Check out this incredible image of the solar eclipse from space!
Or... Wait... Something isn't right here...
Anyone out there with an astronomy degree want to let us all know how incredibly wrong this image is?
Eclipse From Space
Photo of the Day selected by:
Nicholas Gore
Come on FSTOPPERS, what is going on?
This site used to be the pinnacle of informed and relevant professional photography videos. And now what? I can go to 9gag if I want to see hilariously atrocious composites that look as if they were made by a 10-year old in Paint.
Barrington
www.barringtonrussell.com
it's just a photo of the day....give it 24 hours and you can hate on that one too
Come ooooon, he's right. There are more and more people thinking this. This used to be a serious photography site, but now you have to skim through a bunch of meaningless crap to get to any real content.
It's not like any of the new staff members do anything except post other people's content, so why the need?
Stick to teaching people photography, this website was the best possible resource for learning advanced techniques up until a few months ago.
Then everything just got kind of...crap.
Yeah, you guys have gone really downhill since hiring like 50 gabillion freaking new people.
Much of the content I've had to skip, because I can only spend so much time, and I can't go through 20-30 posts a week, where a good 20 or so are not helpful to improving photography.
It's not where you came from, and it's why fstoppers is suffering so much right now.
You and Lee need to go back to your roots, for the people who have been here since the beginning, please...
P.S. Sometimes your site just feels like Nikon Rumors 2.5.
Ha well we still post the same content we've always posted but now there are just 2-5 extra posts....and guess what, most of those "other posts" get WAY more tweets, shares, comments, etc which makes us think that's what our audience likes. BTW, we've always posted other people's work from the beginning...we can't produce FS videos everyday and keep the quality up on those.
You don't understand what I mean, but I don't really care anymore.
You guys don't care what the people who've been here since the beginning think? Fine, be that way.
There have been many comments recently how the quality has been watered down, whether you want to be defensive about it or not doesn't make it untrue.
I didn't say only post original work. I said go back to your roots, at least understand what I'm saying before you get all defensive.
You guys made a wrong choice with hiring so many people, and there are many people who think so.
It's your choice not to listen to them though, that's fine.
"This used to be a serious photography site, but now you have to skim through a bunch of meaningless crap to get to any real content"
That is one of your reader's legitimate qualms. If you guys want to turn a deaf ear to these... fine.
You will slowly lose your more serious readers over time, and that's fine. You'll have to learn some way.
Somewhere between selling your $300 Peter Hurley DVD and now you guys sold out somehow, because the site hasn't been the same in a long while.
Too many photogs ruin the shoot, and it's exactly the same concept here.
It would be nice if you guys actually took negatives from your readers and improved upon them, but I guess I won't hold my breath anymore.
I guess the best way to describe it to you without you getting super pissy towards me, is how facebook started out really useful, and over
time has added many features and "upgrades" that while some people in suits might find "better", are anything but.
Fstoppers today compared to a year or two ago is the same in that there is a ton of crap to sort through, just to get to the meaningful things.
(Well- you guys did remove ratings from stories a while back... so maybe you foresaw that people wouldn't be liking them as much)
Less is more, and in this case even less so.
When *any* of your readers have to skip posts every day because they aren't as substantive as your previous posts, you are failing as a blog,
whether you make trillions of dollars, or not.
Not everything is about tweets and shares, either. I hope that someday you will be lucky enough to learn that.
Perhaps eventually you guys can go back to quality over quantity. Until then, you'll keep frustrating some of your readers.
Can you not give a shit? Sure. Say screw those readers? We have billions we don't need those 30 or 40 people or however many HAVEN'T commented on it because they're too soft spoken to say anything that isn't 3000% positive... Of course you can.
Then it was my fault for expecting you and Lee to be better than that.
But if you really don't care about our opinions as your readership, regardless of whether it's three thousand or a hundred, then a few readers being frustrated with your content will be the least of your problems in a few years, while you're trying frantically to get them back.
Here's a good example for you: Temptation Island, the tasteless reality television show on fox from the early 2000's had 16m viewers during its first season, does that mean it's a great show?
Tweets and Likes are tools for self-promotion, not promotion of what's being tweeted. It's the oldest trick in the book to get yourself visibility. It's Twitter 101.
You're completely missing the point here, and again, crucially, you're arguing the toss with people who are taking the time to give you feedback. It's like you're incapable of hearing or taking criticism in any form.
Nobody is saying you must come up with original content, but if you are using other people's content to fuel the site, which is not an issue, than at least be succinct.
50% of the responses in this post have been negative, and the other 50% have just been generic acknowledgments. That alone should tell you that it's a worthless post.
But whatever, like I've said several times before, you, specifically, are incapable of accepting criticism about anything, so I'm going to stop being boring about this now.
Yeah there is way to much just general photography and alot of it makes me feel like I'm wasting my time on this site now and not learning stuff like I used to. I remember one time I submitted this video and you said that you would have posted it if there was BTS but it was not made yet. and now there are all these posts without BTS videos but just showing peoples work and other random stuff. I used to love going to the site to see the BTS videos but the quality has gone downhill with all the non BTS videos and even things getting posted that were already posted in the past. I always believed in quality vs quantity, and as a photographer you should believe in that. But i guess this is the digital age where everyone with a DSLR is a pro and can take 5,000 pictures to only come out with 5 good pictures.
Don't think that we don't take our reader's comments seriously because we do. It's just that everytime people complain that we don't post enough BTS videos on photoshoots, I goto our analytics and see that the BTS videos are often times viewed and shared 1/10th the amount of other content. Sure twitter, facebook, and comments aren't the only things we look at but they sure do help. Again, we post a BTS video everyday just like in the past and if you are complaining about too much content then maybe our site isn't for you anymore....we can't go back to posting 2 posts a day.
I always encourage all our readers to email us content you find interesting. Scouring the internet for informative BTS videos is tough, I've done it for 2 1/2 years now but if anyone has a helpful tip or video we are happy to post it.
As for the Peter Hurley thing, the pricing has much more to do with the value he places on his own work than the price we want to sell it for....his private intensives are $1300, his headshot sessions run $1500 on average, and he wanted his DVD to sell for $300....if we could give it away for free we would but we can't. Don't worry, we are working on our next full length tutorial and it will be priced towards a different demographic altogether.
I still appreciate the good stuff here, BUT, it won't be long since the facebook debacle before everyone figures out that having 10,000 idiots re-tweet crap is still crap & can't (shouldn't) be monetized. There is more to having a great website than the number of 'likes' you have.
Let Phil explain it.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/05/22/a-fake-and-a-r...
Haters gonna hate.
don't really need a degree to figure this one...