Unscrupulous manufacturers manipulate you to buy their products. It's much more severe than you can probably imagine. With Black Friday fast approaching, there are things we should be aware of before buying a camera.
Like many others, I used to rely on reviews in magazines. But I lost my faith in them. The reason behind that was that I saw the same camera being reviewed in two magazines. The review was glowing in the first and damning in the second. The manufacturer took out a full-page advert for the camera in the first magazine, whereas the other magazine was dominated by adverts from its main rival. If I could not trust reviews in these two well-established magazines, both of which are now defunct. Could I trust any?
Why I Believe Fstoppers Reviews Can Be Trusted
Here at Fstoppers, there is no financial incentive to add bias to our reviews, so there is no reason for us not to give a balanced view. In most cases, we writers have either bought the product ourselves or have been loaned it to try it out.
I have reviewed products and been so impressed that I bought them, putting my money where my mouth is. We will get a free license with some software because we need to use it to review it. But often, those apps are not what we would otherwise use in our workflow. I know that we here try to be honest and balanced about a product.
I am sure many other review sites are the same, even if they sometimes sensationalize tiny, relatively unimportant features. However, some reviewers elsewhere create hype about gear's minor positive and negative attributes. That sensationalism does the prospective buyer a disservice, distracting them from the features they need.
I only review things that I would happily use myself. Moreover, no product is perfect, so Fstoppers insists that we include what we like and what we would improve in all reviews. It's not like that everywhere.
Customer Reviews and the Art of Avoiding Deception
Several years ago, like many people, I started looking at customer reviews to understand what users thought of a product. It is now well-known that fake reviews are rife, but back then, I thought they were more trustworthy than the magazine reviews I used to read.
Spotting fake reviews is hard. However, there are telltale signs. They are often generalized and fail to include specifics about the product. Sometimes, an incentive (bribe) to write a positive review is offered, and they often carry a request to have photos or videos in the review.
Products promoted this way will also have very high numbers of five-star reviews, often posted within a short timeframe. Also, repeated phrases appear in different reviews because the same person writes them.
Those who write such reviews know how to manipulate them, so theirs appear in the "Top Reviews" or "Most Helpful." Therefore, try changing a list's order to "Most Recent." New reviews may also include tests by now disgruntled or happy customers.
Fighting Back Against the Fraudsters
Amazon is taking legal action against the administrators of Facebook groups that are promoting fake reviews. One such group, since taken down by Meta, has around 43,000 members who would be offered refunds for buying a product and writing a positive review. That included camera tripods. Amazon is also pursuing action against four companies that it alleges flooded its site with fake reviews. It isn't a small operation, as three of the companies had 350,000 people writing for them. One such firm, Matronex, has since ceased trading.
Once the big players have been punished, one expects that Amazon and others will start to target individuals who place fake reviews. Fakers beware.
Negative Attacks on Reputable Businesses and Products
Negative reviews are faked too. They are weaponized and aimed at discrediting competing manufacturers. Common features of fake bad reviews include over-the-top, emotive, and inflammatory language, incorrect details, and non-specific complaints. One-star reviews should always be treated with caution, as a competitor may have written them to damage a product. Sadly, bad reviews do influence purchases and even destroy businesses.
It's a shame that this happens, because some genuine new companies with excellent products are losing out. They won't cheat the system and, at the same time, are targeted by unscrupulous competitors who have no such qualms. Let's hope the laws are strengthened to punish fraudsters.
One would expect that established brands with long-standing and respected products are less likely to be seeking to bolster their reputation with fake reviews. Nevertheless, a darker side suggests that even big brands are embroiled in producing bogus assessments of their products.
Fakespot Identifies the Fraudsters
There is a helpful tool called Fakespot that identifies fake reviews. It is a free browser plugin that analyses the reviews of products on Amazon and elsewhere. It then re-scores the product rating with the fake positive reviews removed. Fakespot doesn't only take heed of fake positive reviews, but negative ones too. Placing multiple negative reviews is called review bombing. Cameras and other equipment can get a higher score if a reviewer carries out a sponsored bogus attack on a product.
I hope that the likes of Amazon, Google, eBay, Walmart, and others work closely with Fakespot to tidy up their act and stop this practice. It's in everyone's interest for them to do so.
Here in the UK, the government's competition regulator is looking into whether Amazon and Google are breaking consumer law by not taking sufficient action over fake reviews. It will be made illegal to pay someone to write a fake review or host those reviews. Fines will be 10% of a company's worldwide turnover. The Federal Trade Commission is exploring making rules to combat them in the USA.
Camera Brands' Fake Reviews
Yes, as reported in Michelle VanTine's recent article that's well worth a read, it is happening in the camera industry. Reading it, I was taken aback by some popular cameras that appeared to have a glowing 4.5-star rating that dropped to two stars once the fake reviews were removed.
