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DiscountDelight - Popular Photography & Imaging
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List Price: $54.00
Our Price: $14.00
Your Save: $ 40.00 ( 74% )
Availability: Usually ships in 6 to 10 weeks
Manufacturer: Hachette Magazines, Inc.
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Magazine
First Issue Lead Time: 6-10
Format: Magazine Subscription
Issues Per Year: 12
Label: Hachette Magazines, Inc.
Magazine Type: Consumer magazine
Manufacturer: Hachette Magazines, Inc.
Number Of Issues: 12
Publisher: Hachette Magazines, Inc.
Studio: Hachette Magazines, Inc.
Subscription Length: 365
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Nice magazine for the price, but skin-deep reviews and weeks behind on the latest news
Comment: The Good
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* This is a nice magazine for the price.
* It has some informative articles, which maybe useful to newcomers to photography in general or the digital aspects of photography.
* If you are getting started in photography, or you are at a beginner/amateur level, this magazine can be very helpful as a stepping stone
* If you are an experienced amateur/pro, you can still like this magazine, but don't expect many in-depth/advanced topics.
* The Monthly Lens reviews are helpful to SLR/DSLR users
* For people who like to flip through magazines and even look at ads from different vendors, this is a good resource.
The Not so good
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* The technical reviews of digital cameras are skin-deep compared to the in-depth technical reviews by the online photography sites (such as dpreview).
* Sometimes the reviews are word-smithed in such a way that they avoid saying negative things, so -at times- you have to pick-up on what is not said in the review in order to figure out if there's something wrong with a product.
* The "News" are 4-12 weeks behind real time.
* If you expect in-depth or pro-level articles, those are rare.
Consumer beware segment
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Towards the back of the magazine there are plenty of ads from various mail-order vendors. Some of them are very reputable, honorable and reliable vendors such as B&H and J&R.
However, some other vendors are less than stellar - to put it in mildly. You will recognize them by the too-good-to-be-true super-low prices, and they usually practice "bait & switch" among other things. These have been documented on various websites and photography forums. If you are not familiar with all these, and you see prices that are very low, you may want to do some research before purchasing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The most solid magazine for Film & Digital photography
Comment: I subscribed to multiple photography magazines at first when I started getting serious about photography. I subscribed to 'Photography' and 'American Photo' and this one, Popular Photography and Imaging.
Of the three this magazine has the most balanced amount of reviews, 'how tos', digital imaging related topics (Photoshop, etc) as well as some nice contests. Also they seem to sponsor more 'mentor series' type products where you can go to some locale and shoot photos for a reasonable fee.
Of all the magazines this also had something that was important to me - half the magazine isn't ads. Photography was the worst offender of this, there'd be 50 or so pages of weak articles, and then 50 pages solid of ads. While this one does have a chunk of ads near the back, it still has a 'back page' article and articles mixed in among the ads. And only 25% of the magazine is advertisements.
They also support a nice online website (popphoto.com) and have a forum where people can logon and ask questions. While not as heavily trafficked as say dpreview.com the authors and editors do read and respond to questions. Overall a great magazine for the hobby.
Customer Rating:
Summary: dont respond
Comment: i send away for a 2 year subscription,they sent me a 1 year sub,
i wrote 5 letters,sent copies of bank cheque and order form,emailed them,no response,they could care less,what more can i do ??
Customer Rating:
Summary: Some good advice but overall not a great magazine
Comment: I have been a subscriber for a few years and have found alot of the articles repetitive and not all that educational. Recently I have subscribed to Shutterbug which is a much better magazine for both the novice and professional photographer. Its articles are insightful and even after many years they still can teach this old photographer a few new tricks !!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: All the reviewers are right!
Comment: I've subscribed to PPI off and on for many years (including when it was Pop. Photog.). I agree with the reviewer who said that reviewers tend to be mostly positive about reviewed products--however, they're better than they used to be and do, in fact, mention problems. In addition some other photog. mags simply don't do bad reviews at all. One of the rationales photog mags sometimes use is that they don't want to publicize bad products so they don't review them. Hmmmm...
Also, it's true that many articles are superficial or rehashes of past "how-to" articles for near beginners, but they do sometimes cover other aspects of photography, and they do have profiles of photographers and their work from a variety of different fields, which I find interesting.
My biggest gripe with PPI is that they are hyperbolic about any new development or product, so there is a lot of: "We finally got our hands on the new Kamera S&M2000 which is now the top of Kamera's line. Kamera has completely redisigned the grip which is now a different shape and has a small patch of nubbly rubber on it. And we were surprised to discover that the button for releasing the flash is now mounted on the SIDE of the camera!" Etc., etc. Everything new is incredible, stunning, radical, amazing, worth a close look, etc. Truly radical developments just don't happen once/month like clockwork in photography, but they go for headlines instead of stories in depth....
Also a pain are evaluations of color films with numerous side by side shots all limited by the magazine printing process and many of which look nearly identical...which is a tad funny, actually.
Bottom line is: read it for a year and then subscribe to something else for a while. Helps to get more info and you can compare different approaches by mag editors that way.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Covers all aspects of amateur and professional photography, both art and technique. Reviews cameras and accessories.
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