Last wednesday I did a lightning visit to Photokina 2008 in Cologne. My last Photokina was in 2002 and a lot has happened since. At that show Canon showed off the EOS 1-Ds, the first full-frame DSLR. A lot of the show was still devoted to film cameras, film development and, well, film. Now, 6 years later, film is gone. There may have been some somewhere, but I didn't see any. This of course, is not a big surprise to anyone.
What does continue to surprise me at least, is the amazing variety in the market. From pocket spy cams from Minox to sliding back architecture cameras from Sinar. Tons of new camera formats and lots of models to try them out on. The photography market continues to morph and evolve.
As usual the show is huge and my feet took some days to recover from all the walking.
Here are some semi-random highlights:
Canon 5D Mark II
Because my time at the show was limited I focused my time in the Canon booth on the most important thing: The EOS 5D Mark II. And what an amazing thing it was. Although it has a familiar feel, it really is a much updated camera. The model I got to play with (there were only 3 available!) had the new EF 24mm f1.4L II USM lens on, which seemed like a pretty nice lens.
Took a few shots of the demo-guy and checked them for sharpness, to see if there was any truth to the rumours of sharpness and lens-resolving power issues. The short story (at least with this lens on): baloney. The images where sharp, with excellent colour and detail visible even at the highest zoom-factor. And that was at 1600 ISO. Of course the camera's LCD isn't the best place to judge this, but still, the results were pretty clear.
Video recording seemed effortless. The camera didn't seem to slow down or become unresponsive because of the huge data-stream it is processing. Starting and stopping the recording was quick, as was playing it back.
The menu system has been redesigned with tabs, so it works without scrolling (not that I minded that too much). Oh and 3.9 fps might not seems like a big jump over 3 fps, but it does feel much faster in actual use.
Unless the reviews turn up unexpected nastiness, I expect this to become one very successful camera.
Panasonic G1
The first micro four-thirds (M43, MFT?) camera that will be available. The real deal couldn't overcome the disappointment I felt when it was announced. It is basically a Konica Minolta A1 with swappable lenses. The A1 was the first "real" digital camera I had, and got my photography-fixation started. The problem with it was though, that it left you wanting more. It was an excellent camera, that tried really hard to provide every imaginable feature. All that did was make its main shortcoming all the more clear: it wasn't an SLR. I ended up buying a 20D not long after and never looked back.
The G1 is the same in many ways. Neither meat nor fish. It might have SLR-style image quality, but electronic viewfinder still sucks. If you don't use that and use the LCD on the back, why would you bother having a cam like the G1? I do not understand who the target audience for this camera is therefore. Anyone serious enough about photography to want swappable lenses is probably serious enough to want a DSLR. Olympus' vision on the other hand, of a sleek compact with great image quality, doesn't try to be the best of both worlds and therefore has a much clearer audience: DSLR users that want a secondary camera.
The G1 itself though feels relatively solid. The lenses are small but not tiny. The layout of the controls again looks very much like a KM A1 again. Lots and lots of buttons all over the place. Cluttered.
No, I don't like it.
Sony A900
Sony's new fullframe flagship camera. 25 Megapixels. Compared to Canon this product seemed more ready. There were countless A900s laying around to play with. The look of it is rather unique, with the pointy dome on top. The viewfinder is supposed to cover 100% but it feels small somehow. Not having my 5D with me to compare it is hard to judge, after the fact.
The controls were somewhat odd. I wasn't easily able to take the camera out of auto-mode for some reason. With a bit more time I could probably have figured this out, but with several other keen photographers breathing down my neck I wasn't going take ages.
I had a compact-flash card with me and use it to capture some shots. None of them were particularly interesting, but for some reason the camera decided to make them 6400 ISO. The results are pretty nasty. Lots and lots of noise, but that could be expected at 6400 ISO. Large blotches of colour noise, and a generally flat appearance. However a couple of the shots were taken at 250 ISO (again, reason unknown). The results here are obviously better, but not as good as I had expected. Noise is clearly visible even at this low ISO setting. Nothing really major, but certainly not clean. I'm convinced the 5D MII will produce significantly better looking images than this.
