Best of PhotoPlus Expo 2008 - Part 2

RedRock Micro:

The folks at RedRock Micro have a neat idea on their hands: create a frame that turns a HD video capable DSLR into a full fledged cinema camera. Kits are priced between $1,995 - $2,445 and are available on their website. Here you have ingenuity at its finest. An utterly brilliant idea: completely modular design that allows for flexible configurations to meet the customer's needs. Works with both the Canon 5D Mk II and the Nikon D90.

RPG Keys:

Here is a niche product that has potential: an accelerator control pad for Lightroom 2. Basically this keyboard has all of the sortcuts and controls in Lightroom 2 mapped onto individual keys, thus greatly reducing the hand contortions one has to commit in order to activate a control. This is especially important in busy studio environments that have to cull and process thousands of photos from any particular shoot.

The RPGKeys come in two sizes: the original full-sized version and the new, wireless MiniRPG. Both are show in the photo to the left. Both products are extremely well made and able to withstand thousands of keystrokes. They can be purchased at the manufacturer's website.

Sigma:

Sigma was present showing off their latest and greatest including their recently announced Sigma DP2 compact camera. Similar to the DP1 in sensor size and technology, the DP2 sports faster, slightly longer fixed lens than the DP1 (24.4mm f/2.8 vs. 16.6mm f/4). Also present was every lens in the Sigma arsenal including the monstrous APO 200-500mm F2.8/400-1000mm EX DG which has an MSRP of $34,000 USD! This lens is so big that not only does it sport its own mounting system, it even has its own motors and power supply. And you thought Leica lenses were expensive...

Tamron:

Tamron showed their newly released AF18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC (Vibration Compensation) LD Aspherical (IF) Macro and their previously unreleased SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF] - two excellent alternative lenses for Canon, Nikon, Sony and Pentax. I was able to take a test shot with both lenses and both seem to have been good samples. The 10-24 was a prototype though and reported itself as a 5mm lens to my D300. Nothing major though. Please note that as these are Di-II lenses, they are designed for DX sized sensors (so they are not going to work properly with full frame sensors - Canon 5D Mk I & II, Canon 1Ds Mk II & III, Nikon D3, D3x, & D700).

Think Tank:

Camera bag maker extraordinaire, Think Tank Photo had its entire line of photographic transport units (my term) on display. Prominent was their Airport Roller line - a set of three rollaboard bags that meet international travel standards. Also shown was an unreleased backpack called The Shapeshifter, an intriguing convertible bag that can carry camera equipment or be converted to regular luggage duties.

Well, that about does it for this year's PhotoPlus Expo. I will be publishing further in depth articles covering some the equipment shown here as well as many others. My complete PhotoPlus gallery can be found here.

Best of PhotoPlus Expo 2008 - Part 1

After the initial sweep of Day One, Days Two & Three afforded me the opportunity to calmly peruse the smaller booths to see what gems I could uncover. Here are some of the highlights:

Animoto: Animoto is a web product that converts your images into a professional video slideshow complete with music. Free accounts are available but are restricted to making 30 second clips. Professional and Business accounts are available for a fee and allow the creation of longer clips and downloadable DVD quality video.

I was able to create the clip below with images that I uploaded to my Flickr account. Many other online galleries are supported or you can upload images directly to Animoto. Animoto offers a large library of music to use as soundtracks or you can upload your own. The software on their site then analyzes the video and the music and creates a professional looking slideshow in minutes. The video can then be emailed, embedded, downloaded, posted to YouTube, mailed to your iPhone or (for a fee) upgraded to hi-res for DVD playback. Very slick. I plan on using this a lot. Click on the "Get Animoto" link to the right and get a $5 discount on an All Access Pass (normally $30/yr).

Arca Swiss: Makers of view cameras used by legendary photographers like Ansel Adams, Arca Swiss was on hand demonstrating their R-series technical cameras. Arca Swiss also makes ballheads and mounting clamp systems for view cameras. High quality stuff.

Interestingly enough, the R3 (pictured above) is really just a high precision metal plate with a gearing system that allows the photographer to tilt/shift the camera’s lens to correct for distortion. The R3 can mount any medium format film or digital back and is a scale focused rangefinder.

Bibble: Eric and his team from Bibble Labs were on hand demonstrating the as yet unreleased Bibble 5. Bibble started out as a very fast RAW file converter, but with version 5 adds more speed (up to 40x faster than version 4 – and version 4 was the fastest converter on the market already), digital asset management, and a host of adjustment tools. Based on my own workflows, I will rarely have to leave B5 to produce finished images. Even more amazing is the level of multi-threading. Eric demonstrated B5 running on a 16-core machine, submitting a batch of 116 images for conversion and completing the job in a shade over 19 seconds. Unbelievable.