Negative Attacks in Online Forums
It isn't just reviewed in shops where photography products are falsely praised or attacked. You will see it happen in online communities too. I am a member of a few photographic groups on different platforms. It is not unusual to see people who have never commented before asking a question or making a comment that will put doubts into others' minds about a product.
Has anyone else been having problems with the XXXX's focus?
My camera is shutting down, and I have to take the battery out to reset it.
I'm fed up with this system and going to sell it and go back to using XXXX.
I had high hopes for it. Now I'm really disappoited in the XXXX
If it's on Facebook, the user account will be locked down, so you can't easily see that they are not genuine users.
Where Will This Lead in the Future?
A few years ago, the car manufacturer VW reprogrammed their cars' computers to detect when they were being tested for emissions. The vehicle would then change the levels of harmful gases from the exhaust pipes. They were met with hefty fines and class actions against them.
One can anticipate that if camera manufacturers are found to be cheating their customers by falsifying their reviews, they will also face criminal and civil actions and harm their reputations.
Hopefully, manufacturers of photography equipment will smarten up their acts. It's also entirely possible that "fanboys" of certain brands are damaging the reputation of their favorite manufacturers because of the over-enthusiastic reviews of products they haven't even bought.
Seven Ways to Help Fight the Deceivers, Liars, and Cheats
- If you are offered a bribe to give a positive review online, write a truthful review and include that they tried to bribe you.
- Report the bribe to the retailer.
- Install the Fakespot plugin on your browser.
- When you see online comments that praise or criticize a product, check the person's comment history. Consider mentioning that in a reply if it's their first or second comment. "Thanks for signing up to make that comment" and similar replies advises others of the commenter's reputation.
- Write complete and honest reviews.
- Read balanced three and four-star reviews that include positives and negatives.
- Buy a different brand instead.
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Ivor Rackham wrote,
"Here at Fstoppers, there is no financial incentive to add bias to our reviews"
Ivor, I am a bit surprised to see this, as it runs counter to the business model that I thought Fstoppers used as their modus operandi.
I thought that when a review is written here on Fstoppers, that when the camera or lens model is written in the article, it is written as a hot link that, if clicked on, takes you to that camera or lens "for sale" on a retailer's website. And that if that link is used, and the said model purchased, that Fstoppers gets a small commission for acting as a "referral link".
Hence, I thought that it was in Fstoppers' financial interest to have its readership go ahead and buy the camera or lens model being reviewed, as some modicum of income could be generated by sales via these referral links that are embedded into every review article. I mean, if the review is positive enough to cause someone to buy the gear, then a wee bit of money is funneled to Fstoppers when the embedded link is used to make the purchase ... so how can that not be considered financial bias? Even if the commission is only a half of a percent or a quarter of a percent, it still counts as incentive for bias, does it not?
Am I wrong? Is that not how all of these referral links work? I am open to the possibility that I may have be completely mistaken about how these hot links work when used to go ahead and make a purchase. If I am wrong, then please explain to me the way those links actually work.
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You're right about referral links, but wrong about the incentive for bias. That might work for short-term gain, but if you start pushing people toward bad products, your site loses trust, and those people stop turning to it and thus, using your links. Being honest and objective is the best way to operate, and it's the right thing to do.
Yes Alex, you make a good point, however you’re talking about *ethical* incentive, and what Ivor mentioned, and what Tom is pointing out, is that there is, actually, a *financial* incentive for bias, at least in the short term. It’s a matter of value priorities, and I’m pleased that your site tries to place ethics above financial concerns, but many sites do not. And, if there is enough churn, enough new users/readers coming along (which is of course why clickbait titles and listicles became so popular), then the “we’ll lose our readers’ trust” concern goes out the window.
Yes, I understand I’m splitting hairs a bit, but I’d argue, especially in an article like this, that a more nuanced, as well as transparent, statement than "Here at Fstoppers, there is no financial incentive to add bias to our reviews" is warranted. (Obviously you just made such a statement, but it seems like it should be in the article, not in the comments.)
To further what Alex said, yes all blogs including FS have affiliate based links. These referral programs pay such a small amount of money that they, from our perspective, only really help pay for the publication of the article itself. No one at FS (or anywhere else probably) are making enough money from affiliate links to affect their reputation when it comes to backing a product they don’t actually like and enjoy using.
For us, the true reality is we hope people buy ANYTHING through the affiliate links and not just the specific product the link directed them to initially. That’s how affiliate sales work, send someone to Amazon and they buy toilet paper and the affiliate partner makes $.20 on a non related purchase.
As the owner of Fstoppers, I can tell you most of our income is derived from general ads (not affiliate or sponsored ads) and photography tutorial sales. We also have a great loaner program with BH Photo so our writers can test any gear they want and write about it without involving the manufacturer directly.
I say all this just to help round out the conversation happening here and in this article. Trust me when I say I doubt any blogger/YouTuber is retiring from their actual day job because of their affiliate sales. They might be making a few thousand dollars a month or hundreds of dollars. Unless they are getting 1 million views per video or article, the money just doesn’t add up.
