All of the glossy magazines, they appear to be mostly out of the UK, do not give independent reviews of equipment. I suppose because they are dependent on the advertizing revenue of the major players.
An example. The Nikon D600 has a notorious quality problem with oil-throw from the mirror to the sensor. See this at any site like amazon or ebay and the product reviews. I just read a review in a "glossy" that was all a-rave, not even mentioning this caveat.
What would you all recommend as unbiased review sources?
Bear in mind it's not always the fault of the reviewers. Most reviewers get sent the equipment they review by the manufacturer, who will, of course, cherry-pick to make sure that they get sent a good example, sometimes hand-built and calibrated by the manufacturer's engineering department. That's not to discount that some reviewers will inevitably be influenced by who pays their bills (or the bills of their employer), as well as not wanting to be cut off from the supply of free gear to review by writing too many bad reviews.
Magazines in particular will often suffer this, as because of print deadlines, to get reviews out anywhere near when the camera is available, they will often get kit that didn't come off the main production line -- it contains all the same parts, but wasn't put together in the same way.
For relatively impartial reviews of Canon gear I like Brian Carnathan's site -- he has a good technical understanding and is also a good photographer, a combination which many reviewers don't have. He also purchases all the gear he reviews from retailers, and often purchases multiple copies to get a better idea of variation issues. He's starting to cover Nikon gear but he's not got much up yet.
He also doesn't rush out reviews -- typically his reviews don't come out until a couple of months after the equipment is available, often longer. This allows him to spot long-term issues that reviewers who want to get their reviews out the same week as the camera is available just don't have time to spot.
For longer-term performance issues, they're not reviews per-se, but I find LensRentals.com's blog a fascinating insight -- they rent out equipment from all major manufacturers, and typically having 10+ copies of every camera and lens, and 100+ of popular cameras and lenses, they build a very comprehensive picture of performance, reliability, copy-to-copy variation, etc.
As an example, here's their recent blog updating on the D600 dust issue:
(Their insights on the fragility of the 5D3 CF pins has made me take a lot more care with inserting and removing memory cards in my new camera, and wasn't highlighted in any of the 20+ reviews I read before purchasing it)
Again, they approach things from a technical point of view, and as they perform a lot of their own repairs and calibration work, they're also able to not only highlight issues, but often go at least some way towards explaining them.
As I say, not a review site -- you can't go there with a specific lens in mind and get a breakdown -- but well worth following if you're interested in overall trends.
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Magazines in particular will often suffer this, as because of print deadlines, to get reviews out anywhere near when the camera is available, they will often get kit that didn't come off the main production line -- it contains all the same parts, but wasn't put together in the same way.
For relatively impartial reviews of Canon gear I like Brian Carnathan's site -- he has a good technical understanding and is also a good photographer, a combination which many reviewers don't have. He also purchases all the gear he reviews from retailers, and often purchases multiple copies to get a better idea of variation issues. He's starting to cover Nikon gear but he's not got much up yet.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/
He also doesn't rush out reviews -- typically his reviews don't come out until a couple of months after the equipment is available, often longer. This allows him to spot long-term issues that reviewers who want to get their reviews out the same week as the camera is available just don't have time to spot.
For longer-term performance issues, they're not reviews per-se, but I find LensRentals.com's blog a fascinating insight -- they rent out equipment from all major manufacturers, and typically having 10+ copies of every camera and lens, and 100+ of popular cameras and lenses, they build a very comprehensive picture of performance, reliability, copy-to-copy variation, etc.
As an example, here's their recent blog updating on the D600 dust issue:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/11/not-surprisingly-d600-dust-issue-gets-better-over-time
And the copy-by-copy variation of Canon's new 24-70mm lens compared to the older version:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/11/canon-24-70-mk-ii-variation
And breakdowns of the most common equipment failures they have, and why, and even turnaround times and average repair costs by manufacturer:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/09/lensrentals-repair-data-january-july-2012
(Their insights on the fragility of the 5D3 CF pins has made me take a lot more care with inserting and removing memory cards in my new camera, and wasn't highlighted in any of the 20+ reviews I read before purchasing it)
Again, they approach things from a technical point of view, and as they perform a lot of their own repairs and calibration work, they're also able to not only highlight issues, but often go at least some way towards explaining them.
As I say, not a review site -- you can't go there with a specific lens in mind and get a breakdown -- but well worth following if you're interested in overall trends.