Overall, it might be best to wait for some kind of head-to-head image quality comparison between the Sony and the Canon, if you are interested in buying either one. Personally the A900 doesn't sway me in the way that the Nikon D700 almost did, before the release of the 5D MII. It is probably a good first attempt at a pro-level camera from Sony, but it isn't earth-shattering, other than in its megapixel count.
Sinar
Sinar's new architectural camera looked very interesting. I've read about their cameras quite a few times, but never seen one in the flesh (well, metal really). It basically is a view camera shrunk down to a convenient package. Its range of movements is of course more limited that a bellows-enabled view-cam, but in return it is a lot smaller and lighter (1,45 kg apparently). The back slides between a viewer with eye-piece and a digital back. The same sliding motion can be used to take two pictures that can be stitched together. The construction is simply miles beyond any camera I've ever played with. The metal slides smoothly and snaps together just so.
If you happen to have six figures laying around, it could be yours.
Epson Digigraphie
A concept Epson Europe has adopted, originally from Epson France. The idea is that Epson certifies labs and photographers that use certain Epson printers (Basically the 3800 and up) together with certain papers (including several third party papers, like Hahnemühle). The idea being that these printer and paper combination present a certain level of quality and image permanence that, when certified, could enhance the value of a print. Those that get certified get their own stamp to apply to each print. Each print is numbered, stamped and signed and each series is registered on the Digigraphie website so prospective buyers can check whether a work is an original.
Of course it is also good way of not having to say "inkjet print".
The Other Camera Companies
I missed the Olympus M43 concept. Damn. Otherwise they didn't really have a lot of new stuff. Didn't go by Pentax. Leica had a big, rather empty, booth, with loads of M8's to play with. Guessing some of them were M8.2's. No sign of the new S2, but then I didn't look all that hard for it. Nikon had little new stuff to show, since they launched most of their new products a while back already. Big queues for fiddling with a D90 though.
Zeiss had all their lenses out to play with, mounted on various DSLRs (no Canon's though) as well as their own Ikon camera. The Ikon seems nice and light, but the film-winder felt a bit "off" somehow. Sigma was displaying the DP2 under glass. No idea how it compares to the DP1 therefore. Shame.
Permajet
Nice and professional staff. One of the first companies to produce R2880 profiles for their paper-range. Was told they would soon release a continuous ink system for the R2880! While I'm not sure it would be something for me, if you print a lot it might well be a good solution for you.
Tecco:print
Relatively new German-based paper merchant. Very ambitious and is going aggressively after market-share. Very nice line of papers, including some unique ones, like their new Silk Raster paper. They also have two nice baryta papers. Full support for the R2880. I was given some samples, and I'll be posting experiences to the R2880 profile tracker as soon as I have the time to try them.
Ilford
According to the Ilford representatives, their R2880 profiles will get worked on right after Photokina. It seems they are having some staffing issues, causing the delay.
Their Gallerie-range has been updated, but for now only for rolls. Sheets will continue to be "old-style", until they also get upgraded, somewhere in 2009.
Innova
What to say? On the one hand I appreciate the honesty of their representative, on the other it puzzles me. Basically I was told that Innova doesn't have any interest in producing R2880 profiles. Innova seems to focus on users of the more "professional-level" printers. Strangely enough they do have profiles for all the old Epson non-pro printers, like the R2400.
Of course you could still print on Innova paper using the Advanced Black & White mode of the printer, but for colour printing you're on your own.
If anybody has produces their own profiles for Innova's papers, I'd be more than happy to host them.
Hahnemühle
Overall their two baryta papers (Photo Rag Baryta and FineArt Baryta) look nice
Got some samples here as well and will be posting experiences when the glossy profiles are available.
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