If you are curious about Lee and I’d view on this topic, we actually made an interesting video about certain aspects of “unbiased reviews” here: https://youtu.be/XqZ_Q_ty3ag
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Thanks for the detailed explanation, Patrick. When I made my comment (above), I did not mean to imply that there is any financial motivation for Fstoppers writers to say anything that isn't true about any product, nor to mislead readers in any way. I read almost everything that is written here on Fstoppers, and I don't feel that anyone has ever tried to mislead me (except for some of the titles themselves, but never in the actual content of an article).
So yes, because of the referral links, I do feel that there is a wee bit of financial incentive for Fstoppers to write and publish reviews. Write enough reviews in the course of a year, and get a few thousand people clicking on the referral links, and get a couple hundred of those people to buy something, and lo and behold, by the end of each year, Fstoppers could have two or three THOUSAND DOLLARS that they wouldn't have had without all of the gear articles. And yes, I realize that to Fstoppers 2 or 3 thousand dollars may seem like just a small drop in a big bucket, but for some of us that is a very large sum or money. I mean, for me that is 6 weeks worth of hard-earned income. Nothing to take lightly.
But I do not think that there is any incentive for Fstoppers to write anything deceptive about the gear. You will get just as much referral income simply telling the truth as you would if you stretched the truth.
So in short, there is financial incentive to write reviews, but not incentive to say anything misleading in those reviews. And that is why I trust what I read about gear here at Fstoppers.
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Hi Tom, your last paragraph was where I was coming from. I was writing from a writer's standpoint. It makes no financial difference to me whether Fstoppers gets an affiliate payment from a link. I add an affiliate link as a favour because it helps them, but it doesn't mean I get paid more. We are pretty much allowed to write what we believe to be true.
A lot of work goes into writing a review because we spend hours testing them, and photographing the product in use. I think I can speak for all of us that we take pride in giving an honest, hands-on assessment of the gear.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
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Thanks for the clarification, Ivor.
I really do appreciate all of the reviews that you and the other writers post here. I am not a "gear head" by any means, and only upgrade cameras every 4 to 6 years. But I know a lot more about all of the different options out there, and what each manufacturer is doing, because of what I read here on Fstoppers.
One thing I especially appreciate about Fstoppers reviews is that there are a fair number of articles that discuss older gear - models that came out years ago, many of which have been discontinued and are now only available on the used market. That is super useful to me because I buy almost all of my gear used, years after it was released. So I need to see reviews that pit the old discontinued models against the latest and greatest, to know just what compromises I am facing by not getting the newer models.
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I always look at the most recent reviews on Amazon. I'd bet that 9/10 products that are top rated or 4.5 star average are littered with bad recent reviews that tell the real story.
I always read the 1-3 star reviews
Hi Jeff, that's where Fakespot comes into its own. Interestingly, after Michelle highlighted the issue with the big 3 camera brands, for one, a lot of fake positive reviews vanished and their score has gone up. Strange that.
I can see the tax revenue incentive to crack down on fake reviews, but in the UK there is already the Bribery Act 2010. This makes even offering a Bribe a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment.
Actually taking payment to write a fake review, if brought to court under the Bribery Act could land both the person receiving the bribe (the fake reviewer) and the corporate executives of the brand making the bribe, with huge personal fines and prison sentences.
VERY FINE Article well coverage of all things evil online! Well even in the day of magazines (even today). Fstoppers articles and videos have been best to read about all things photography. I have fallen for youtuber pros for a few lenses when if just waiting a year my maker came out with a way better one. I think that is like the worst thing is we have no idea what is coming down the pike. Example, I was watching Trey Ratcliff, in '15, and he showed how the old APS-C E 10-18mm f/4 OSS could be used in Full Frame at 12mm I got it and it worked but that is after a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 that distortion was so bad there were no corrections for a year that many Pros said it was great but were doing PS tricks. Remember the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 tank everyone raved about but the one I got had multiple chromatic aberration and monochromatic aberration and worked best at f/4 or 5.6 and low and behold Sony comes out with one AFTER the 24mm f/1.4 and 20mm f/1.8 and so happy is is so small. Also very little, at the time sony mod II '15, was really noted about the IBIS the net was just starting with reviews. I saved and got hooked on the RII for the 42MP in '17, well to my surprise and others I forgot my camera tripod plate at Antelope Canyon tour but did single shots but the experimenter in me I did some Bracketed shots and they worked hand held, so I click, click, click while others were long exposering on sticks and last month again while leaf peeping in PA. But one thing in the beginning of the Sony cameras '13 is the on camera apps that disappeared after the Mod 3's of course it was '13 and little info anywhere but us who bought found Digital Filter good for Milky Way's over towns but remember PS/Lr cost $800 ea. and each full update and we got Capture One for $30 not much room in a Magazine for all that.
Today I read Fstoppers for the true stuff and upto date even future, Thank You all for being there.
I never trust a comment that begins with "I wanted to love this blah blah blah, but..."