Shutterbug (1-year auto-renewal)

(2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)In many respects, Shutterbug is the mirror image of Popular Photography & Imaging. The strength of Popular Photography is its quantitative product reviews. Shutterbug does little if any measuring when they review a product. Further, I have never once seen a review in Shutterbug that was anything less than gushing. The writer will go on and on about the strength of the product and never compare it critically to other similar products on the market. I realize that magazines are reluctant to offend potential advertisers but some shred of integrity toward readers would be greatly appreciated.

The relative strength of Shutterbug is reflected in more general articles regarding photographic technique. This is the area that Popular Photography badly stumbles and this magazine definitely manages to perform at a higher level of competence. Unfortunately, these articles are still pretty basic and repetitive. Any decent entry level book on photography would contain 99% of the advice you'll ever find in Shutterbug. So while the articles are better than the reviews, it's hard to say that they alone make it worth the price of a subscription. In the final analysis, I can't recommend Shutterbug to eithe beginners or advanced photographers.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this review, I flipped through an issue of Shutterbug at a local store. It looks like there has been a change in editorial policy as a product review took the tone of a true critique rather than being a puff piece as they so often did in the past. There still wasn't quite as much meat as I would have liked but this is definitely a step in the right direction for the magazine. Amazon does not allow reviewers to alter the number of starts given once a review is published or I would probably bump Shutterbug up a notch to 3 stars. It still is far from great, but I appreciate the fact that they've improved a bit.

If you see Shutterbug on a news stand you might think it is a typical photo mag for amateurs. The usual heavy emphasis on product reviews and how to articles. In fact the content is very much biased towards professionals. Lots of stuff beyond the interests and capabilities of the average non-pro photographer. e.g. If you want to submit stuff for their challenges they want prints.

However there is a lot of good in it for the rest of us. It is certainly educational.

For my money the best part is in the recommendations of web sites of top class photographers. A real source of inspiration.

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I recieved my first issue of Shutterbug after about 7 weeks from ordering it. I was disappointed in the mag. as almost all of it is ads, ads and more ads. As far as I'm concerned it should be given away for all the advertising they recieve in it. The articles they had in this issue were about very high end equipment that 99% of the readers would not be able to afford or use. Most of the ads do not even contain prices for the products, making them useless for shopping and comparing anyway. I did like the low price that amazon had for Shutterbug though, I would have really been mad if I had paid cover prices for it.

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I have been subscribing to Shutterbug for a year and received my last issue recently. I will not be renewing it for a few reasons. I guess the main reason for my non-renewal is that this magazine is heavy into product reviews. My goal in reading a photography magazine is to get helpful tips with the equipment I already have. I am not interested in page after page after page of the latest/greatest equipment that I won't be buying for awhile if at all.

The second reason for not renewing my subscription is there are WAY too many ads in this magazine. I got tired of flipping past two pages, five pages, ten pages of advertising to find the next article. Much of this magazine reads like a yellow pages for camera shops.

Finally, I found that most of the articles simply did not apply to my enthusiasm for photography. For me, the articles were too tech-focussed. As mentioned earlier, I really was looking for articles on helpful tips and such.

I just started a subscription to PC Photo so we'll see how that goes.

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This is a very basic photography magazine that is best read quickly in the store and put back into the rack.

The camera and lens reviews on the internet are superior and the magazine is bogged down with a ton of advertisements.

Conclusion: save your money.

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