BRNO: Jim over at BRNO LLC always hated to have to carry around a gray card, white balancing gadget or have to hunt down something or someone wearing white at his photo shoots. One day he forgot his white balance card at a wedding where the bride wore red. It was while he was in the midst of preparation for seppuku when he hit upon the idea of combining a white balancing device with a lens cap. Thus the baLens (pronounced "bah-lenz") was born. Seriously, this is one ingenious idea. Just keep the lens cap on, point your camera at the light source, snap a pic and DING! you have a proper custom white balance shot. Unlike similar products, the baLens replaces your existing lens cap a thus does not become an extra widget to have to drag around. The white bit in the center is replaceable and there are warm and neutral versions included with each baLens. Jim expects the baLens to become available around early December. HP Marketing will be distributing in the States, Amplis Foto in Canada, and Etsumi Co. Ltd. in Japan. The product will be retailed by the usual suspects: B&H, Adorama, Calumet, Samy's and other specialty stores.

Canon Printing Systems: Canon had their ImagePROGRAF printers on hand and they were truly a site to behold. Ranging from the diminutive iPF5100 (17" wide) to the monstrous iPF9100 (60" wide), Canon ImagePROGRAF printers operate using a 12-ink system (Cyan, Photo Cyan, Magenta, Photo Magenta, Yellow, Black, Matte Black, Red, Green. Blue, Gray, Photo Gray) including regular and Matte black inks with auto-switching between the two. Like other printers in this class, Canon's Lucia inks are rated at over 200 years of lightfastness. Prices start around $1995 USD for the iPF5100. The iPF5100's ink tanks are 130ml each which is good because the whole set costs around $840 USD.

Needless to say these are large format printers so don't expect to be printing 4x6 snapshots on them. The iPF5100 is actually capable of printing 17" wide by 59 feet! That's one hell of a panorama.

Dymo: King of the label printer, Dymo was present to show off it's DiscPainter. This is a dedicated USB inkjet printer for printable CD's and DVD's. The DiscPainter uses RadialPrint Technology, imaging the disc label on the spinning disc from the hub out. Remember SpinArt? This is the same thing except it's computer controlled. It's very fast, imaging a whole disc in a couple of minutes.

The unit uses a single tricolor ink cartridge so when you run out of one color you have to replace the whole thing. The DiscPainter is PC/Mac compatible and can print on matte, glossy and silver printable discs.

Gary Fong: Mr. Fong is a specialist in diffusion. He makes various inexpensive gadgets for you to strap on to your flashes is order to soften their effect and cut out harsh shadows and "red eye". "Red eye" is caused when a high speed electronic flash is fired close to the focal axis of the lens and directly in the face of the subject who is standing in dim light. The dim light causes the subject's pupils to dilate and the flash's extremely short duration (as little as 1/20,000th of a second) and high intensity light is then reflect off the retinas. This is the source of the "red eye" effect in humans ("green eye" effect in animals). By diffusing the light and softening it, Gary Fong's devices help eliminate this. They also remove the harsh shadows and color draining effects of direct flash.

The device shown in the photo is The Puffer. This retails for under $20 and works with any built-in pop up flash unit. While it does greatly reduce the effective distance of this flash, it transforms the nearly useless built-in flash into a light source eminently suitable for parties and intimate occasions where a larger flash gun would be awkward to manipulate. You can purchase these and other flash diffusers from Gary Fong's website and from dealers like Ritz and Wolf Camera.

Hasselblad: Founded in 1948 by Victor Hasselblad, the camera that bears his name is one of the most prestigious names in photography. A long time champion of medium format cameras, Hasselblad has kept pace with the digital revolution and is currently on its 4^th generation digital medium format camera.

Unlike other players in this market, Hasselblad has opted for a systemic approach to digital medium format with its H-System. The H3D-II cameras are only capable of accepting Hasselblad made lenses, viewfinders, adaptors, accessories, teleconverters, and digital backs. While this practically eliminates third-party lenses and components, it does allow Hasselblad to tightly control the integration of all of the parts that make up this system. Think of them as the Apple of medium format.

