ViewBug reviews

I haven't been a member for long at all, but I've already upgraded to premium. There are so many gorgeous images here. It's overwhelming...and inspiring. It really doesn't matter what level you're at there is a place for everyone on this site. Sure there are competition and the competition is extremely stiff! However, it is a great place to learn and be inspired and just marvel at all of the wonderful images.

Was this review helpful? Yes 1

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Corey,

Thank you for sharing your experience. We are happy to hear that you enjoy being a part of the community. We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug family. :)

Have a wonderful day!
Your friends at ViewBug

2 weeks ago

Been a member just about a year now it's a Awesome Community with quality photography proud to post my work there

Was this review helpful? Yes

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Gabriela,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! We are glad to hear that you enjoy being a part of the ViewBug community and are proud to share your work on ViewBug.com. :)

Have a great day!
Your friends at ViewBug

2 weeks ago

Im reading through reviews for viewbug and getting really annoyed. loads are very positive and thats very good because it shows that viewbug delivers on prizes and stuff. but there are two types of complainers in these reviews in my opinion.
Type one - cant win a competition so spends their whole review saying its fixed bla bla bla.
Type 2 - thinks they are professional and therefore is putting everyone's images down saying that everything is bad or extremely low quality.
my opinion- yes there are a lot of lower quality images on there however some people cant afford cameras and equipment that will give them top images or they dont have the experience to take good images.
viewbug isnt about having lots of professionals being amazing with no low quality images at all. it's about learning and appreciating the art of photography, this includes sharing lower quality images to receive feedback and help improving them. therefore it is an amazing site that works very well. Personally i have spent many hours on this site and can't seem to get off it. I would like to thank viewbug for that. i am finally inspired to explore different types of photography to the studio work i usually do and i appreciate that a lot.

Was this review helpful? Yes 12

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Emily,

Thank you for sharing your experience and for your support.

We are happy to hear that you enjoy being a part of the community. We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug family. :)

Have an amazing day!
Your friends at ViewBug

8/24/16

Since I'm a member of ViewBug, I have been doing better day after day. Their contests are truly motivating and the results always inspiring. The prizes are true, the exposure works and you can make friends sharing photos and commenting on others' walls and works. One of my favourite websites so far.

Was this review helpful? Yes 3

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Alessandro,

We very much appreciate your positive feedback. We are glad to hear that you enjoy being a part of the community.

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug family. :)

Have an lovely day!
Your friends at ViewBug

8/17/16

Thrilled to win a Speedlite in competition. Fantastic service and quick response and delivery. Out and about using it, wonderful. Thank you View Bug

Was this review helpful? Yes 1

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Jackie,

Thank you for sharing your experience. We are so happy to hear that you received a great service from our team. :-)

Have a nice day!
Your friends at ViewBug

8/17/16

As an amateur photographer, I value everything I learn from the Viewbug community. I try join contests and challenges as much as possible and check out my competitors' work when I can and learn from them. I see some people wrote "don't waste your money - unless you pay you don't win anything etc.", I don't believe these people are being fair. If your main goal is to win something then you should just buy a lottery ticket, why waste your time with photography. Anyway, I don't mean to offend anyone and I respect everyone's opinion but if you are in this community just because of prizes then maybe you are in the wrong place so please don't blame the website because you didn't win anything.

Was this review helpful? Yes 5

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Ron,

Thank you for sharing your experience and for your support. We are glad to hear that you enjoy being a part of the ViewBug community. :-)

Have an amazing day!
Your friends at ViewBug

8/17/16

I looked at it once and when I did a reverse image search on a few of the pictures half of them were lifted from the net.

Was this review helpful? Yes 8

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Neal,

Thank you for your feedback.

Our terms of service do not permit copyright infringement. We take these types of concerns very seriously and do our best to protect our members' photos.

Our compliance team investigates all copyright concerns thoroughly. Per our community guidelines, we do not permit members to upload ANY photos that they do not own 100% copyrights to. Members who fail to follow our community guidelines are removed from the ViewBug community. To learn more; please visit http://www.viewbug.com/terms.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact our member support team at members@viewbug.com

Have a great day!
The ViewBug Team

7/26/16

Viewbug reels you in with their awesome and too-good-to-be-true contests and prizes. What they won't tell you is that unless you pay you'll never be able to win anything, and you might as well save your money and go buy the items listed as prizes in the site by yourself.
Please stop wasting your money on this site that priorizes its own income over the actual quality of the pictures they set up first on the voting.
Really, it's $#*!.
Save your money and buy awesome equipment, or travel. Forget about this site.

Was this review helpful? Yes 12

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Beth,

Thank you for your feedback.

