Thanks!

Free Ways to Help

If you're getting any photo gear, books or anything, simply clicking these particular links to get to Ritz, Adorama, Amazon or B&H Photo Video when you order helps me keep adding to this site. If you use those links I get credit regardless of what you get, and you pay not a penny more, and probably much less than retail. I've been buying from each of them myself for many years (or decades!) and had great results. That's why I so strongly recommend them.

If you're outside the USA, when you get to any of the Amazon pages simply scroll down to the very bottom of Amazon's page and click on your country. The others, except maybe Ritz, also ship worldwide.

Donations

Old Gear

Have old camera gear sitting around unused? Send it to me to review and immortalize forever so everyone can benefit from me writing about it. See the informal Rockwell Retirement Ranch for Unused Gear.

These equipment donations have already allowed me to expand my technical pages and share much more about what equipment works with what. It's impressive just how compatible old and new equipment is within both the Canon and Nikon systems.

What Drives Me

Helping you and your long term best interests are my first and only priority. No manufacturers pay me anything for anything. I don't get free gear or even as much as a free hat from them. I'm enthusiastic because I've loved and been doing photography since I was 5 years old, not because anyone's paying me.

I've had an insatiable curiosity and fascination with all this ever since birth. That's why I research everything and publish it all.

I do this because I love to share. I dream about what I'm going to write all night, then get up at 6AM and hit the keyboard at 6:30AM and don't stop till my wife pulls me off. I want everyone to be able to enjoy photography as much as I do. My wife thinks I'm crazy spending so many hours a day at this, and she's probably right. Your generosity helps me justify all the time I spend sharing everything I know for free instead of having a real job.

I started this site for fun in October 1999 to share what I know. With your generous support I've been able to quit my real job and work on it full time since 2004. The reason for the ads and these pleas is that if I can't bring in as much cash as my overpaid real job used to pay me, that my wife will send me back out to find a real job again and I won't be able to add as much as I do today.

Sadly the other very popular photo sites that started back in the 1990s as hobbies like this site are now run by corporations and have degraded mostly to chat rooms put up to sell ads (and letting the readers write the content), not adding much original content themselves. I'm still the real thing. It's just me and only me working away here, and that's why you see no forums.

Businesses are always approaching me with get rich quick schemes which would make them, and presumably me, more money, but it would make this site less useful to you. I won't have any part of it. I make plenty of money today to keep me from having to get a real job, so the last thing I'm going to do is make you have to click through 27 new pages with ads just to read one review. The only reason I have to break up some of my longer reviews is because the software I use blows up if one web page, like my Nikon D3 Review, gets to be longer than about 25 printed pages. My site probably sets some record for the longest run-on pages.

Cash

If you're a student, retired or otherwise not loaded, I don't want your money. The bulk of my support comes from Ritz, Adorama, Amazon and B&H Photo Video as thanks for when you click through to them to get your stuff. They support me doing all this and it costs you nothing.

That's why everything on this site is free to read. It's important to me that everyone in every corner of the globe can benefit from what I have to share. I don't have any plans to start charging for books or tests or downloads. I come from broadcasting where we spend buckets of money on making the best programs we can, and then giving them away for free. We make it up on volume. I believe in the same thing.

If it's a stretch, please don't feel obligated to send me anything. It is for you that I keep everything free.

If you insist, of course I greatly appreciate gifts. I use these PayPal contributions to buy older equipment to review and old literature to illuminate details of the older gear people have been unloading on me. I kid you not: I've spent over $100 on new lens and body caps for the old stuff people send me! It seems what comes in via paypal goes right back out over eBay to help fill out my reviews.

Every single contribution, regardless of how trivial it may seem, is an enormous help since I'm just one guy. (I'm not a tax deduction; in fact, I pay income taxes on everything you send me!) I genuinely and personally appreciate each and every bit you might like to share to help me help everyone. You may use these links:

PayPal (preferred)

or

Amazon.com (less preferred; they keep 15%!)

Of course you're welcome to mail me anything. Any and all generosity is greatly appreciated!

Monthly Subscriptions

Everything is here for you to read for free. I don't charge because I want everyone to benefit.

Feel free to share something every month automatically. Donations are a more accurate description than subscriptions. You don't need to donate to read anything. Paying for a subscription gets you nothing other than my ability to keep writing even more.

Monthly Subscription (Donation)
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MANY, MANY THANKS!

Ken