One new component added to the mix is the HTS 1.5 Tilt/Shift Adaptor. Tilt/Shift lenses are not a new idea. Practically every major camera manufacturer has two or three models in their harem of lenses. The problem lies in the focal plane shutter mechanism used by those cameras. The tilt/shift mechanism must, by design, physically separate the front half of the lens from rear half. This decoupling of the halves of the lens prevents the use of autofocus motors. Hasselblad, by electing to use a central shutter mechanism (where the shutter is housed in the lens along with the electronically controlled aperture and autofocus motors), Hasselblad's HTS 1.5 adaptor allows the use of up to 5 different lenses as tilt/shift lenses and the transmission of control signals to the lens' aperture and shutter via pass-through contacts and still retain autofocus capabilities. Look for a future review of this camera system.

Hoodman: Hoodman manufactures accessories for digital cameras including right-angle viewfinder adapters (shown), memory cards, and viewing loupes. This last product is an interesting departure from their original product: a popup shade for digital SLR LCD screens. Hoodman has discarded this design in favor of the hooded loupe they now make. I personally use a Delkin PopUp Shade on the rear LCD of my D300 and I am quite pleased with it. In defense of the hooded loupe approach, Hoodman's version can magnify the image up to 3x without zooming on the cameras' display. Many photographers prefer the hooded loupe approach, I myself don’t need more things hanging off of my neck.

M-Rock Camera Bags: Newcomer on the camera bag scene is M-Rock. Stylishly designed and affordable, M-Rock bags securely carry your gear and look good doing it too. Bags range for tiny belt pouches for your point-and-shoot camera all the way up to ergonomic rolling backpacks capable of carrying up to two pro DSLR bodies and a stash of lenses + gear.

That's the end of Part One. Part Two will be up shortly.

PhotoPlus Expo 2008 – Day One

The PhotoPlus Expo opened today in New York City. Hot on the heels of Photokina 2008, PDN’s PhotoPlus Expo brings new cameras, lenses and other goodies introduced in Germany a couple of weeks ago. Greeting visitors at the entrance was Nikon’s rather large booth.

Featuring a complete collection of Nikon’s cameras and lenses, visitors were allowed to mount and test any one they wanted even on their own cameras.

The Coolpix section featured every model currently available including the P6000 top end point and shoot model. This model features RAW capture and built-in GPS for easy geo-tagging of images.

Also present was a display sampling a cross-section of bling-bling add ons available for the Coolpix lines. This is a prime example of the ubiquity of point and shoot cameras as they have achieved a critical mass that is able to support this kind of secondary market.

Asking around the Nikon booth for any news on the rumored MX platform get me a lot of shifty looks and expressions of discomfort (PR people love to talk incessantly about their products. Restricting them from doing so causes them to go against their basic nature.), leading me to believe there is more than rumor working here.

Moving over to the Mamiya booth, I got a chance to play with their recently announced DL28 camera system. This system is actually a Mamiya AFD III medium format camera body, a Mamiya 80mm prime lens, and a Leaf Aptus II-6 28 megapixel digital back. The really innovative part of this system is it’s price: $14,999 USD which is a new low for this class of photographic equipment. One of the Mamiya reps told me that at this price point, Mamiya is giving you the camera for free and the digital back at a 33% discount.

Another slick feature of the Leaf back used in the DL28 system is the ability to display images wirelessly on an Apple iPhone. The camera has to be tethered to a computer running Leaf Capture software in order to transmit the images wirelessly.

One of the technologies being considered by Mamiya is the use of Wireless USB in the future to allow wireless tethered operation. This, of course, will require the widespread adoption of Wireless USB in order to work, so that’s still a couple of years off.

The Epson booth had all of their pro printers on display ranging from the highly affordable R1900 to the immense R11880. The R3800 is the only member of the family that has not been upgraded to the Extreme HDR inkset (the one with Vivid Magenta), but I have been told that you can’t really notice the difference. The R3800 is still the only printer in the Pro line that auto-switches between matte and photo blacks.

The R4880 was on display right next to the R3800 and the size difference is staggering. If you buy one of these beasts, make sure you buy the stand or get yourself a really large, sturdy table. As mentioned before the R4880 has to be manually switched between matte and photo black inks.

Over at the Olympus booth, the Micro Four Thirds prototype was on display under glass in all it’s retro glory. I’m guessing we’ll see more announcements at PMA 2009

Also on display are all of Olympus’ current offering including the miniscule E-420. When mated with the 25mm pancake lens, the whole SLR can fit in a pocket.

Leica had the S2 System on display. For a prototype, it was extremely well made. It is also big. Considering that this is a medium format-ish system this is to be expected. The lenses are spectacular looking to say the least. Since I was not allowed to take any test images yet, they remain a mystery. One big question about this system that has not been answered is price. Leica has not stated the price and will not until it is closer to launch (probably in or around PMA 2009).

