Best Magazine for Product Reviews.

I have subscribed to Popular Photography for about 5 years. I intend to continue subscribing because it has the most product reveiws of any photo magazine that I have encountered. It allows me to keep up with what's new in the way of equipment. Of particular interest are the lens tests. Pop Photo tests most new lenses for 35 mm cameras, which is more than any other source that I know of.

Now to the bad part: I find that the articles that are not related to products reviews are primarily intended for novices, and they are very repetitive. If you've subscribed for more than a year, you will find that many basic subjects are treated over and over again. And I have always been disappointed in the subjects of the articles, which are just very unimaginative. Photography is such a huge subject, with many interesting and idiosyncratic techniques available. There is no need to stick to the same handful of subjects. It's uninspirational, and it's bad editing, frankly. I do like Herb Keppler's monthly column. He's a plain-spoken guy who usually has something useful to say. More evidence of editorial laziness is that Pop Photo essentially puts their annual product guides in the magazine. This means that several of their issues are dominated by pages and pages of charts telling you what is available this year in SLR's, point-and-shoots, film, zoom lenses, etc. There is very little else in those issues. Other magazines put their product guides in a separate publication that is available on the newsstand.

In summary, Pop Photo has a wide audience and a lot of potential, but needs a better Editor. The product reviews and tests are worth the price of the subscription to me, but that is really what the magazine excells at.

Good general purpose mag

Pop Photo is a good general purpose photography magazine. The coverage of new trends and products is good and the techncial reviews of equipment can't be beat.

There is a tendency for the editorial staff to be combative with letter writers (check the letters to the editor). This can be annoying, and fortunately they've mellowed out a bit over the past couple of years.

Good travel photo column, and the readers photos segement is the first thing I look for every issue.

One caveat, if you're a digital photographer looking for in-depth digital how-tos this isn't the mag for you.

garbage

I am cross posting this most of these photo magazines are published by the same company under a different name. I have read them ALL!

First, 77%+ of this magazine is advertisements. That leaves under 25% of material. The material that does remain is bare minimum informational and tends to just show "pretty photos". Coverage on camera gear appears skewed since EVERYTHING is GREAT. This leads me to believe advertisers sway them.

In short, this is an advertising pamphlet with a cover price. If you need information, typing "photography" in any search engine will give you more information in 30 seconds then a 10 year subscription.

I wrote the main company about the 77% issue and they stated that they are aware of the amount of advertisement and quoted a percentage higher then I stated. That this was necessary to continue producing a magazine of this quality.

Quality? OK, if this is quality then I don't know what to say other then the semi professional magazines are free of charge from the publishers, contain actual subjective information, and are produced on high quality paper with fewer than 30% advertising.