dishonest advertising and product promotion among UW photographers

I would really appreciate it if product "reviews" written by people employed or sponsored by the product manufacturer were obviously labeled as such.  It is a dishonest practice to label something a "review" without disclosing any relationship between the author and the product manufacturer.  In many industries in the USA, this would be illegal.  It believe it is illegal in this case too, but I am not a lawyer.  Simply as an example, I will point to the latest review of the Marelux SOFT snoot in UWP magazine #131.  The author who is sponsored by Marelux says she was "lucky to get my hands on one" and "Marelux products are incredibly well made" but nowhere is her relationship with Marelux disclosed.  At least the similar article posted on wetpixel.com stated that she is a brand ambassador, even if it is kind of tucked away at the bottom.

Would anyone else like to see more honest product promotion in the content we depend on for education?  I don't think it would have a harmful effect on product sales.  My opinion of a brand would only increase if they were up front about the fact that they are supporting these excellent photographers.

I agree that “brand ambassadors” should identify their relationships in the review, however most of the reviews are written by an author with some sort of relationship to the manufacturer. This is not just Marelux, but all manufacturers including the entire scuba industry. 

Personally, I liked Kate’s review and found much of the information she presented valuable for snoot photography in general, regardless of brand sponsorship. She is a talented underwater photographer and I feel I can learn a lot from her in any review she writes. 

I think all reviews will have a bias, but I agree with OP that the bias should be laid out. 

I want experienced, talented and knowledgeable underwater photographers to review gear. But most will likely have some sort of relationship with manufacturer, as Larry says. These are the people I want reviewing - but reviews should publish their allegiance or the reviewer should work it into the text (for example I mentioned my Subal housing, when reviewing the Nauticam A7RV, so readers would be aware I wasn't a Nauticam shooter when lavishing praise on the housing).

I think the majority of reviews we see come from camera shops - as they always have access to the new gear. All camera shops want to sing the praises on the latest gear, so tend to write very positive reviews. This should be obvious to readers, as long as the reviewer is introduced with their shop allegiance. Backscatter publish their reviews on their platform - which I think is very honest in this regard - and then they are always credited when the reviews are reproduced elsewhere. While I think Bluewater Staff reviews on UW Photo Guide are less transparent in this regard.

What is often overlooked is the bias in individual reviews too. For 20 years on Wetpixel, the average owner of a piece of gear can be the most biased of all reviewers. Some take the view that everything they have bought must be the best, as they thought through the options before hand and made their decisions, and the review is justification of their purchase. While others are opposite, having spent so much on gear, any minor imperfection is blown out of all proportion. 

Over time, I think readers figure out who to trust, which comments to trust, and to figure out the author's bias. But we all get suckered a few times too!  

Alex

15 minutes ago, Alex_Mustard said:

Over time, I think readers figure out who to trust, which comments to trust, and to figure out the author's bias. But we all get suckered a few times too!  

Spot on!

20 hours ago, rwb500 said:

I would really appreciate it if product "reviews" written by people employed or sponsored by the product manufacturer were obviously labeled as such.  It is a dishonest practice to label something a "review" without disclosing any relationship between the author and the product manufacturer.  In many industries in the USA, this would be illegal.  It believe it is illegal in this case too, but I am not a lawyer.  Simply as an example, I will point to the latest review of the Marelux SOFT snoot in UWP magazine #131.  The author who is sponsored by Marelux says she was "lucky to get my hands on one" and "Marelux products are incredibly well made" but nowhere is her relationship with Marelux disclosed.  At least the similar article posted on wetpixel.com stated that she is a brand ambassador, even if it is kind of tucked away at the bottom.

Would anyone else like to see more honest product promotion in the content we depend on for education?  I don't think it would have a harmful effect on product sales.  My opinion of a brand would only increase if they were up front about the fact that they are supporting these excellent photographers.

There is a level of naivety in underwater photography gear to be frank

An Ambassador is in general term someone who promotes a brand. By definition this person is able to tell you how to best use the equipment but not well placed to compare it to similar equipment made by someone else that performs same or similar function

An independent reviewer is someone who is not on the payroll or receives any compensation for reviewing the gear and just says what they think, they may still have a bias

Ultimately the brands should send gear to independent reviewers to try however with underwater gear this is quite difficult to do because there are camera and lenses involved and nobody is supplying those as a combined ambassador for top and underwater is rare (they still exist there is one guy who is panasonic ambassador and ikelite)

Reviewers performed by those who sell the equipment may or not be supportive depending on the competitive landscape. Underwater photography is a small industry so you don't have many situations where you have a mega retailer that can call the shots. Backscatter to an extent comes the closest but yet they are not going to shoot on products they sell otherwise they would not have them in stock

I have a small personal story on this to tell you that being objective is not always a good thing

Years ago I started writing my blog focussed only on the items I use and the ports and accessories around it, in some cases there are small reviews and I compare across brands.

Years ago I supported the pre-release review of a piece of equipment and I gave some feedback that was duly taken into account and transformed into product improvements.

Some time later I got sent a whole housing and system to test for a camera I was evaluating and my conclusion was it is not a good idea to invest in this camera for the video use case despite the underwater gear is very well designed because of some less obvious camera issues that I found out during the test.

Since this very blunt review I did not get anymore any piece of equipment to test and the communication has been very scarce

Note in this case it was not the UW gear it was the camera showing limits that were not apparent topside but I simply said what I thought which was the housing and system is well done but frankly this camera is not something you should consider due to certain issues. The end result is that that housing will not sell if you don't buy the camera and this is a circle....

There are reviews, and then there are promotions, but they are not mutually exclusive.

I think anyone who's been looking at a lot of reviews from people that actually sell the gear, will notice that every single "review" is favourable, and then they might pick some *minor* downsides, so it sounds a bit more balanced.

As it's a reasonably close knit community, I think it's still worth looking at these reviews, but confirming your assumptions/thoughts with fellow photographers.

I'm very much in camp Nauticam, but I've only ever owned 3 housings:

* 1 cheapo Meikon / OEM / eBay brand for RX 100 ii

* 1 Nauticam RX 100 ii housing

* 1 Nauticam D500 housing

I can firmly say that my experience as such has been limited, but because I'm very happy with the performance AND I've bought in to the system, I would recommend that. It's not that I am sponsored or paid (I wish!), but my experience with them has been so good that I can't think of brands that would do better.

But that long term allegiance may switch over to Marelux, as my theoretical upgrade to Z8 has shown that the Nauticam housing is bigger than my D500..

My point is: that even unsponsored people who spend their hard earned money, are probably biased as well, but because we don't get paid, we're probably more easily persuaded to jump ship when we see a better offering. Someone who's paid is likely to stick with a brand and recommend it, despite there being better options.

I'm glad you bring this up, in my younger days I'd have eaten up any review as an objective one, but after my quarter life crisis, I've become much more suspect