We have many Free members who win contests and become finalists. You are welcome to visit our blog's winners section: http://www.viewbug.com/blog/winners

For example, here is the People's Choice winner in The Battle Of Amateurs Photo Contest who is a Free member: http://www.viewbug.com/contests/the-battle-of-amateurs-photo-contest/2971259

This image was also Runner Up in another contests and Finalist in 2 other contests. If you have a moment to visit the winners section in our blog, you’ll see many other Free members who won different contests.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact our member support team at members@viewbug.com

Have a nice day!
The ViewBug Team

7/26/16

Awesome site to do photos and has great contests! LiveChat was very helpful with my questions and issues.

Was this review helpful? Yes 6

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Rusty,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! We are glad to hear that our LiveChat agent was helpful. :-)

Have an amazing day!
The ViewBug Team

7/26/16

I have been with ViewBug for nearly a year now and I absolutely love it. The people are great, the competitions and prizes are absolutely amazing. I highly recommend them to all those that have a passion for photography, love entering into competitions and want to get some feedback on their works.

Was this review helpful? Yes 4

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Leanne,

We very much appreciate your positive feedback We are glad to hear that you enjoy being a part of the community.

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug family. :)

Have an lovely day!
Your friends at ViewBug

7/26/16

Photo contest voting support does not exist

Was this review helpful? Yes 3

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Joy,

Thank you for sharing your feedback.

Per your email to our support team (see below); the link you've provided doesn't belong to ViewBug.com, therefore we are unable to assist with other websites' photo contests. However, we'll be more than happy to assist you if you'd please kindly provide the URL from ViewBug.com.

"From: Joy J
To: members@viewbug.com
This is the link and photo I want to vote for

*http://wshe.es/pl1gA2cg <http://wshe.es/pl1gA2cg>*

Thanks,
Joy"

We look forward to your response!
The ViewBug Team

6/27/16

Viewbug, quite frankly, is a joke. There are far too many manipulated photo's competing with real photo's. Real photography sites with genuine integrity never do this.

Was this review helpful? Yes 4

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello there,

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us!

We totally understand your point and see that you enjoy more natural photos and we have many members just like you. We also run contests that we accept only unedited photos. However, we also have members that enjoy edited photos and use of different techniques. At the end they are all hard work of different photographers who have different taste and enjoy different styles

We’d be happy to learn more about how we could have improved your experience with us. Please feel free to contact our member support team via email at members@viewbug.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Have a nice day!
Your friends at ViewBug

6/27/16

i just won a top 20 class week 1 , i would like to understand what does that mean #beginner

Was this review helpful? Yes 1

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Yasmine,

Thank you for your review.

To maintain an archive of the communication and for better assistance; please kindly contact our member support team at members@viewbug.com. They'll be happy to assist you with any questions and concerns you may have. :-)

Have a wonderful day!
Your friends at ViewBug

6/27/16

I really don't think that many, if any, of the negative reviews can be relied on. As an example; we have some saying that photographs that win the competitions shouldn't even be entered as they are rubbish, while others say it's unfair because they are so good the ordinary person doesn't stand a chance. A bit contradictory if you ask me.
The people that have the biggest downer on ViewBug call themselves professionals, really! If you are all so great why are you considering such sites? I come to the conclusion that these people, some of whom claim to teach photography, are just worried about losing some business which in my mind isn't very professional, it's called competition. I've seen a lot of so called professional's work (outside of ViewBug) and it is appalling. How they actually earn a living is beyond me, yet their arrogance seems to know no bounds.
I joined ViewBug in March 2016 and have had great fun. It inspired me to pick up my photography after 30 years away from it. I'm not a great photographer, never was, but I have improved with the help of ViewBug. I've tried techniques that I wouldn't have dreamed was possible. As for the whingers that haven't won a contest, then your in ViewBug for the wrong reasons. Why not do as I do? I joined with the intention of getting inspiration and improving, entering competitions are an added bonus. I join challenges they don't offer prizes but they offer exactly what they are, a challenge. There is often a distinct lack of entries - in comparison to competitions offering a camera or lens - but the quality is still high. I assume this difference is down to lusting after a free camera or improving your hobby skills.
I see one person complaining that it's often down to who has mastered processing. Why not? What's the problem? Don't these people realise that it has always been that way? Winning a competition or producing excellent work was never down to 100% what happened in the camera, a lot was down to processing and manipulation in the darkroom.
As for an anti-ViewBug Facebook page! Well, what do you expect? Nearly everything has an anti Facebook page usually started by someone that is disgruntled about not getting a freebie. Waken up, Facebook is the biggest trap on the internet.
as for receiving "likes" within seconds of putting up a photo, I wondered about that, but the reason is obvious. You post a photo and it is immediately shown on your followers wall, they like it. It's really not that hard to work out. as for claiming you received "likes" up to a week or two prior to taking on your membership, I just don't believe it. How on earth could that be possible unless ViewBug has some sort of telepathic link to prospective members.
ViewBug is great if you join for the right reasons, keep it up ViewBug.
I'll finish with a request. I would like to second the suggestion of the other reviewer for a forum. a place where we can ask for help and give advice.
Bill

Was this review helpful? Yes 8

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Bill,

We very much appreciate your feedback and are happy to hear that you see ViewBug as a great tool to improve your skills.

