Why is ken rockwell famous

Rockwell readily admits that the key to his success is his independent perspective. He pulls no punches and feels free to express his opinion about anything photography-related. After all, he is just having fun. In fact, often he adds fictional information, satirical wit and boldface hoaxes to his reviews and commentary just so it isn't so serious. It would bore him otherwise. His great-great grandfather, James Brewster, was a photography pioneer in Scotland during the middle years of the 19 th century.

The motivation and inspiration for being a success is definitely a character trait that Ken acquired from his parents. His father is a highly regarded engineer and his mother, a certified flight instructor among other aircraft certifications , has been a pilot from childhood.

He was also serious about his education, earning a BSEE engineering degree. An even more serious indication of his engineering prowess is that he has been granted a U. Yup, At least a lot nicer than a quite a few flickr users Edited by thirsty grape member 12 years ago.

UncleMeat 12 years ago. KR is a very intelligent guy who seems to enjoy what he does. He's also quite friendly and helpful from personal experience. There are countless reviewers and opinion givers to choose from out there Use what you will; ignore what you want.

It's still thankfully a free market of information! If you find his information is of value to you- then great. No need to bash him or be jealous of his business model. If its not for you, just move along JimPeel 12 years ago.

Who is KR? A salesmen His target market is the average photographer His gimmick is to tell them what they want to here His wish is that Joe Average cliks a link to buy from his linked sites and or sends him money directly He is a Joe Average photographer Seems rather two faced: nice enough based on the YouTube Video but rather insulting to many photographers in his articles.

You may not need Joe Average equipment He tells the average photographer what they want to hear, which may not be what they need to hear.

Sridhar Parthasarathy 12 years ago. It is like me saying "Wha Rockwell web site and fruit of his research have come as a life saver to me, many times when i wanted to get the real dirt on any second hand camera i was in to buy.

So for me at least it was and still is a great references. There's a college town near me that elicits opinions like KR elicits opinions.

Somebody may just have an opinion about this town from things he's heard. Works for me. Story: a guy who said over and over to me how much he thinks this town is full of kooks a fully formed opinion about a place he'd never been I've never seen that in 30 years but of course he did, so, Voila! I've never read anything like that on KRs site and it wouldn't matter even if I did because I enjoy his site so much.

And he reviews Canons, too. I thought everyone knew that. He also shoots in the studio with his Dfor sure, a Joe Average camera. It's just Mark 12 years ago. Because Rockwell is the self-appointed authority concerning everything Nikon! He's just a guy that is riding a wave. Nothing wrong with that. Threads like this actually improve his rankings. The fact that people talk about him and link to him Truly a case where all publicity is good publicity.

He's smart. He updates regularly and has lots of indexable text. Search engines like that. Like David said, he is an SEO machine and we are all helping him retire early. After reading some of his reviews I'm suspecting more and more that he's acyually reviewing the spec sheets rather than any real products.

But from a marketing perspective he does that in a brilliant way. Ken Rockwell grates some people, as any good purveyor of opinions ought to do. I read his lens reviews and utilized the info to maximize return on my lens investment.

I even clicked through his site to buy from Amazon so that he got a few dollars as compensation. It's a hassle to read through all of his stuff to fully understand performance of particular lenses and cameras, but that's just the way it goes with him.

In addition to reading Ken's pages, one should also read Thom and Bjorn. Add to that the fact he disputes himself. If he'd offer accurate information so people whom dont know better are not led astray in some instances look at his comments on graduated ND filters for example would give him a much better reputation. Personally i find it distasteful that he seems to feel the need to brag about all "his" equipment. He comes across more as an insecure showoff who needs to buy approval regardless of whether the advice he gives is accurate or not.

AND that does us all a great disservice. If nothing else, he is a testimony to learn to think for yourself. What's the difference between Ken Rockwell and Bob Dylan, you ask? It is rumored that Ken can sing. Rockwell offers an entertaining opinion, laced with chosen fact, kinda like meeting a free-thinking troll under a bridge.

He's not afraid to challenge authority, to do the analysis for himself and come to his own conclusions. The JPG and sRGB preferences are legendary, and contrary to the opinion of many internet experts who do serious photography. But if you get into it further, you realize that many professional sports photographers do the same thing, in the interest of speed and hard drive space. With RAW you have more room for error, but if you do things right in camera it doesn't make as much difference as you might expect.

I love that 'emperor has no clothes' kind of analysis. I really like his mathematical review of sensor size, challenging common opinion that bigger is tons better. Maybe a little, but barely so. I find the photos he posts are usually crap snapshots, though according to him he is an outstanding photographer. Not surprising that most of his hits are technical Carrillo Photo 12 years ago. That seems to rub a lot of people the wrong way, quite a bit. And this may be the friendliest thread in general that I've ever seen regarding Ken!

