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Rob Galbraith puts Digital Photography Insights website on hiatus

Jul 20, 2012 at 14:33:59 GMT

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Photography expert Rob Galbraith has said he is putting his well-respected 'Digital Photography Insights' website into 'deep hibernation mode,' as he accepts a photojournalism teaching role. Galbraith has become known as an engaging and knowledgeable writer, particularly from the sports and photojournalism perspective, and was one of the first people to identify and begin to characterise the autofocus problems with the Canon EOS-1D Mark III. The site will remain accessible but will no longer be updated. We would like to wish him every success in his new role at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

Click here to read Rob Galbraith's personal message to his site's readers

Comments

Total comments: 30

I don't know Rob and have never seen his site before today, but I find his hibernation to be pretty crazy. Advertisers left and right and a staff to help. 1.9 MILLION page views per month. He just sh*t all over his readers, his staff, his advertisers. Ballsy.

0 upvotes

Viva the guys on Sportsshooter would call you a liar
http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=27474

0 upvotes

Great site until he became a Nikon fanboy, he acclaim to be a non sports action photographer and yet proceeded to test the 1DM3, his fellow photographers with sports/action/wild life credentials disagreed with his findings......from that day on, his Google page rank tanked. Fast forward to 2012, he had a chance to redeem himself with D800's left AF debacle, but choose not do an extensive test like 1DM3. So now, he is hiatus for good. I wish him luck and I sure hope he learned his lesson.

0 upvotes

Great site and one of my favorite sites - I learned much from reading old and new articles, but happy Rob will be joining the SAIT community and adding even more to a great journalism program for students.

0 upvotes

That's a shame. I really valued his opinions, but best wishes to him.

0 upvotes

I sure will miss him, Great site, great information and a great guy. His articles were great, his database of Sd and CF cards was great as well as his stories/articles. I think it is a great loss to the digital community. I wish him all the best.

0 upvotes

I thought I first read his blog when he was putting out performance stats on various compact flash media.

Then I went on a long hiatus and came back to it when reading up on the nikon 1 system.

I must admit I was a bit disappointed. It's been a while since I read it but if I recall correctly it was like a great big nikon add gushing all over the new system. (or was that kirk tuck's blog)?

0 upvotes

Rob is a great choice to teach photo-journalism at SAIT. He's also a superb individual and classy guy. I know that I used the resources on his website many times. Best of luck Rob!

0 upvotes

Sad. His site gave me links to many galleries of photos, in news and other publications, which I never would have otherwise realized were there.

I'll really miss that, as well as his writing.

It would be great if dpreview.com would get someone like Mike Sturk (or get Mike Sturk!) to give us links and news like Rob's site did.

I know dpreview is really a "hardware" site, but links to inspiring photography would expand its appeal

1 upvote

wish all the best!

0 upvotes

Too bad, now we will never know if Canon 1D X would have any focus issues :-)

All joking aside, I'll miss Rob's expertise on sport and strobed action shooting. The combination of his professional experience, technical expertise and writing ability is unparalleled.

0 upvotes

Don't see the joking. I wonder if the MkIII issues would ever have surfaced. Canon repair centres continued to deny it until the MkIV came out!
I believed the Canon hype (that it was a rogue plant) and bought the MkIII turkey long after it was supposed to have been dealt with

0 upvotes

I think his analysis of the 1DIII fundamentally changed the pro market, giving Nikon a serious boost just prior to the Beijing Olympics. Ron Wyatt, a well known sports photog who shot for Kodak (Remember them?) for the Beijing Olympics was a dyed-in-the-wool Canon shooter since the 1970s, but he switched just prior to the games and took nearly every piece of NPS gear with him. (NPS was so happy to see him switch, they let him take almost the entire pro kit on loan.) Galbraith's analysis was fundamental in pros realizing what a turkey that unit was, and a LOT of people switched. Prior to that, it was nearly all white lenses at big sporting events. That has changed a great deal. Now you actually see some black. I wonder what the value of a 1DIII is on ebay compared to the orginal D3? The 1DIV came out really quickly after that, much sooner than usual. One person can make a difference, it seems.

Comment edited 2 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

There seems to be a revolving door between teaching and web instruction. Amadou Diallo used to teach at ICP, for instance.

There is no doubt one reaches far more people on the web.

In the future, there should be a way to do both of these activities simultaneously. Flesh and blood schools and the internet should work together.

In law, for instance, high quality blogs have surpassed law reviews for impact. High quality law professors also run blogs that impact a national audience.

There should be a way for teaching to both be intense and interpersonal, and also have a component that enlightens the general public.

I am sorry Rob could not find a way to combine the two activities. He would be uniquely qualified.

Comment edited 1 minute after posting

0 upvotes

Could it have been a requirement to take the job.

0 upvotes

I've done full-curriculum classroom teaching. There's a metric craptonne of work involved beyond what goes on in the classroom when you leave the "seminar" space, especially during the first run through. I'd expect Rob to be as busy as a one-armed paper hanger for the next little while.

0 upvotes

That may be. But the online component of academia is the future, or to more precise the present.

To have an eminent blogger affilitated with your institution would be very beneficial to its reputation and influence.

0 upvotes

DPReview should get these people before someone else does:

From the link:
My deepest thanks go to three people who have contributed so much to this endeavor:
Mike Sturk, whose many links to great photography anchored the site, is a superb photographer in his own right and also one of my closest friends.

Eamon Hickey, a skilled interviewer and even better writer, produced the site's articles that I looked most forward to reading, including recent features on Steve Simon, Robin Loznak and Scott Linstead and a brilliant 2005 look back at the NC2000.

Megan Somerville, who demonstrated an unswerving commitment to accuracy during long hours of memory card testing for the CF/SD/XQD Performance Database, may in fact be part robot.

6 upvotes

Few website operators (not just those dedicated to photography) have the capability of delivering high-quality, engaging, grammatically correct writing. Rob is among the few. Agree with his opinions or not, one cannot deny the underlying quality of his site and content.

4 upvotes

Rob's site was really useful/helpful. I read the memory card database all the time and the other articles were just as great!
Good luck with the new teaching job Rob!

Comment edited 22 seconds after posting

1 upvote

Best wishs Ron.

1 upvote

Who is Ron?

1 upvote

Another professional photographer going the teaching route.

2 upvotes

What to fresh photojournalism graduates do these days?

Galbraith should simply sell his website to the Alberta-based "The Camera Store," which could employ interns to update it.

2 upvotes

or sell to Amazon like the previous owner of this site.

0 upvotes

His memory card performance database was (and I think still is) the best out there.

3 upvotes

There are many gear sites which are aimed at the gear itself but there are only a few which are putting it in professional perspective of using it and see photographic equipment actually as tools - Rob's website is one of it.

Comment edited 23 seconds after posting

2 upvotes

Rob Galbraith's site was remarkable for its original research, technical rigour, and extreme attention to detail: all things very rare on the web even today. I'll definitely miss it.

3 upvotes

I agree, that Canon EOS 1D Mk III story had a lot of detail... But, skipping that "episode", a very good site, overall. I will miss it too.

1 upvote

The RG forums were the best place to learn (and argue about digital photography) as we old-timers say "back in the day..."

1 upvote

Total comments: 30


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