Product Description

Shutterbug is a photo magazine for advance amateur and professional photographers. Sections include techniques features, equipment reviews, electronic imaging and video, classic collectibles, plus darkroom articles and Help!, a question and answer column.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #213 in Magazine Subscriptions
• Formats: Magazine Subscription, Print

Customer Reviews

Shutterbug full of ads
I recieved my first issue of Shutterbug after about 7 weeks from ordering it. I was disappointed in the mag. as almost all of it is ads, ads and more ads. As far as I'm concerned it should be given away for all the advertising they recieve in it. The articles they had in this issue were about very high end equipment that 99% of the readers would not be able to afford or use. Most of the ads do not even contain prices for the products, making them useless for shopping and comparing anyway. I did like the low price that amazon had for Shutterbug though, I would have really been mad if I had paid cover prices for it.

Cheerleading reviews, mediocre articles
In many respects, Shutterbug is the mirror image of Popular Photography & Imaging. The strength of Popular Photography is its quantitative product reviews. Shutterbug does little if any measuring when they review a product. Further, I have never once seen a review in Shutterbug that was anything less than gushing. The writer will go on and on about the strength of the product and never compare it critically to other similar products on the market. I realize that magazines are reluctant to offend potential advertisers but some shred of integrity toward readers would be greatly appreciated.

The relative strength of Shutterbug is reflected in more general articles regarding photographic technique. This is the area that Popular Photography badly stumbles and this magazine definitely manages to perform at a higher level of competence. Unfortunately, these articles are still pretty basic and repetitive. Any decent entry level book on photography would contain 99% of the advice you'll ever find in Shutterbug. So while the articles are better than the reviews, it's hard to say that they alone make it worth the price of a subscription. In the final analysis, I can't recommend Shutterbug to eithe beginners or advanced photographers.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this review, I flipped through an issue of Shutterbug at a local store. It looks like there has been a change in editorial policy as a product review took the tone of a true critique rather than being a puff piece as they so often did in the past. There still wasn't quite as much meat as I would have liked but this is definitely a step in the right direction for the magazine. Amazon does not allow reviewers to alter the number of starts given once a review is published or I would probably bump Shutterbug up a notch to 3 stars. It still is far from great, but I appreciate the fact that they've improved a bit.

Love the magazine
I just received my first issue of Shutterbug. Despite the many pages of advertising (some of which is actually informative), I find that the magazine is full of helpful tips, supplemented by products that are relevant to the advice. I look forward to the other issues and if the quality of the magazine endures, so will my subscription to it.