As you may know, here at ViewBug; we also help our members get exposure by featuring them on members page, social media pages etc.

We’ll be sure to share your feedback about the forum with our management team and give consideration to your input.

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug community. :)

Have an amazing day!
Your friends at ViewBug

6/27/16

I'm a new user of the ViewBug site and noticed that a few of my photos had indicators that they had been shared to FaceBook.

I was curious as to who had done that, as well as concerned because one of the shots was of a friend who allowed me to post to ViewBug.

I sent an email to the customer support folks asking what I'm sure has been asked of them more than once :) "Who is sharing my photos?"

I received a response within a very short time explaining that FB terms do not permit visibility to the profiles that are sharing content from a third-party site, which VB is.

A few more back and forth emails and I am content with the explanations given and by the promptness of the responses. I have decided to just remove the photos that I was worried about and to create my own watermark for anything I post going forward.

So far, so good with ViewBug. I have rediscovered my passion for photography and am digging out and dusting off all the old gear!

Was this review helpful? Yes 3

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Judy,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. We are glad to hear that you received a great service from our customer support team. :-)

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug community.

Have a wonderful day!
Your friends at ViewBug

6/14/16

When I finally found ViewBug, after joining a lot of other art/photography and other related sites, I felt I completely belonged to this one.
ViewBug is a friendly and social site for photographers and the talent here is unbelievable !!! Ranging from amateur to professional.
You can earn rewards and badges which escalate you to other fun contests and peer challenges to enter. It's an awesome rewarding experience just to belong. The winning is simply a bonus.

Was this review helpful? Yes 4

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Lori,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! We are glad to hear that you enjoy being a part of the ViewBug community :)

Have an amazing day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/30/16

Still assessing the site. After joining, I received a few awards in a few contests I was asked to write a review on Sitejabber. After I wrote a glowing review I received no further awards. So I'm not sure what is going on.

Was this review helpful? Yes 2

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Mark,

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. We are glad to hear that you enjoy being a part of the community and your skill as a photographer has improved since you joined ViewBug.

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug family. :)

Have an lovely day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/11/16

I have been a member of Viewbug for quite a few years, I have had the pleasure of winning one of the contests with my image. I had a few problems but I have since had incredible service from their team which has helped me greatly. They have been very kind and considerate and have put any concerns I have had to rest.

Its a great way to get inspired by other photographers, and while amateurs can also participate there are plenty of professional and talented photographers to locate.

Was this review helpful? Yes 6

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Adele,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. We are so happy to hear that you received an incredible service from our team and will be sure to congratulate them for providing an excellent service. :-)

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug community.

Have a lovely day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/17/16

I have been a ViewBug member for over a year now and I feel that is time to write a review. I finally won my first Amateur prize in a contest, feel so so happy about it and even more inspired to continue working on my photography. Many people that I have talked to feel that it is hard to win contests and indeed it is hard but that is what makes it challenging. I was discouraged at the beginning but now I found a new light and want to continue shooting.

Was this review helpful? Yes 6

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Gerard,

Thanks so much for sharing your experience and congratulations on your winning. :-)

We are happy to hear that you didn’t give up at the beginning and kept trying. It appears that your hard work finally paid off.

We value your membership and are honored to have you as a member of the ViewBug community.

Have an great day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/10/16

Man, what can I say? I read some of the good comments and some of the negative ones, and it seems sitejabber is a troll dream come true. Strangely enough negative commentators have only one review, seems to me someone is after viewbug's reputation. Most of the people I do photowalks are also viewbug members and we are more than content with this site, as anywhere else you get what you give. Submit your best shots, follow photographers you like and you'll have a great experience. You can launch your own challenge for free and get participants to vote, you can have a non-paid membership and enjoy what you want from viewbug so how can it be bad? Trolls need to get a life, photographers need to jump on viewbug. Sitejabber should have moderators test products to further validate if it is a scam or not. First and last review for me on sitejabber and thank you viewbug for being such an inspiration

Was this review helpful? Yes 5

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Alice,

Thank you for your feedback and support.

We understand it’s not possible to make everyone happy even if we do our best to provide a great service.

