating at full speed!

As many of you also know I'm active on Twitter, Facebook and Google+, posting about the places I've visited on my trip so far and promoting the reviews here. Thing is, it's quicker and easier to do that on social media as there's effectively only one forum to check and post in. I can get that done in a matter of minutes, whereas the nature of the forum means it takes longer as there's more sections to check and browse.

My friends at Google tell me we should 'go where the conversation is', which right now means discussing stuff on social media. It is however frustrating when you have your own community which is struggling. Ideally I'd like to keep both the forum and my social channels active, but it can be tough while I'm away, at least until I settle in the New Year.

I do however think that the concept of a forum as we see it today is becoming outdated and that people want other means and channels to communicate and share. It's our job to try and work out what that is and to implement it as best we can here on the site.

I love Wolfsong's suggestions in the Off Topic section, although as some of you know there are already some map-based photo sharing systems out there. Maybe we can do better. Maybe we could integrate custom cameralabs versions of them, or have cameralabs teams.

We have a small but strong and friendly community here and I'd like to try my hardest to provide you with the best possible platform for asking questions, sharing ideas and most of all sharing our photos. Increasingly it's looking like a traditional forum as we see it today is not the best model, at least not for cameralabs.

So I'd love to hear what you'd like to see here in its place. I think we need something simple but unique. There's no point replicating what already exists or making it over-complicated. There are actually quite a few posts every day on this forum, it's just that they're spread out too much. We need to simplify things.

I'd love to hear what you think,

Gordon Laing, Editor

+1 to Mike's ideas! (can they be merged/added to this thread?)

I don't use chat/social networking sites etc I find them a bit transient & shallow somehow (probably an age thing) so for me, I rely mainly on CL for reviews & advice.

I fully appreciate the amount of work & time it takes to run sites like this, but i'm not sure I could offer any new ideas or ways to improve.

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Nikon D800E & D700 bodies + Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR, 50mm F1.4G, 16-35mm f/4G VR, 105 F2.8 VR macro, 70-300mm lenses. A couple of filters, Giotto tripod & ballhead. Lowepro Slingshot 302 AW

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcarlos/

I really appreciate CL and visit on a regular bases. Maybe I'm a CL junky I don't know. It's even my home page on my laptop I can understand at a certain point that some may drop away from visiting. I don't see my self leaving anytime soon. My only thought would be to revise the physical format or layout. What that would be I have no idea.

One thing i would recommend now would be to clean up some of the "Sticky's" like the Canon forum has a hug list of sticky or permanent threads that you have to go deep to get to new posts and when I view on my smartphone it makes it a bit to the new stuff. Also, "if" in the new format if a mobile version would be available.

Thanks Gordon!!!

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Mike "The Squirrel"
Canon 550D | Canon EF 35mm 1:2 | Canon 50 f/1.8 II | Sigma 18-125mm DC OS | Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD | Canon 430EX II
Military Issued Canon 40D | Canon 55-250mm IS

Is there any way of adding the ` ! Report button` to a specific user?

Can the forum be set so that when the ` ! Report button` is pressed, it automatically hides the message until the mods have checked it? Sort of in reverse to how it works now.

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Nikon D800E & D700 bodies + Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR, 50mm F1.4G, 16-35mm f/4G VR, 105 F2.8 VR macro, 70-300mm lenses. A couple of filters, Giotto tripod & ballhead. Lowepro Slingshot 302 AW

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcarlos/

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One thing for sure, unless the phpBB forum software can be made much more resistant to spam bots the forum is doomed anyway.

14 spams and 11 spam accounts to delete in less than 24 hours!

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I just changed the registration question, so hopefully it'll slow them down!

Thanks Bob, and thanks Gordon

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Gear: Canon SX20 IS, Canon Rebel T3i, Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Wishlist: Canon 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II
Visit me and leave me a comment in My Flickr

In terms of posting photos, it may be fun to embed images via social services like Instagram. We could have various competitions or general photos, each with unique cameralabs hashtags so that when you post them in your description, they'll also get picked up and displayed here.

Gordon

I guess I'm in the minority, but I don't have a problem following the forum; I just hit the "view new posts" link and scan the resulting list for any threads that I may be able to contribute to. And the specific subsections are a big help in making that determination. (e.g. I tend to skip anything in the Technical/Scientific section since I know nothing about that type of photography.)

