Too many photography sites?

I've been futzing about on photography sites for a few years now, and I am finding it a daunting task to keep up with any of them, in any meaningful way.

I'm a member of 4 forums (pentaxforums, pentax world, ausphotography and here), and 3 sites (redbubble, flickr, devart) - that is, I'm partly active in all, but not completely involved in any. There have been others as well, but I don't even remember what they were/are.

Anyone else feel like they can't keep up? Anyone else feeling like they maybe don't want to? BTW I've never posted this q anywhere else, because I am beginning to think that even though I mostly shoot with a dslr, I'd rather be "here" than "there".
 
Ya know, I know exactly how you feel. I belong to many sites but only really pay attention to a few. Getdpi, Rangefinderforum, are 2 of my favorites.
I've been on Leica forum for maybe 6-7 years and have under 35 post yet I visit it every other day.
I think you have to find a community that you can live with and then stick with it.
Good to have you here by the way...
Don
 
My answer is - yes.

When I first started reading about digital photography (and that was not that long ago...maybe a year and a half ago) I read The Online Photographer (a very interesting site with some good articles) and started researching cameras... I'll spare you the rest of my bio, but yes...

I don't know how people keep up with everything. If I am on the hunt, that's different... I will read and read...but for my regular life, I can't do all that. I rely on others to feed me news or interesting stories - here.

I do use Flickr, however. I started using it for my friends and family...and for a MINI Cooper cult addiction... Then when I got back into photography, I discovered some of my Flickr pals who I'd met via MINIs and, yes, because of the kind of dog I have...were also really good photographers...so I stay in touch with them...then I realized how easy Flickr made posting in the forum over on Amin's other site Mu43 and, of course, here... I need to make some more time to keep up with the friends I have made on Flickr that aren't Serious Compacts folks, but I've fallen behind of late, though I do value the connection with a number of them, very much.

So that's the medium version of my response to your very understandable question.
 
I limit myself to communities that reflect my primary interests (focus on what's most important) - Serious Compacts, DPR Ricoh forum, Ricoh forum, Rangefinder forum. And Flickr. The flood comes through the photography blogs. I use Google as my reader and just quickly scan most posts. I'll find a few posts interesting each day. There is a lot out there!!! I'll get burned out on gear talk and go waddle in Flickr pictures to recoup.

Mostly I timebox myself. I spend all day at the computer for work so I'll start my day with 30 minutes or so doing the email, blogs, online photography thing, then maybe 15-20 minutes at night. Brief bouts of checking in during the day as a break.

The thing that I find interesting is that I'll go on vacation for a few days or even longer. During those times I tend not to spend much time at all online. But when I come back I realize just how little has changed. It appears to move quickly but really it doesn't. Just a lot of spinning wheels on asphalt. Looks like a lot of action but you aren't really going anywhere.

Then there's blog bankruptcy. I'll come back from said vacation to seemingly thousands of blog posts in my reader. I declare blog bankruptcy and mark all as read without reading a single one. But I'm not brave enough to declare email bankruptcy. Just yet.
 
I agree. Many of the content, especially news, is the same. For me:

43rumors
1001noisycompacts
dpreview
imaging-resource
mu-43
dcresource

And this one. Some of those are news sites/rumor sites, and a few do have fourms like this one.
 
Thanks, everyone...

Finding a community one can live with and then sticking with it, thats important... I like this community thus far (and thanks again, Don) but I really feel like I need to buy a "serious compact" to continue here. But that may be closer than I thought, I am selling one of my DSLRs this weekend, and a not-so-serious compact in the form of my panasonic TZ7 in a couple of weeks (buyers confirmed for both). It won't be enough to pay for that X100 but it will put a big dent in the cost for me.

I've just taken a pro account with flickr so I guess for the next year I'll still post there. And yes, its useful for posting in threads. I was using imageshack but olli had issues so now I switched to flickr. Being able to choose the image size from there is also a bonus. you need to do that before upload to imageshack... ie resize first.

photography blogs... yes, had not really considered that, and yet, I read for mac and iOS related stuff so why not... it makes sense and will save time.

Checking news sites is something I havent ever really done with any seriousness... I am way too easily convinced to buybuybuy. I think I'll stick with what I read here.

In many ways, this forum fills the need for news very well, its not a single camera/brand forum and so the news and opinion might come from anywhere and I like that :)

*wanders off to a) check pricing on X100 and GRD3 and b) find some photography blogs worth reading...
 
I've gotten myself down to mu-43 and here for info, GetDPI for buying and selling (with an occasional trip to FM to see what's up). I used to visit photo.net quite a lot but I haven't been there in some time.
 
I now just stick to the following:

Talk photography.co.uk & Here for the forums
Flickr for storing my finished images

I do frequent a few others but not often and it's nice to dib into them every once in a while.
 
For Forums etc.

In terms of reading and writing stuff, its here and mu-43. I look at dpreview and some rumour sites for news and well.... rumours! I like Photography Blog for reviews as they have raw files for download. I also use flickr a lot for hosting images and I run and help run a few groups there.

For Portfolios.

I occasionally look at various photographers sites and blogs. I like Kirk Tuck.

I do generally flit around quite a few sites as I write quite a lot here and for my own blog. So I'm picking up information all the time.

For me photography is both a job and a passion and I never really tire of it. I get all sorts of useful stuff from the various sites and I've learned to filter out the nonsense. I also subscribe to three magazines so I'm pretty much immersed in it.

I do work with other family members from time to time but mostly I'm photographing and editing on my own, so in a way its an entertaining distraction from the daily grind of continuous Photoshop work, captioning and keywording.

Are there too many sites? Probably, but its easy enough to concentrate on the ones you feel an affinity with.
 
I still frequent the first forum I signed up to (Digital Darkroom) where I'm on the contests committee. The other two are mu-43 and here. I follow several other sites by subscribing to RSS feeds (43 Rumors, Steve Huff, Luminous Landscapes and a few others). As a new Mod this forum is now my main port of call (and yes it has an RSS feed too!).
 
Flickr was my first then I found SeriousCompacts and also Blipfoto.com made a few friends on there (can't always manage the daily photo) Did join a couple of others but have dropped them and just stick to the three mentioned.
 
Nowadays, forum-wise, I'm primarily over here, MU-43 and getdpi.com. Sometimes I'll be at PentaxForum.com too.

I frequent DPreview.com for reviews, but avoid the forums for the most part. I also like Cameralabs.com for reviews. And last but not least, I'm at SteveHuffPhoto.com too (primarily for Leica related stuff).

I'm probably signed up in the Leica and Rangefinder forum as well, but haven't been there in many many months.
 
So here's the ones I visit every day or at least every three days:
Here
mu-43.com
rangefinderforum.com
l-camera-forum.com
(those are my top 4 bookmarks in order)
Leica blog
43rumors

Places I find I visit rarely:
4/3 forum
photo.net
getdpi
fredmiranda
e-p1.net
scuba forum's photo board
blipfoto
zenfolio

...and probably a few I no longer have bookmarked.
 
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