Medium Format Camera News

It isn’t often that as a camera reviewer you get the chance to test a camera with the technical experts right at hand, but that’s how I got to know the Phase One 645DF and IQ160 back. Actually, I attended one of the company’s Phase One Digital Artists Series workshops in Chicago with other photographers (see PODAS workshops sidebar for further info on this and other workshops the company is offering). Beyond the guided portion of the workshop, we were given time to go off and work with the camera at our own pace. It didn’t take long to find my comfort zone with the new IQ system. By the end of day one, I had a working familiarity with the camera and back and hardly paid attention to the big bundle I was hefting. Although I often felt quite at ease shooting handheld, for night photography and some other occasions I did employ my trusty Benbo tripod, with the camera seated on a Foba Superball M-2 on one day, an Acratech GP-L ball head on another.

Our show report this year is an amalgam of product news and trend spotting, which pretty much reflects what photokina has stood for in our minds. The sense of a United Nations of photography still prevails at this increasingly European-directed show, but the image and its uses is still the universal tie that binds.

If this is your first excursion into Mamiya medium format, you’re in for a treat.

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...

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...

The absence of the major camera and digital back manufacturers, including Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Phase One, probably reflects less on the viability of the format than the fact that this show is more oriented toward amateur and advanced amateur photographers. But the lack of those exhibitors didn't dim one of the most interesting announcements at the show--a camera that...