[josh_smith77073]

is it just me or does presenter Kai W. come off as a pretentious douche? ive seen a couple reviews hes done on pentax gear and he's full of back handed compliments. the last one i just watched was where he was testing pancake lenses. he gave the win to pentax but still gave slack to pentax by covering the kx with some moss because in so many ways he calls it ugly, when to me it looks like most dslr cameras but with color options. also makes fun of the Q and its ascetics. i dont know he just gets under my skin. its like hes trying to be jeremy clarkson from "top gear" clever and funny but in the camera world. to me he just comes off at looking like a moron.

[JinDesu]

i dont know he just gets under my skin. its like hes trying to be jeremy clarkson from "top gear" clever and funny but in the camera world. to me he just comes off at looking like a moron.

Your statement is basically true. I watch once a while for the more useful videos, but his style is very abrasive and many people dislike him for that. I personally don't care too much.

[Adam]

He is a douche, but that green k-x made me laugh. I don't think he's going to give Pentax any respect until they release a proper camera- say a full fame!

[josh_smith77073]

He is a douche, but that green k-x made me laugh. I don't think he's going to give Pentax any respect until they release a proper camera- say a full fame!

i think i would of enjoyed the moss thing if was coming from some one else other than him. i will say in his benefit he did like the K01 but the review was so obnoxious with the wardrobe changes and the pointless rambling on about everything but the camera.

[VisualDarkness]

"The Strobist" wrote that the girl Alamby seems to be the writer for most of the lines after he was in the show. So Kai could jut be a puppet doll and not that douch-like at all in reality.

[THoog]

The mossy camera was a K-r, and while Kai expressed it badly, the flash housing does look odd on the K-r, like it was grafted onto a K-x to add the AF points. Kai has said in the past that he has a soft spot for Pentax and that he started out with a Pentax film body, but like so many Pentax fans, seems to express it by complaining about their shortcomings. In an average episode, he wanders around Hong Kong with a $2000 lens on a $3000 body, so I'd expect him to turn up his nose at a lowly K-r or K-01. He's referred to the Limiteds as "tasty", and got excited when he saw a tourist with a pink K-r. Most of his nonsense is for entertainment, and shouldn't be taken seriously. Now, if he behaved like a jerk with a K-5, then I'd say get out the torches and pitchforks.

I think the Strobist was joking about Alamby - he had a footnote that "some if this might be true". (tho' I have this weird dream that in person Kai is shy and geeky and Alamby cusses like a sailor...)

[Tanzer]

I also saw that Strobist blog entry, thought that was interesting, but I'm not surprised if she writes his lines. If you watch some of Kai's earlier videos, he was a little less over-the-top, so I'd suspect he's been "groomed" to be this character. DigitalRev has become quite a popular YouTube channel, so I guess something's working.

You can't take his him too seriously, as he seems to be irreverent to just about all cameras, except for certain Nikon full frame cameras. Clearly a Nikon fanboy, but at least he admits it.

[josh_smith77073]

Kai has said in the past that he has a soft spot for Pentax and that he started out with a Pentax film body, but like so many Pentax fans, seems to express it by complaining about their shortcomings

yeah i heard him say he really wants pentax to make a good product that just pissed me off even more. Uh hello! what about the k5, k5ll, & k30! i dont buy it. i just think its his way of not totally bashing them. as he said in the beginning in one of his the vids "and no its not a K5" talking about a review. to me that tells me hes been asked to review the camera but hasn't. i dont think he wants to see something of quality from pentax.

[wlachan]

Coming from the same city that he does, I can tell you guys that Pentax have received less than no respect in Hong Kong, none, nada. Personally, I have found their videos distasteful (and not just Pentax related).

[john5100]

He likes the K01

You Tube

You Tube

and the 40mm limited

You Tube

You Tube

[Digitalis]

He annoys me greatly, I don't care about who writes for him. I have seen many lens reviewers deliver discerning and intelligent analysis of optical performance characteristics not to mention solid opinions on cameras and their effectiveness as a photographic tool. Kai's review of the Leica noctilux* 50mm f/0.95 ASPH was superficial and crass - he didn't test the lens, in any way or compare it to its predecessor: he just ran around shooting on a Leica M9 with the lens at f/0.95 - with a few showings of over-processed shallow DOF images he produced. Just because a lens is the fastest full format production lens in the world doesn't make it the best lens in the world, the Leica 50mm f/2 ASPH APO-Summicron-M outperforms the Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 ASPH lens at f/2 easily.

The review was shallower than the DOF from the 50mm f/0.95

*also he pronounced the name noctilux in a profoundly stupid way which over emphasised the "i" so it sounded like Noct-iieelux.

[VisualDarkness]

Digitalrevcom is no review site, it's a marketing studio for the webshop to generate clicks and it seems to work really well.

[Giklab]

>2013
>Taking Kai seriously

nope.tiff

[steve1307]

Digitalrevcom is no review site, it's a marketing studio for the webshop to generate clicks and it seems to work really well.

Yes, totally agree, and I think as for the Yotube videos, it's not about the cameras in the same way that "TopGear" is not about the cars it's about cocking about with the cars.
DigitalRev is trying (feebly) and failing to be a poor imitation of the other.

The difference is TopGear has gotten better over the last few years (if you're a fan that is).
DRTV is more polished sh*te (but it's still sh*te).


and also there's this which I saw featured in some tech news a few weeks ago:

Hey, DigitalRev, that’s MY camera!

oops

[Zaphodmonster]

Digitalrevcom is no review site, it's a marketing studio for the webshop to generate clicks and it seems to work really well.

This I very much agree with, somewhat entertaining if you don't take it too seriously. (I also have a relatively silly sense of humor but can see how its not for everyone)
As for the "reviews" I see them as being more like product showcases rather than formal reviews.