Frances E. Schultz

You might think that there is not much scope for innovation in camera tripods. You would be right. After all, the number of legs is fixed (though there are monopods, and there have even been a couple of bipods) and their sole function is to hold a camera on top (though again, some make provision for hanging it underneath). But the truth is that tripods are like James Bond movies.

Looking at the latest camera bag offerings has an extra piquancy when you are in the market for a bag yourself, as I was at this year's PMA. My husband Roger Hicks had just bought a new laptop, which was a very tight fit indeed in his existing camera bag. We needed something new. We ended up with the CompuTrekker AW backpack from Lowepro--but along the way, I was...

There are quite a few new photographic papers available this year, despite many changes in the business. As with film and chemistry, the paper business was affected by the "Ilford Factor."

From late August 2004, when Ilford went into receivership, to early February 2005, when a management buy-out succeeded, the future of Ilford was in some doubt.

If a picture is really brilliant, you don't have to worry about grain or sharpness or anything else: to quote Mike Gristwood, late of Ilford, "How much good would it do you to know the technical details of any one of Henri Cartier-Bresson's pictures?"

By the same token, if a picture is really bad, no amount of technical brilliance is going...