I need feedback on an Idea

[tektonnic]

Hey everyone,

I've been having this idea for a while now and thought I would give it a go.

I am by no stretch an amazing photographer (barely competant) but I understand technical principles such as f/stop, stutter speed, white balance etc. and also some compositional principles. I know the difference between editorial and sports photography, I know what photojournalism is etc.

I know these things from reading them at varying sites on the web and asking stupid questions to forums (and sometimes in high-brow camera shops ie. I once want a lens with a great depth of field and asked for a 50mm f/1.8, oh how the guy enjoyed tearing into me) anyway you get the picture.

I've found the MacRumors forum to be valuble and full of (mainly) very helpful and useful people.

My idea is this, a photowiki, for photographers to contribute to, to cover all aspects of photography, including cameras, technical principles, composition, and so on. This would hopefully create a great pool of knowledge for any new or old photographers to use as a reference guide.

I installed a wiki on my hosting space http://photography.knight-creative.com/wiki and I realise right now its a sub domain folder but if it gets to a reasonable size I'll dis-associate it with my existing domain and get it one of its own.

I guess I am looking for people ideas, suggestions, whether they would help me, whether they think it would work?

All ideas would be useful, Cheers, Tek.

 

[jared_kipe]

I don't see the point, the information is already out there, say on wikipedia itself, here is an article on f stop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_stop

 

[tektonnic]

Ok, I kind of appriciate that, however there is already a apple support forum, so why do people come here for support? (not intended aggressivly)

 

[pianoman]

I don't see the point, the information is already out there, say on wikipedia itself, here is an article on f stop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_stop

i agree. yours is just redundant unless you come up with a way to differentiate it. keep working and it might be worthwhile, though.

 

[ChrisA]

My idea is this, a photowiki, for photographers to contribute to, to cover all aspects of photography,

What I've found with Wikis is that they are a kind of "chicken and egg" problem. Users don't add content unless there is already a lot of good content and many active users. I think about 1 out of 50 reader will contribute so you need enough quality content to draw in a few hundred readers before you will get a critial mass of writers. About the only way is to write the first couple hundred pages yourself

You wil also have to do something different that is not already on the web. for example your sight could focus on people who are just beginning to get serious babout photography and wanting to get into it as a hobby. The key is to know what these people are lookig for ad provide that
The only way to solve the chicken and egg problem is to create the core of the wiki first.

 

[jared_kipe]

Ok, I kind of appriciate that, however there is already a apple support forum, so why do people come here for support? (not intended aggressivly)

Because this is a social site, with plenty of experts and non experts. Its a community, it is difficult to have a community based on a support forum alone.

Redundant information is sometimes good. Especially when a topic is not well covered or there are more than one approaches to a subject. An example is a page on my website discussing eigenvalue/eigenvector solutions to coupled harmonic oscillators. http://www.sailbyair.com/physics/phys/examples/cho/cho1.html

But I wrote it myself, I didn't go onto a physics forum and started asking people if they would take the time to go and contribute to my site.

That said, I was going to write the f stop article for yours, then I thought "I wonder what wikipedia already has" and I went there and found pretty much what I would write on yours already. It would take me a few hours to code up what I wanted to say what they already have.

Basically, if you can put forth some effort and get some basics out of the way, or at least cover some topics that interest you, then others might come and help out with the load. But as it is now, its a very daunting task, to accumulate all the knowledge a photographer needs.

 

[Raid]

While you've got a fairly good idea I agree that their is need to differentiate your site from the others. Considering the background story you might want to consider taking the 'what does all this mean' approach.

For example if you look at the wiki on F-stop Jared provided, the eyes of most novices and amatures would glaze over at the first few paragraphs. (I know mine did) What would be of great value to them would be the section called 'Effects on image quality'.

Put that kind of stuff on your site, minimize the technobabble and you'd have a site I'd visit!

 

[jared_kipe]

While you've got a fairly good idea I agree that their is need to differentiate your site from the others. Considering the background story you might want to consider taking the 'what does all this mean' approach.

For example if you look at the wiki on F-stop Jared provided, the eyes of most novices and amatures would glaze over at the first few paragraphs. (I know mine did) What would be of great value to them would be the section called 'Effects on image quality'.

Put that kind of stuff on your site, minimize the technobabble and you'd have a site I'd visit!

I like technobabble. Though I agree most people care more on how it affects things like DOF (the image quality, which is very qualitative), however one must also realize that this is changed by the focal length. Specifically, the greater the focal length, the more blurry things look. However they are actually just as blurry, there are just less of them due to the prospective of the lens. Anyway, if I were to teach the subject I would do it very much the way the article on wikipedia does. Start of with what is actually going on when you change the fstop, and why that affects exposure. Then go into qualitative stuff like DOF.

EDIT: But composing pages like this takes a lot of time. Especially if the topic is broad, or you need to use images or mathematical symbols to get the idea across. For instance, the relevant code needed to produce the last image on the page from my site is as follows, and it only has 2 2x1 matrices!

|x(t)>=c_1\left(\begin{array}{c}1&1\end{array}\right)cos\left(\sqrt{\frac{k}{m}} t\right) +
c_2\left(\begin{array}{c}1&-1\end{array}\right)cos\left(\sqrt{\frac{3k}{m}} t\right)

 

[Clix Pix]

There are already a couple of photographic Wiki sites on the way, one through Nikon Cafe and one through Rob Galbraith's site....

 

[mlrproducts]

While I don't dog your idea, I think you'll find all the info you want/need over at DPReview.com

 

[ChrisA]

For example if you look at the wiki on F-stop Jared provided, the eyes of most novices and amatures would glaze over at the first few paragraphs. (I know mine did) What would be of great value to them would be the section called 'Effects on image quality'.

One more idea: Don't organize the site by technical terms. Orgaize it by "goal". for example under "ways to make a portrait subject stand out, away from the background you would then talk about using stobes or reflectors, selection of backgrounds and about depth of field. Same for thr area that is titled "how to show a feeling of motion" yuo can talk about composition that allows for room to move, shutter speeds and panning the camera.

The trouble is it's all been done, many times. But then that is true of everything an author might writte.