Websites come and go. Some we don’t miss at all, and others we lament the microsecond we see the “Forbidden” page, access denied. Sometimes people pass away, sometimes they loose interest, there are many reasons. Perhaps the most oft missed ones are those that hold together some sort of comprehensive knowledge database of sorts, compiling info that isn’t readily available anywhere. lens-db.com was one such site. It contained information and pictures on thousands of lenses, and more recently cameras.

The original site was geo-blocked in April (I only just noticed as I have been too busy with other things). Now I had noticed over the past couple of years that some attempt had been made by the owner to sell the site. The problem was that no context was really provided. Now it turns out that the site in located in Russia (which few people knew), and due to international sanctions it became impossible to continue running the site, because he couldn’t receive payments from outside of Russia. I’m sure if an explanation had been provided, somebody would have offered a better solution than shutting down the site.

Note: The owner of lens-db, Evgenii Artemov, has provided a comment below, which better describes his predicament. Please take the time to read it.

It’s a pity because I imagine if it were located elsewhere, many people would have signed up for a [reasonably priced] yearly subscription. Now an attempt is being made to resurrect the concept of the site in the guise of the community driven website thelensdb.com. It has a lot of basic data, but currently lacks the pictures and info from catalogues/brochures, and honestly will take a lot of effort to replace. Ideally people will contribute information on cameras and lenses overtime, including catalog/brochure scans and the photographs. Of course there is nothing inherently proprietary about historic data, so I imagine over time it could be rebuilt. Will it succeed? I have strong doubts, because such community driven databases have a legacy of not being successful. With one source, it is easier to maintain a consistency in the data, something not possible with multiple sources, and people editing things.

P.S. What data there was on archive.org is now also gone, for one reason or another… becuase a search there on WaybackMachine finds 0 links to saved pages. I imagine the owner requested the data be removed. Pity.