Ok - so in the last two months i have bought two different photo mags Digital Camera and some other one claiming to be the #1 selling in the uk - and i am fairly non-plussed by them.  £5 was the price tag on both of them, they did come with a CD highlighting some rudimentary photoshop/compositional skills in photography which i suppose is where a lot of the cost/worth comes in.  But apart from that i thought there were a lot of "filler" articles and a lot of ads: in one of them about 1/3 of the mag was adverts (not counting the ones in between articles - i'm talking about the back of the mag!)

after "test running" the two separate mags i have to say i think just playing around in photoshop and looking at photos online as well as reading some online tutorials / reading tips here on the forums / getting critical comments on photos is far more worhwhile if you want to improve your photography (both mags had a "Take better photos now!" headline on the front and an article outlining the basics of composition and setup).  Admittedly in one of the mags there was a hardware section where they reviewed a few external harddrives which was interesting but not completely comprehensive. But i was really not very impressed with them... if i wanted information on specifics like a review of a new cam there is dpreview.com a lens: fredmiranda.com anything else like harddrives is easily sought on google and you can compare the specs yourself (i recently did so and got myself a 500gig MyBook Pro)... i have seen many a tutorial online which outshines the tutorials i read in the mags (thinking more photoshop related stuff than actual photography - although the photography related "How to improve your shots with filters" article in one of the mags was laughable).
Anyone subscribe to a mag/buy one regularly? or do you think the internet is a sufficient knowledgebase for learning about your hobby/profession?

"In every colour, there's the light.
In every stone sleeps a crystal.
Remember the Shaman, when he used to say:
Man is the dream of the Dolphin"

Rich Meadows Photography