Photokina: End Notes From an Exhausted Editor

	Click photo to see views from the last days of Photokina 2006.

Herewith, in no particular order, are some of the coolest things this editor saw at or near Photokina:

• A beautiful medieval city rebuilt from near-destruction in WWII now reborn as the biennial photography capital of the world.
  
  
• Subways where dogs ride for free and you can drink beer out of a bottle without getting arrested.
  
  
• Models at the Manfrotto booth playing music videos on chest-mounted LCD screens.
  
  
• Awesome Photoshop technology, shared with a select audience under NDA, which Adobe is keeping secret until April 2007.
  
  
• A regiment of journalists locked out of the Hewlett Packard press conference because the auditorium was full.
  
  
• A mensroom with a separate prayer section.
  
  

More seriously:

• The Seitz 6x17 Digital, a rectilinear “electronic Widelux” that makes 160-megapixel panoramas using a high-speed scanning back and large format lenses.
  
  
• The Sigma DP1 point-and-shoot prototype, whose D-SLR-size Foveon X3 sensor can shoot video rivaling a 3-CCD DV cam.
  
  
• The Zeiss APO Sonnar T 1700mm f/4 for Hasselblad cameras, at 500 pounds the world’s largest telephoto lens.
  
  
• The Nokia N95 cellphone, which is also a 5-megapixel point-and-shoot, a wireless internet pocket computer, a video camera, and a GPS navigational aid.
  
  
• The JOBO Giga Vu Pro Evolution, a digital storage viewer that can receive photos sent to it wirelessly by a transmitter-equipped D-SLR.
  
  
• Pocket digicams made of wood – with working electronics.
  
  
• The Olympus E-400, the world’s smallest D-SLR.
  
  
• The Leica M8, which Oscar Barnack could never have imagined.