| |
 |
|
| PopPhoto.com's Jack Howard, all 175 pounds of him, demonstrates the toughness of the new Olympus E-3's magnesium alloy chassis. Click photo for more pictures from PhotoPlus Expo. |
For a few days last week, the photo world was even more New York City centric than usual, as the annual PhotoPlus Expo trade show came to town. Most of the major announcements of the year happened prior to the show's kickoff, but it did afford us a rare opportunity to get our hands on some of the hottest new products hitting the photography market.
Arguably the biggest announcement came just before the show on Tuesday Oct 16, as Olympus finally announced one of the worst-kept secrets ever, the Olympus E-3 DSLR. Delays, rumors, semi-official leaks, and internet chatter for years lead up to what can only be described as an impressive new king of the Four-Thirds system. The Olympus booth was busy, as they had a raised platform with lots of E-3s and long Zuiko glass for inspection by the Four-Thirds faithful, along with the curious photographers who shoot other brands.
Canon's massive display was busy, with the demo counters being three and four people deep at times, with photographers clamoring for a glimpse of the new Supertelephoto lenses, the EOS 1D Mark III, The PowerShot G9, and if you were lucky, you may have gotten a glimpse of a pre-production EOS 1Ds Mark III. We were unable to pry loose much in the way of deep tech specs on the new lenses, but expect the 200mm f/2 to be similar in size and weight to the old 200mm f/1.8, and the 800mm f/5.6 shouldn't be much bigger than the current 600mm f/4. No dates, weights, or prices were shared, but we bet you'll see a lot of these lenses in the photo pits of next summer's Beijing Olympics.
Most of the major showroom floor demonstrations, hosted by professional shooters of all stripes, were filled to capacity or overflowing. Nikon presentor Joe McNally in particular was packing them in. There were tons of Nikon D3s available for photographers to check out, along with the new Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S Wide-Angle Zoom-Nikkor Lens. There was also a lot of interest in the entry level Nikons, including the D40x.
Sony's booth was busy, with people looking to see their newest DSLR, the Sony Alpha A700.
Over at Pentax, there was a decent crowd for every product demo, even though they haven't had a major camera announcement in a while. But Pentaxians were still flocking to check out demos of the K10D and K100D Super.
Over at the Sigma, photographers of all lens mounts were checking out the big, long glass such as 300-800mm f/5.6 EX APO HSM AF DG. And, of course, the Sigma faithful were stopping by to chat about the SD14 DSLR with its unique Foveon sensor. We weren't able to nail down a solid release date for the DP1, though rumor has it that it may be "soon."
On the software side, Kevin Kubota's tutorials on his actions were a big hit in a small space. OnOne's PhotoTools and other software demos including PhotoTune -- which quickly fixes skintones -- were eye-catching and grabbing.
Vertus wowed us and the crowd with FluidMask 3, which quickly and easily isolates subjects for clipping and compositing. For the serious composite photographer and graphic designer, this is an amazing product.
At the Adobe stage, every software demo was overflowing its alloted theater. Lightroom sessions with Katrin Eisman seemed particularly mobbed.
Sandisk had a Ducatti racing bike on display to promote its high-speed ComactFlash cards, the 300x Ducatti Editions. Kevin Kubota had a superhero wandering the floor, and PhotoFlex had bathing-suit models (both boys and girls) from OneModelPlace for its lighting demos.
Lowepro intro'd some new compact camera bags in the Cirrus line, and there was a lot of interest in the Primus, which is 51% post-consumer material.
|
