You Must By a Cartridge of Tape

...Richard Fee found this review of a Nikon F6 on Amazon, via R.O. Teague's twitter:

Now, this could well be a joke, and probably is. But none of the guy's other reviews are ironic, sarcastic, or humorous, and just the possibility that this could be sincere was enough to make me chuckle.

I especially like the line "You must by a cartridge of tape."

Mike
(Thanks to Richard)

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Featured Comment by Slobodan Blagojevic: "...And 83 people found his review actually helpful...now, that is really scary. ;-) "

UPDATE from Quan Ha: "The reviewer did eventually chime in to let everyone in on the joke:

Posted on Feb. 20, 2011 9:51 PM PST / Last edited by the author 1 hour ago / R. Sawyer says: Thanks for the compliments! Glad my review is HELPFUL to so many people (Holy moly—210 and counting!). I wrote this review after spending weeks on a mundane writing assignment while I was in my last year of law school. Tired of the lengthy techno-group-think reviews found everywhere on camera sites, I wanted to write something pithy, and satire is my favorite form of humor. [...] Hopefully this inspires more of you to sprinkle fun reviews throughout the web. However, be cautioned: as many of these angry comments suggest, satire is the fine wine of humor, and you may want to start with something more universally understandable like puns. The best part about this "15-minutes of fame" is that my wife now thinks that I might actually be funny. Sense of humor validated. Now for a shameless plug, Ken Rockwell style—www.HollisterRanch.com <—shameless plug for my business.

Comments

[Alan Huntley]

Hi Mike,

What's even funnier to me is that "83 out of 278 people found the review helpful!" LOL with bouts of ROTF!!!!

Seriously, makes me wonder even more now about the validity of these types of reviews.

[Wolfgang Lonien]

What's even weirder - so the next possible comments on this comment - is that you can't erase the images from the tape, they're somehow burnt in!!! And even if you take that tape out of the machine, you still can't see the pictures - they told me that I'd ruined them with taking the tape out!!!

OMG...

[michael]

There are lots of joke reviews on Amazon, this is clearly one of them and I thought hysterical. When you like what they wrote, you "find it helpful" as your mark of approval. But it did take me a few seconds to realize a cartridge of tape was a roll of film. Guess its been a long time for me too.

[wchen]

...these 83 people didn't know the ~$3000 F6 only takes cartridge of tape until reading this revew...

[Paul Van]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry...

[ben ng]

just wait until some poor fellow pulls out the "tape" hoping to see his pictures!

[Edie Howe]

"Wow. Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before 'Wings'? Check this out!"

(Swear to the ghods, overheard in a music store in the 70's, teen aged girl to her friend in finding a Beatles record--LP vinyl!-- misplaced in the racks)

Edie
The sun has broken through snow clouds here in Yosemite, light is blinding, what the hell am I doing sitting here making snarky comments on the 'net?

[robert e]

Hilarious, yes! But obviously helpful as well, as it contains information of fundamental importance for shoppers. Seriously.

[Jason]

I can't get the tape to work in my Blu Ray player. It won't fit in the hole.

[James]

The reviewer is showing a "real name". For his or her sake, I hope that everyone gives the benefit of the doubt and concludes that this is merely a joke that backfired.

I'm surprised he was able to return it. In the UK at least, you wouldn't be able to return the camera unless it was faulty. What's the retailer going to do with it, apart from lose money? No one else will buy it for full price.

[James]

I think the camera would be improved if it had a picture of three wolves and a moon on it...

(perhaps like this http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-Sleeve/dp/B002HJ377A )

On a more serious note, does $3,199.99 strike anyone else as a bit pricey for ye old light tight box?

[Bahi]

James, you would certainly be able to return an F6 to Amazon UK after learning, with horror, of its antiquated requirement for tape cartridges. Quoting from Amazon UK's pages on this topic:

"By law, customers in the European Union also have the right to withdraw from the purchase of an item within seven working days of the day after the date the item is delivered. This applies to all of our products except for digital items (eg: e-Books) where the item has been downloaded."

Some companies — like Next — have been refusing to refund customers' original delivery charges. That's illegal.

[Bryce Lee]

Sadly the ignorance of the general populace is now so common, is it any wonder the economics of the world have allowed the American peoples to become basically poor, both in mind and values?

[Don Bryant]

Robert Teague is a real person who uses F6s and may be the author of this post since he runs (or did operate) a film only forum at one time. Last I heard he was still living in Hawaii working as programmer and shooting Velvia with his 4x5 and Nikons. He could have decided to clarify that that the F6 is a film only camera in a sarcastic way.

