The hottest web trend of the last few years has been the emergence of community sites. Here are some interesting ones we’ve visited recently.

 

The hottest web trend of the last few years has been the emergence of community sites. Here are some interesting ones we’ve visited recently.

Canonnical
photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php
The Finland-based Canon Digital Photography Forums won’t be winning any prizes for the utterly bare bones text-only site design. But that clearly matters not in the least to the 120,000 plus folks who have generated over four million posts since founder Pekka Saarinen kicked things off. There are five main areas (equipment, photo sharing, knowhow sharing, marketplace, feedback) and each of these offers numerous subdivisions. If you’re after Canon-specific talk, the epicentre is the ‘equipment’ section, but as you might expect, there’s a fair amount of Canon related discussion in the ‘knowhow’ area as well.
Nikonmania
www.nikonians.org/
The Nikonians.org forums are claimed to have over 103,000 members. Although just one facet of the larger Nikonian site, these forums cover a very wide range of topics. There are over a dozen separate sections for different Nikon product families and several times that number of specific topic areas on everything from becoming a professional photographer to discussing the ins and outs of wildlife picture taking. A fantastic resource for Nikon users and photographers more generally. (If you’re looking for another great Nikon site, Margaret Brown recommends the highly informative www.bythom.com.)
Olympians twofer
www.nabble.com/Olympus-Users-f15032.html
myolympus.org
We elected to include two links for Olympus fans for the simple reason that neither option on its own really provides a complete community site for users. Myolympus.org has extensive hardware resources and an active set of community photo galleries. While it’s possible to comment under photos, to really get a dialogue going, you need a site designed for the purpose. Nabble.com’s Olympus User forum is really a single topic section within the larger site. As such it does not offer sub-topics, and that makes browsing for interesting tidbits somewhat more hit and miss, but it does have the virtue of being active, so you’ll likely get a quick response to your Olympus questions.
Pentax-ites
www.pentaxforums.com
The online users statistic is a good guide to the health of a specialist forum such as pentaxforums.com. When Photo Review stopped by for a sticky, there were 171 users browsing and chatting in the 18 different topic areas. That’s not a bad roll up for a forum with 3800 registered members. Along with all the chit chat about new models, lenses and accessories, the forums also incorporate regular photo competitions, polls and Pentax news items. Should be on every Pentax owner’s bookmark list.
Fourthirdsters
www.myfourthirds.com
Canadians Alan and Mario set up their site www.myfourthirds.com to give users of the format a place to share pictures and experiences. There isn’t a forum as such, but most images in the then current photo competition had picked up comments from viewers. The user community runs to several thousand, and seems to be made up of ‘four-thirders’ from all over the world.