Adobe was drawing in large crowds with the release of Creative Suite 4 (CS4). CS4 is a significant move on Adobe’s part as it migrates them to 64-bit (at least on Windows Vista). The first professional group to take advantage of the 64-bit platform was digital content creation – 3D artists, modellers and animators. The second group is digital photographers. With systems like the Mamiya DL28 (which produces 50 MB RAW files), and the Hasselblad H3DII-31 (sporting 40MB RAW files), both of which are starter systems and list for less than $18,000, digital photographers will need access to large amounts of RAM and the enhanced processing power of 64-bit systems.

Well, that about wraps it up for Day One. Stay tuned for coverage of Day Two.

Mamiya Announces New MF Digital Camera System

Elmsford, NY – In medium format digital photography, price and performance are usually at opposite ends of the digital spectrum. Normally you have to pay more – a lot more – for better quality, performance and features, certainly for the latest technology. The new Mamiya DL28 Digital Camera System totally changes that way of thinking. The Mamiya DL28 Digital Camera System offers professional features and benefits found in much more expensive cameras. For example, even though the DL28’s resolution is an impressive 28 Megapixels, its large sensor allows a pixel size of 7.2 microns, producing images with unmatched richness and color accuracy, low noise, and striking highlight and shadow detail. Its 3.5-inch (diagonal) screen is the largest in the industry and offers a bright, high-contrast touch screen that is ideal for outdoor or indoor work. The DL28 marries the professionally proven Mamiya camera system to the innovative 28 megapixel Aptus-II 6 Digital Back from Leaf - a system capable of unrivaled performance, image quality and value. The 645AFD III body has a new coreless motor for faster, more accurate autofocusing and an enhanced interface system that provides total communication between the camera, lens and digital back. The 645AFD III and Leaf Aptus-II 6 Digital Back work as an integral unit so you’ll never miss the action. With 16-bit capture, 12 stop dynamic range and an ISO range of 50-800, the Mamiya DL28 is a full featured professional digital solution that allows photographers to focus on creating the image and not worrying about the technology. The 28 MP back provides raw files of 53Mb, and 16 bit TIFF files in excess of 159 Mb – ensuring that you’ll have the information needed for virtually any size reproduction. Compact flash media storage makes it easy to shoot untethered on location or in the studio. You can also use the included firewire cable and Leaf Capture 11.2 software to shoot directly to your computer. And the latest Leaf Capture software allows other people - in the field or in the studio - to view your creativity on their iPhones as you continue shooting! The Mamiya DL28 will be available November 2008. MAP price is $14,999. This is very good news indeed. With this announcement, Mamiya & Leaf bring the capabilities of MF Digital closer to the realm of the affordable. To date, Hasselblad has made similar announcements with the H3D-II kit for $17,995. Hopefully, this is an indicator of things to come.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700 in der haus!

A Fedex truck pulled up this morning bearing the (almost) fully loaded ThinkPad W700 laptop promised to me by the fine folks at Lenovo. Quick Impressions * Huge. The unit hides a 17" 1920x1200 display, Wacom pad, the standard ThinkPad Touchpad/Nipple Mouse combo, thumbprint reader, built-in colorimeter, stereo speakers, stereo microphones, and webcam with space left over for whatever stickers you want to place there. * Plain Jane. Compared to offerings from HP and Toshiba, the Lenovo ThinkPad's Bauhaus matte black design is conservative in the extreme. * Fast. With an Extreme Core2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, Vista Ultimate x64, and two fast Hitachi drives in a RAID-0, the unit flies. How fast it flies is yet to be determined, but Vista rates the system at 5.6. * Battery Hog. Short of packing an onboard nuclear power supply, don't expect amazing battery life from this desktop replacement. Stay tuned, more reports to come as well as pictures.

Meeting up with Leica at PhotoPlus

Thanks to the Leica New York Metro Area Meetup group, I was able to get invited to a session with Leica at the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City. Leica will have the M8.2 and S2 available to try out. I will be taking extra memory cards to take some test images. Whether or not I will be able to post them online is another matter entirely. The M8.2 is an update to the M8 Classic incorporating several features requested by die-hard M users. Quieter shutter, recocking delay, sapphire glass on the LCD, black paint finish, AutoISO, and a host of others. The M8.2 is available for pre-order from various authorized Leica dealers for $6,295 USD. The S2 is an all-new system with a larger than 35mm sensor (it actually sits between a 35mm frame and a 645 frame at 37.5 megapixels) and boasts a set of new lenses expected to outperform anything else on the market. The S2 is expected to ship Spring 2009 and pricing has not yet been set.