Talk:Main Page/Old

"Unknown" Category

Should there be a "Misc" catch-all category or perhaps an "Unknown" category?

For example, where would (or could) I place the Time-Life Magazine Toy Camera I own? I don't think Time-Life needs it's own manufacturer category because it was simply a re-branding but I'm still not sure who actually made this camera. --phule 15:13, 21 Jan 2005 (EST)

An "unknown" category makes sense to me. --Lbstone 04:11, 23 Jan 2005 (EST)

Film

Shouldn't there be a category for various film types? (i.e., B&W, C-41, infrared, silver types, etc.)

I say go for it. --Lbstone 19:30, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Camera makers

Before people add each and every maker existing or having existed in the past so many years, and there is a bunch, maybe we should make subcategories:

• Digital only makers, ie all the brands that are mainly electronic brands and make digital cameras, (ex. Apple, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba)
• Today's analogical makers (ex. Konica-Minolta, Nikon, Canon), or ex-analogical which went all-digital for their cameras (ex. Kodak)
• Analogical camera makers no longer in activity

--rebollo_fr 23 Sep 2005

My concern is that so many makers are both digital and analog, so it may be a little confusing. In any event, I don't believe the list is too overwhelming at this point. Maybe later on down the road we may have a greater need to group them, but right now I don't see it as a big deal. --Lbstone 13:35, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Well, there are two fewer analog camera makers; scratch Konica-Minolta as they are quitting all cameras completely and selling high end to Sony, and Nikon is ceasing film camera and most lens production for film cameras, just maintaining some accessories.

What about a list of camera reviews? I personally have a hard time finding profs reviews in one site. I mean, I gotta go to different sites to check how my powershot a95 is rated! Maybe a list of sources in camerapedia could work?

Camera Makers vs. Top Camera Brands

I've been giving a lot of thought to the homepage and I think it's best to make a differentiation between camera makers and camera brands. The maker is the company that made the camera, but their name may not be widely associated with the actual brand of the camera. (Take Ihagee (Exakta) for example... I'm not sure that Ihagee needs to be on the homepage... and Exakta should be filed alphabetically under the letter "E".) Since the brand is how everyone knows the camera, I think the homepage should reflect the most well-known brands and display them alphabetically. This way the majority of people will more easily be able to find what they're looking for.

We may even consider splitting the homepage into "Well Known Brands" and "Lesser Known Brands". Although, I'm not sure how we would make that determination. (And it may actually lead to some arguments.)

I also think it would be helpful to link to some of the various categories from the homepage. From there we could link to the exhaustive list of Category:Camera makers, Category:Lens makers, etc. --Lbstone 16:44, 5 February 2006 (EST)

To separate the brands from the makers would not be without problems: Plaubel and Makina are both reasonably well-known (to the point that someone had created a Plaubel 67 page for the Makina 67), which one would we choose? I think today's way is good, the maker's name and the better known brand name between brackets.

I have made an attempt to put in bold the better known brands.

Maybe we could distinguish between the makers still in existence and the other, this should be objective enough. The lesser known brands are mostly lesser known because of their age.

More generally, the site has to address two kinds of demands: the normal user/buyer that buys modern up-to-date digital cameras and does not care too much about the lesser known models, and the user/collector, always happy to discover previously unknown makers and models. Of course both demands are legitimate. This difference will be reflected in the rest of the site: the discussions about the size and contents of the infobox template reflect this, as well as the choice of one page per variant versus one page per family. --Rebollo fr 05:30, 6 February 2006 (EST)

You bring up very good points. I'll be giving this some more thought. --Lbstone 12:40, 6 February 2006 (EST)