Best to let Robert verify this I'm sure someone will let him know that his name has been mentioned here.

[Damen Stephens]

The review wasn't helpful to me as he did not say how many Megapickels the F6 has ...

[Ramon]

I remember dreaming of an F4 in my late teens. I was about to buy one a couple years ago, just to fulfill that old hankering.

[Damen Stephens]

He's disappointed that he has to use "tape" instead of CF cards - isn't that what's called a "Media" beatup ??

[Jason in Hawaii]

He failed to mention the lack of a histogram. How are you supposed to e pose to the right? What a piece of junk! :)

[Rob Atkins]

Ah -mention of the F6. Now's my chance, if Mike permits.

I'm desperate to locate an original Nikon body cap for the F6. I'd be happy to purchase or trade something for one. Anyone can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks.

[David H.]

If you click through his profile, you do get the idea he was joking. How could anyone read Ken Rockwell and not know what film is?

Whatever it shows, it certainly does not mean American peoples are "basically poor, both in mind and values." Living overseas for a decade or so tends to dispel one of belief that Americans are different than anyone else if assertion is true.

[Dennis Ng]

I am in a open mind mode for a second.

1) He said "buy" not "by". If you comes somewhere (like start with dSLR and want to get a better Nikon), this might be a surprise (as most companies have no new camera "tricking" you into buying a non-dSLR camera).

2) For the teenage girl, please any young one comes somewhere. Howe about first time you see "My Fair Lady" ... in fact the first time see "Jurassic Park". I have that experience when my younger sons shock my shock he has not seen these films. "I am still ..., dad".

100 years from now. Do you think 90% of snap-shot photographer would even heard of a guy called Ansel Adams. In fact, I do not know him less than 10 years.

Life moves on and I think it is hope that something good can lasts and something old is interest to someone, even though he/she seems a bit ignorant when they start to know the good stuff.

[El Inglés]

I read his 'review' a year or so ago, just before I bought an F6. I thought then that it was one of the old guard having a rant at the ubiquitous digital camera. That the F6 sits unused is down to the dreadful commercial processing of tapes that remains, and I include Ilford's premium priced B&W service. Perhaps the remaining F6's should sell for 10.000€ with free darkroom included.

[Bruno Masset]

In a similar vein, this unfavorable review on Amazon.com of the Panasonic DMW-VF1 External Optical Viewfinder, intended to provide coverage for a 24mm-equivalent lens, is also quite intriguing in terms of the misunderstanding / mismatched expectations about how an optical — as opposed to electronic — external viewfinder is supposed to work...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WWW40P2MYKQK/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R1WWW40P2MYKQK

A few excerpts from that Amazon review and of a subsequent comment by another user. The emphasis, in bold, are mine :-)

-------------------------
Review by S. Newton-young:

Product rating: 2 stars out of 5
Sadly, it is lacking. [..] All it is is a piece of glass with a frame etched on it, encased in plastic with a base to enable you to slip it in your hot shoe. It does not communicate with the camera in any way. [..] I lined up a light pole just inside the left side of the frame in the view finder and the camera was set with absolutly no zoom. This was the picture I captured. [..] I then zoomed a little, with the light pole still lined up on the left hand side of the frame in the view finder and discovered I could only guess at the paramaters of the image I captured. I did this several more times, zooming more each time. The more you zoom, the more you get to guess what your picture will look like.

-------------------------
Comment by Scott Mittchell:
Excellent review by S. Newton-young. [..] I do not know why an item like this is described as "cool" (in another review) That is meaningless. I NEED an item like this but, as this review proves, a much better thought out item than this.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

It's a well-established form of review humor. I rather enjoy it, and it doesn't have any serious danger of confusing anybody to their harm (people who don't know the F6 is a film camera shouldn't be buying one; people who do know will figure out the reference, even if they don't like the joke; and a few people who don't know may actually figure it out from the review).

See also this review of a pair of stupidly expensive speaker cables on Amazon. Brilliant!

[B Grace]

Megapickels? Damen Stephens, thank you for that one.

[Ludovic]

As DDB above mentions, those are a frequent (and often hilarious) occurrence on Amazon.

NewScientist's (always) funny Feedback mentioned a few in their column a couple of weeks back, if memory serves well.

(Not well enough to find my issue, however.)

[Joe]

I think there is a whole sub culture of funny Amazon reviews. Here is the NYTimes David Pogue post on them. Pretty funny stuff.

[Joe]

oops here it is
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/amazon-provides-a-dose-of-humor/