One of the great pleasures of photokina is finding really brilliant new accessories. Some are completely unexpected. Others, you’ve wanted for years but have never been able to find—often because until now, the technology needed to build them has not been available.
A shining example (literally) of the latter, and the accessory hit of the show as far as I am concerned...
Let’s start with the cheapest Large Format (LF) camera at the show, and, as far as I am concerned, the one that is likely to be of the most interest to the largest number of our readers: the Bulldog 10x8” camera (also available in 8x10” for the American market—it’s a reversing back and can be used either way). The UK price is £250, which means that although a...
As ever, medium format—hereafter MF—ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. For sublime, it’s hard to beat the new 50-megapixel Hasselblad or the 37.5-megapixel Leica S2, or possibly the Rollei/Sinar/Leaf Hy6, built by Franke & Heidecke (with their new option of a 6x6cm rollfilm back). As for ridiculous, well, I know I’ll get hate mail from Holga owners, but...
When it came to rangefinders, Leica completely stole the show: Zeiss and Voigtländer had only one new product each. Admittedly they were interesting—an 85mm f/4 Tele-Tessar in Leica M-compatible ZM mount and a dual-format rangefinder folder, the Bessa III—but they were somewhat eclipsed by Leica’s four new lenses and the revised M8.2 camera body.
"Contrast" means a surprising number of things in photography: at least six. Made to do so many jobs, it is not surprising that confusion reigns, plenty of contrast is a Good Thing in some...
The important thing to remember about the PMA Show is that it is the annual convention of the Photo Marketing Association. This organization exists to help sell product, whether the product in question is cameras, lenses, scanners, studio backdrops, or indeed photographs.
Pretty much by definition, this means going for the markets that are biggest or most...
We were profoundly grateful to George Schaub--our Beloved Helmsman, Chairman, and Leader--for telling us that he didn't want a laundry list of new products. Listing every improvement in electronic flash would take up half the magazine, and it would come down to one generalization for all anyway. Everyone's flashes are becoming more powerful and more...
The most vibrant growth sector in high-end film cameras was undoubtedly rangefinder, with a completely new model from Zeiss and two substantially revised models from Voigtländer: I have already covered Leica a la carte elsewhere.
The lenses for the new Zeiss Ikon are really exciting: Distagon 15mm f/2.8, Biogons for 21mm f/2.8, 25mm f/2.8, 28mm f/2.8, and 35mm...
Education, it is said, is what is left after you have forgotten everything you learned at school. Spotting trends is somewhat the same. You have to study something closely; then try to ignore all the details; then make sense of what you remember.
On this basis, I saw three trends at photokina. The first is that the center of gravity of the whole...
The name gives it away. The Fotoman 810PS is indeed an 8x10" point-and-shoot (PS) camera. Well, sort of. It brings you that huge, beautiful 8x10" (203x254mm) image in a camera that is more basic than you may readily imagine.
Unlike smaller point-and-shoots, there's no autofocus or autoexposure, and even with a wide angle lens (150mm, pretty much the...