On the other hand, we feel lucky to have members like you and very much appreciate your support. :-)

Have a wonderful day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/10/16

I have been on Viewbug for over 5 years. When I started there were photographers posting quality work. Now 75% of the photos posted are garbage. I am a professional photographer and instructor of photography. I would never, even in my early days of learning photography, posted some of the images I see on Viewbug. Apparently, the individuals posting this junk really do not care and just load up the Viewbug site. It's clear they do not care that their junk they post reflects on them as a photographer. I do give peer awards to the photographers work that recognizes the beautiful art of photography. 25% of Viewbug has photographers that display absolutely beautiful work. In teaching photography the novice learns by viewing the work of other professional photographers. Unfortunately Viewbug is not the place for a novice or aspiring photographer to view this type of work 75% of the time. Some of the images I see that win in contest are awful and clearly shows the judges have no clue what their doing or the photographer solicits votes from all their friends (very unfair) not caring if their work is worthy of a win. To a serious photographer I would not recommend posting your work on Viewbug if you wish to be noticed. If you want to be noticed try Fine Art America. For over 35 years I have made my living doing professional photography and teaching photography. When Viewbug began it was a great site now I would not recommend it. Also, to be a paying member is out of the question. With this said good luck.

Was this review helpful? Yes 13

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Exis,

We greatly appreciate your honest feedback as it helps our team best understand how we can improve the ViewBug experience. We believe that art is in the eye of the beholder and we have judges from various schools of photography as well as all members who each has a different interpretation of the techniques and creativity behind each photo.

We’d be happy to learn more about how we could have improved your experience with us. Please feel free to contact our member support team via email at members@viewbug.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Have a nice day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/10/16

This really isn't just sour grapes but there's clearly far too many junk photo's getting into competitions. Too many good ones are being overlooked, and too many rubbish ones beating those good ones.
The latest competition I saw has a finalist photo with an item badly superimposed over a background, with differing lighting, shadows and bits missing from it. This was a FINALIST photo out of nearly 6000 lol!!
As someone else pointed out below, it's clearly who you know here, rather than your skill level.

I'm also a member of a photograph club (150+ members) where most others joined too. We all get the same emails, for example everyone's most viewed photo received a Spring Selection Reward, most of us had our most viewed photo with an animal entered into the Animal Kingdom competition, we often receive likes/awards from the same person (automated? bots?), and some members who have deleted their accounts still receive emails saying they've had more likes or peer awards! Work that one out!!

Unfortunately I paid for 2 years, but will now be requesting my money back.


***Update and response to ViewBug***

Thanks for the copy&paste reply Viewbug, it's the same one as you sent me via email. At least you were good enough to give me my money back and downgrade my account.

I understand that you have to tow the official line, and try to make it look like there's nothing wrong, but with many people leaving your service, some for the issues raised here, surely it's time for you to change your site??

Until that happens, I for one, am out.

Was this review helpful? Yes 9

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Ian,

Thank you for spending the time to share your feedback with us!

We understand that when it comes to contests seeing some finalists and winners might be frustrating. As you know, it is very hard to please everyone and the judges take the process very seriously. Art is in the eye of the beholder and the judges as well as voters each has a different interpretation of the techniques and creativity behind each photo submitted. We see the contests as a great tool to explore our creativity and expertise behind specific themes.

Please know that ViewBug does not have sole control over contest finalists and winners selection. Depending on the contest guidelines, some winners are selected by members’ votes via the Photo Trifecta and others are judged by a judging panel. The Photo Trifecta is based on a proprietary algorithm that helps us choose the best photos based on the people's choice. Winning photos are selected based on quality, originality, and creativity in accordance with the contest’s theme.

While some awards are given to only certain members to recognize their hard work and provide exposure to their profile. There are also some awards like the Spring Selection Award that are given to all members’ most popular photos to show them which of their photo is our members’ favorite.

We’d be happy to learn more about how we could have improved your experience with us. Please feel free to contact our member support team via email at members@viewbug.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Have a nice day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/10/16

Ok I just joined this week and started entering contest and challenges. Then I started voting. WOW this is big time amateur hour!! I swear if I have to sit and look at another person poorly taken shot of their kid or their pet or vacation I'm going to poke myself in the eye with a fork!! Look I'm not being too picky and I know there was a point 30 years ago that my images looked no better, but back then we had the common sense to know what was good and what wasn't and would have never thought of entering it in a contest. Now days everyone thinks they are good just because someone told them so. I know I am not the best photographer out there. There is always someone better but I sell my work regularly at art shows and festivals and make pretty good money doing it. With all the amateurs on viewbug I'm really curious if my work will be noticed or just passed over in the millions of poorly taken photographs.

Was this review helpful? Yes 8

ViewBug T. [ViewBug Rep] Hello Tomas,

We very much appreciate your constructive feedback and will be sure to share your input with our management team.

We’d like to learn more about how we could have improved your experience with us. Please feel free to contact our member support team directly via email at members@viewbug.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Have a nice day!
Your friends at ViewBug

5/10/16