Handheld exposure meters have grown increasingly complex over the years. At the same time, they are proving even more utilitarian for a wider range of shooting situations. All of this thanks to microprocessor control. I won't go into the long history of their evolution, but suffice to say that today's high-tech marvels are something else entirely. And the new Sekonic...

Charge!
You can now charge your electronic devices while you are on the move. The G24i solar panel was developed for MIA (Mascotte Industrial Associates) by Gcell and has so far been incorporated in a backpack, a laptop bag, a camouflage bag, and even a tennis bag. It is lightweight and flexible, not too sensitive to the angle of the light, has a high energy output, and...

The photokina trade fair held in Cologne, Germany, every two years has a solid reputation for previews and announcements meant to shake up the practices and worldviews of photographers, be they amateur or pro. This can come in the form of products real and imagined, with some making it to shelves and others just a wistful dream of designers and engineers who hope what they propose will become the...

Digital photo frames at photokina were riding the tide of increasing popularity, with wireless technological support in the driver’s seat. Manufacturers are trying to make them more utilitarian, so these digital frames don’t just sit there when not in use. Whatever you say about them, they’re always fashionable, competing with traditional frames for attention, and they make a...

Every photokina, we are assigned a category that for want of a better term we call “weird and wonderful.” It’s stuff that doesn’t easily fit into any other category, or differs so much from the mass of its competitors that it deserves special mention.

Some products are just bizarre: we’ll come to what we thought was the most bizarre trend at the end...

Photos © 2004 Peter K. Burian, All Rights Reserved

Although we cover new equipment announced at trade shows, binoculars are often overlooked because they're not used for photography. Still, most outdoor shooters do carry binoculars and they can be invaluable for scanning or scouting an area and for searching out...

Look around any photographer's studio and you'll see all manner of tools aside from camera, darkroom or computer imaging station, and the requisite coffeepot. Studios can occupy entire floors of a loft building or a small room in the back of a storefront, but regardless of size it's a place where creativity and tools mesh. While different types of tools are...