It’s March, a time to debate if it’s okay to put the winter coat away, look wistfully forward to Spring, and perhaps start to make some garden preparations (or, for our friends in the southern hemisphere, do the complete opposite of all of that).
For Americans it’s March Madness, a time where workplaces and bars across the US pretend gambling is not illegal, criticize the sporting abilities of minors and young adults, and start office fights with co-workers over which school will put more balls through a round hoop in an allotted time.
In other words, at this time of year American college and university basketball teams enter a months-long single-game elimination tournament culminating in the final NCAA championship game, where one team is crowned NCAA National Champions.
Coinciding with the tournament, college basketball fans fill out ‘brackets’ before the tournament begins, guessing winners for each round all the way to the final winner. The fun of it is seeing if your selections win their matches and how often you were right.
At DPReview we rather liked the idea of a tournament, and thought, why not adopt the format and take this opportunity for a good old-fashioned camera fight!
The “fights” in this case will be your favorite unending camera debates – and you get to choose them! We’re kicking it off by having you suggest your favorite matchup in the comments: tilt vs. flippy screen; Micro Four Thirds vs. full frame; black cameras vs. pink cameras; whatever question you think would raise the most dust. We’ll choose your most entertaining battles, plus some of our own, and set them all up as brackets at the starting line for when the games begin.
Once that starts, the tournament will proceed as follows. The first round of the bracket will feature 16 single-game elimination matches, and you’ll be invited to vote for your favorite from each match. The next round will feature the winners in a new article, and you’ll vote again. It’s meant to be a bit of fun, so let’s vote and debate alongside the DPReview editors all month long. By the end of five rounds of voting we’ll crown of our DPReview March Madness 2023 champion, long may they reign.
Judging rules
Nothing says fun more than rules, but since we’re trying to crown a champion for our first DPReview March Madness tournament, they’re helpful, so let’s go over them.
There will be five rounds of voting, with winners from each round advancing to the next until one remains.
Winners will be selected through the following combination of public votes, DPReview editors’ votes and a coin flip:
- 45% readers choice votes (% of user votes for a each team, multiplied by 0.45)
- 45% DPReview editor’s choice (% of editorial vote for each team, multiplied by 0.45)
- 10% coin flip (because chance is a part of March Madness and everyone loves a Cinderella story)
Your voice matters
Voting opens March 4, 2023; today’s article is the opening scramble to fill the field – or at least some of it (DPReview is claiming some of the 16 matchups for our own ideas). Suggest your favorite matchup ideas here in the comments or on social media; nominations will be open until Friday, March 3.
Then, come back on Saturday, March 4 to see which controversies made it to the gate, as we launch Round One of the voting! The tournament will proceed through the month, with new rounds of voting starting every Thursday.
Should portraits be shot with a 50mm or 200mm? Is phase detection better than contrast detection? A Sony a7R V vs. a Fujifilm X-H2S? Film vs. digital? Haven’t you always wanted to know? Roll up yer sleeves and let’s find out the old-fashioned way, i.e., with a lot of cheering and debating!
Let’s the games begin!
