Show Reports

Countless things appear at photokina that are not cameras, lenses, tripods, bags, materials, or lighting and studio. It’s part of the magic of the place. Calling this category “accessories” won’t do, because for most of us, “accessories” consist mostly of small things in blister packs: cable releases, lens caps, that sort of thing. At photokina, it can...

The weirdest camera at the show, the GFAE, wasn’t even recognizable as a camera, not least because it was a view camera with the bellows left out in order to show its construction more clearly. We’ll come back to it later, but first, let’s look at some more conventional offerings.

In all probability, most photographers could gain more from investing in lighting equipment than from investing in new cameras. Not professionals, perhaps, though studio lighting continues to come on in leaps and bounds, but countless amateurs could greatly improve both the range and quality of their work.

Let’s consider, to start, the humble camera strap. Several models of sling strap were shown, designed to carry the camera over your shoulder and under your arm or even on your hip.

“Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”—Walt Disney

It’s a photokina year and you know what that means; all of the camera manufacturers will be holding off their newest SLRs for launch at the big show in Germany this fall. While Canon was not at PMA, they officially launched the EOS-1D Mark IV...

This year we’re seeing a surprising number of new ringlights plus lots of accessory light modifiers, dedicated cords, flash brackets, and continuous LED lights which are helpful when making videos with multipurpose D-SLR cameras.

Aputure’s Trigmaster makes controlling a studio strobe or Speedlight wirelessly easier at distances of up to 300 feet with 16 different...

Most of the software news for 2010 was featured in our March issue, but we have some quick updates to share.

Nik Software is best known for its Photoshop plug-ins. They have expanded beyond this with support for both Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom now in all of their products. One new addition worthy of mention is Viveza 2. If you’re not familiar with...