When someone goes off, frothing at the mouth, against him, I think it reveals more about them than anything related to KR. Besides, I've met the guy, and he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. I like his site, and seem to be able to separate the satire from the useful info. I second jeffegg2's comment thoroughly. Grow up people. It's a fun site with a lot of useful information, with some empirical data a few lens tests with side-by-side comparisons , and he shares a lot of my prejudices - particularly his conversion to the benefits of medium format film photography and large format, which I don't pursue myself.

His enthusiasm does tend to drive him to name quite a few cameras and lenses as the best ever, though I check his site regularly. Some of his advice can save beginners quite a bit of money, too. Edited by dren88 member 12 years ago. KR makes me froth at the mouth. The SEO genius crowd has it right, though it seems like he more or less lucked into his top spot at the start. As much as I am annoyed by his ego I admit that he does have some good info that I cannot find elsewhere. ZwedeInExile 12 years ago.

So right! I actually sat next to Garth Brooks on a flight to Nashville years ago 98 or 99 I believe. But I was still pulling a blank, since I was not in to country music. Point is, petepixx, even if you live in the US, if you're not into something chances are you won't know anything about it On KR, he's been successful at what he does - he realized the power of "The Interwebs" before most of us - kudos to him!

Is he always right? Do we need to care? Do I read his site? Not any more. Things I don't like, I ignore or avoid. If you let a guy you don't know get your blood pressure up, that just shows there's something wrong with your priorities, not his. Wisest words I've read on the internet for a very long time. Hm, both the aliens and anal probe seem to be jokes, in my opinion.

Remember, engineers have a Regarding his site, I'm pretty sure he aims at the beginner and weekend photographer that wants to spend some money in digital photography. In that aspect I pretty much agree with his general advice: get yourself a D40 and you'll be just fine. He talks from experience and he is upfront about it.

You disagree? Buy his mother-in-law's Z. Maybe you can hang out with him for a few hours. San Diego Truth Teller 11 years ago. I have known Ken Rockwell for many years, probably close to 20, as we both are well known in the photography world, me more so than him. I don't want to disparage, but he was a bit of a hanger on and always a bit odd. I found his site today by complete accident. I was looking for a medium format camera and found his site and nearly fell over with laughter.

I was like WTF is this? Knowing him as I do, I was not sure where the authoritative voice on cameras was coming from. I consider him a FAN of cameras and film and taking pictures. I know a lot about contemporary photography and vintage photography and cameras and had no clue this was going on. What concerns me most of all is his story about his San Diego condo in, as he calls it, La Jolla Estates.

That's complete and utter bullshit. The story and the gushing about his agent a relative, which he doesn't mention and all the crap leads me to believe there is a LOT of fantasy in Ken's mind, as I have thought for a long time. He trash talks zip codes that can buy and sell him anyone? Jokes aside, he clearly he has no clue about truth telling to a certain degree.

My doubts about his authority on cameras aside, he is a very nice guy. I have never heard him say a bad word or make a negative comment in 20 years. He is constantly smiling. But he's not known in the art or business circles of San Diego. By the way, who the hell abuses a return policy like he does? The Nikon Z9 is the company's first camera to feature a stacked CMOS sensor, which brings a raft of new features, including blazing speed and autofocus performance to the Z lineup.

Click through for our detailed first impressions of Nikon's latest professional ILC. The Sony a7 IV is the fourth generation of the company's core a7 full-frame mirrorless camera model, and it's the most advanced yet. Click through for an in-depth look at Sony's latest full-frame mirrorless ILC. Nik Silver Efex Pro 3, one of the standout components of Nik Collection 4, is a black-and-white conversion tool that goes far further than the grayscale or black-and-white tools built into all-in-one photo apps.

For some users, this app alone might be worth the cost of the whole collection — find out for yourself in our review. The Nikon Z mm F2. Get all the details in our full review.

These capable cameras should be solid and well-built, have both speed and focus for capturing fast action and offer professional-level image quality. Although a lot of people only upload images to Instagram from their smartphones, the app is much more than just a mobile photography platform. In this guide we've chosen a selection of cameras that make it easy to shoot compelling lifestyle images, ideal for sharing on social media.

If you're looking for the perfect drone for yourself, or to gift someone special, we've gone through all of the options and selected our favorites. We looked at cameras with selfie-friendly screens, wide-angle lenses, microphone inputs and great video quality, and selected the best. Submit a News Tip!

Reading mode: Light Dark. Login Register. Best cameras and lenses. All forums Open Talk Change forum. Started Apr 13, Discussions thread. This thread is locked. Apr 13, Sure, his site is still active. But not here on DPR. But no more. What happened? Did The Fro replace Ken? Re: What happened to Ken Rockwell? Lawn Lends.