I'm also in the minority in that I keep my Facebook restricted to people I actually know "in real life". My Twitter OTOH is for folks I don't know, but ... well ... could you imaging trying to follow this post, for example, if I'd had to post it in 140 character tweets?

As for the spammers, I think it would help to limit the number of posts a new user can make. Maybe one per day for the first week? Or maybe one per day you've been a member? i.e. 1 on your first day, 2 on your second day, etc.

{edit}one other thing that might help folks follow the forum is: on some other forums I visit, the title of the most recent thread in each section is displayed in addition to the time and name of the poster. And an excerpt of the first post pops up on mouseover.{/edit}

Mark

Like Maestro, I don't have a problem following the forum. It has specific sections users can find their particular interest which I like. A personal view is the forum setup is ideal. It has tutorials, camera/ lens reviews and enough sections to meet the needs of all members.

Although it appears there has ben reduced posts, I think many members visit and not comment except where they may be of help to specific questions, these members seem to pop up to help.

New ideas are good, do we want to drastically change the format to suit the fad of the day and move away from a friendly informative forum.


Cheers

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Nikon D7000, D40X, Nikkor 18- 200 VR II, f3.5-5.6, 70-300 AF non VR, Kit Lenses.

have to admit, I am in agreement with the above views, I quite like the way it is. But then I am not interested in spending too much time on computer or smartphone or tablet or whatever.

Gordon do you see something like google + more of a way of the future?

I haven`t been active in google + much, but can see that it offers a great many ways of interacting. Maybe a another round of promoting google + on this forum, may help create more of a community there.

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Canon Powershot S95, Canon 6D,7D, 24-70 2.8 Tamron VC, Canon 15-85, Canon 85 1.8, Sigma 30 1.4, 50mm 1.8, Canon 100 2.8L Macro, Canon 70-300L +Kenko 1.4 Pro 300DGX, Canon 430EX II and RS 4 Classic

I prefer forums such as this but can see why fb or google + work as they do.

The idea of photos from around the world is simply a form of geo tagging widely available through google earth and various apps.

I have only just started geotagging photos in Lightroom's map module but haven't figured out yet how to share my map!

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Canon 550D, Canon EFS 17-85 IS USM, Canon EF 75-300 IS USM, Canon EFS 10-22mm USM, Canon EF35mm F2.

Got some of the gear but really still no idea...

After thinking about this for a while, a good compromise (that's used on some other discussion forums I frequent) might be to allow folks to login with their existing social media account (instead of creating a new account just for this forum). Of course, this could also increase the amount of spam that gets posted.

It might also help increase forum traffic if there was a link to the appropriate thread included (on the "verdict" page?) in each review. (Right now, it mostly goes the other way--from the forum thread to the review.) (Ideally, there would be a discussion thread attached to the bottom of each review, but I don't think that can be done with this software.)

Mark

Maybe I am old school like some of the other posters but there are advantages to having a moderator controlled forum. The main one being you are not tying yourself to the policies and small print of the big organisations like FaceBook and Google, especially in areas such as privacy and distribution rights of images. Not to mention cookie policies sending you "targeted" advertising.

I think twitter/FaceBook platforms are great for the chat type conversations but the forum can build up a wealth of searchable knowledge. One way to make the forum more useful would be to beef up the search engine, only the other day there was a post describing the shortcomings of the existing facility (producing too many results with no easy way to narrow things down).

For the me the feeling of a forum is you can dip in and out whereas the social media platforms demand constant attention or things just pass you by.

Maybe 1 way to attract more members would be to offer forum facilities to camera clubs, at the moment every camera club must sort out it's own online presence and each 1 does things their own way. If Camera Labs could become the online hub for camera club members all over the World this would certainly boost active membership.

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Nikon D90
Nikkor AF-S DX; 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G VR, 55-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR, 35mm f/1.8G
Speedlight SB-700

http://keystrokesukimages.com

The search engine is a problem I also find important to solve. I've tried various times to search for specific things such as lenses, camera models, etc. and I've never been able to do it because I always get the message " 'x' word is too common" or something like that.
It would be nice to see some modifications being made to the search engine.

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Gear: Canon SX20 IS, Canon Rebel T3i, Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Wishlist: Canon 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II
Visit me and leave me a comment in My Flickr