By the time Phil launched dpreview exactly ten years ago things were beginning to get interesting in the digital camera world; we'd seen the first hints of the two megapixel cameras that were to take the market by storm in 1999, the first affordable cameras with zoom lenses were arriving, and the Olympus C-1400L (D-600L) put a serious SLR - albeit one with a fixed lens - into the hands of photo enthusiasts for the bargain price of £1300 (just under $2000). I got married in 1998 and decided to use my short honeymoon in Florence to test out a brace of 'budget' (sub £250) digital cameras rather than shoot film... a decision my wife has ensured I've regretted ever since (that's the last time I'll ever use a Premier camera).

The first camera Phil reviewed was the Canon Pro 70. I had to laugh when reading my own review of the Pro 70 from the same time; talking about the 3:2 aspect ratio not matching most monitors I wrote 'with this much resolution no one is going to complain about a little cropping' - 1.5 megapixels was quite a luxury then.

I'll admit I didn't see Phil's review in 1999, but I did come across photo.askey.net fairly early on (shouts of 'no one use the phone, I'm going into the internets' were heard across the office on a regular basis), and it soon became an invaluable research resource. In those days few in the magazine business really saw this internet thing as any kind of threat (though they did finally notice about 6 years later, by which time that boat had well and truly sailed) - it simply didn't occur to publishers that people might one day prefer to read up to date information for free than to pay for 3 week old news and 30 pages of adverts.

But it wasn't the fact that dpreview was online that made it so important (though of course allowing your readers to engage with you and with each other via forums is a form of dialog unique to the online publications). It was the fact that Phil actually tested the cameras in a rigid, standardized and consistent way. It's fair to say that Phil, through dpreview, changed forever the way that cameras are reviewed. When I started reviewing in print we never measured image quality - we just looked at the pictures and said 'yeah, they're pretty good' or 'those colors are awful' or whatever. As the cameras got more sophisticated and image quality started to improve the value of Phil's approach became more and more apparent, and it's no accident that by the time I met Phil he was considered the only authority on digital camera image quality by every Japanese manufacturer I ever spoke to. Not everyone agreed with Phil's approach (nor do they today), but few publications - either in print or online - have failed to incorporate some - or all - of his camera 'testing' ethos into their own reviews.

I joined dpreview just over half way through its life in mid 2004, since when visitor numbers have risen dramatically, without fail, year on year (I'm not saying anything, but you can draw your own conclusions about that). The four and a half years I've been here have been the most exciting times for the digital camera market since those early days a decade ago, with the arrival of first one, then two, then an unstoppable river of affordable digital SLRs. Next year looks to be just as exciting, with the Pansonic G1 - we hope - the first of several non-reflex interchangeable lens cameras. We're also hoping that we see the fruits of some of the developments in materials science and sensor technology that we've been hearing whispers and hints about for the last six months (global financial meltdown permitting, of course).

We'd be lying if we said we knew where dpreview was going to be in another decade's time, but I do know we've got big plans for the next year or two, and I hope that even those of you who love to hate us will be pleased with the new features we're bringing to the dpreview community. For now let's just enjoy the festive season whilst it lasts, and raise a glass to dpreview as it enjoys its tenth birthday. Merry Christmas.