After finally finding my way out of the labyrinth that was “made in china world” I set of to find Ben and Teymur, all I knew was that they were somewhere… And as fate would have it as I was on the going down escalator there they were passing by on the opposite escalator going up …
Having a chance to catch up with the guys was great, they were there working for Manfrotto and dragged me along with them to the RED camera stand which seem like a good idea at the time….
Unfortunately other than some amazingly cool cameras we just happened to be there at the same time as a bikini catwalk. So for some reason we didn’t get to talk as much as I hoped but that life’s and it was cool to see the guys again even if it was a short visit. But a special thanks to Teymur and Ben for the mini-tripod. I’ll blog more about that another time 🙂
The Bikini models were a crowd puller
One thing I did see a lot of was photoshoots, around every corner was another studio set up with some one i never heard of babbling about some thing. There were a few people that i watch were very interesting and provided some cool ideas/info/tips. But there were that were like watching paint dry so many “ummmm, and, or, but, if, ohh wait just a minute”‘s that you got the feeling hay what am I doing here….
Another studio shoot some where
After what felt like about 30-hours of walking I finally found “Enjoy Your Camera”. Things were very busy there so rather than distracting them from their work I just looked around a bit then moved on to explore the great unknown expanses of photo stuff.
I wandered through the world of Canon and Nikon . I thought Canon had a very nice roof on their display it set a very nice ambient and the hostesses all have very cool red wigs. I finally made it to the other end of Photokina Leica and the Leica Gallery. Like always the gallery was amazing I could have spent the whole day just there.
In the wild west this was called a Mexican standoff…..
One of the coolest exhibits was Anton Cornijn . With a series of images that looked a like like someone else :). The series was called “A. Somebody” and all the subjects seemed to be famous musicians captured somewhere in time. All the images were named after the supposes subject e.g. A. Marley or A.Hendrix or A.Joplin
I kind of left this hall in a trance and knowing now i had to find my way all the way back through to our starting point. It was at this stage I remembered I wanted to check out middel format stuff. Hasselblad were so friendly and let my play with that ever I wanted to use but the new 50C wouldn’t accept my CF cards so I have no photos to show for it AHHHHHHHHHH. Phase one people were also very friendly ans spent a long long time teaching me the basics of Capture ONE
I was actually very surprised how pacient they were with me, lots of tips and trick (probably to many for my little brain to recall them all) and then he dropped a bombshell that They have a special PRO version just for Sony users that was very cheap. It includes tethering and many other features only available in the pro version but only works with Sony cameras….. There is also an express version for free. WOW thanks you guys rock.
Finally I found the Pentax 645Z, It was hidden away in a corner on the Ricoh stand and IMHO should have had a lot more prominent position. And guys if I’m going to spend 8000 on a camera body you can at least include the tethering software please…
This was actually the camera that pleased me the most. It had lots DSLR features that you don’t normally find in a medium format camera like a tilt screen. The menu system was very logical and it was very comfortable to hold. All round I was most impressed with everything about it including the price compared to the other 50 megapixel cameras out there. They had 2 Lenses that I was most interested in using… The 55mm Standard lens and the 90mm Macro …. Now I just have to find some money (no one tell my wife :))
55mm standard lens, Iso 3200, f2.8, 1/80th
90mm macro, ISO 3200, f5, 1/80th
As the day drew on I got and got closer to the entrance/exit it was time to have a pause the fototv.de stand and watch Martin Krolop talk about feathering. If you are interested have a look at the youtube blow (p.s. it is in German)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9P8c7P26Vg
Finally a special thanks to Joy for driving us there and back 🙂
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