Took my anual trip to photoexpo Saturday. It’s always a great show and well worth the time for me but this year was especially good for a few reasons. The first is EVIL/CSC cameras and their “systems” are really maturing. Sony has the NEX 6 and 5r with their new 10-18mm. Fuji has the X-E1 with their 10-24mm. MFT has had the 7-14mm for either option for a while now and plenty of great bodies to choose from. In the DSLR realm canon and nikon are both lowering prices for the FF market with the 6D and D600. I didn’t spend any time with the D600 as the Nikon booth was swamped (and poorly laid out in terms of getting to the cameras, massive but a ton of dead/wasted space). The 6D was pretty nice to be honest. 1/4000th and the sync speed are let downs but it’s built well enough. The lacking joystick isn’t that bad once you adjust to using the dial. I spend at least 15 minutes with it and you get used to the new layout pretty quick. The top buttons are VERY nice in terms of thinning out the crap you never use and giving each button a single function.
The other big hit of the show for me was the new company thinktank is spinning off for adventure bags called mindworks. Their new rotation bag looks like it’s exactly what I’ve been chasing for a while now for landscape work. Easy/fast access to my kit w/o removing the bag by rotating the belt which has a nice size bag attached to it for some front access. Then it’s got another panel in the back for more gear as well and three tripod carrying options. Hopefully I’ll be getting one to review ASAP (they’re not shipping until March 2013).
There is a LOT more printing displayed these days which looks great. Canon, epson and B&H all had sections dedicated to print galleries and all the printing houses also had displays in their booths which looked great. I was also looking at geared tripod heads this trip as I’ve had a few times shooting lately when they’d be really handy. Not sure if I’ll commit to trying one but arca’s D4 was quite nice (and expensive unfortunately) and bogen’s lower end option wouldn’t be terrible if I could get it to use arca plates… Unique had 2 girls getting body painted all day which was odd because a TON of people flocked to that just to watch. Olympus had both new MFT bodies on display as well as the 15mm pancake/body cap and the new 17mm. Both lenses were awesome. I really want the body cap, it’s TINY! The 17mm is also fantastic, I couldn’t shoot it on my own body but I could shoot it on theirs and it’s AF was nice and quick. Much better than my 20mm. I’ll be watching for it. It was also nice to meet up with some new forum members as well as say high to the usual suspects.
the icing on the cake for me though was the flat tire on the MINI <10 minutes from home. We’ve had that car 9.5 years now with a spare living under it the entire time. It was fun figuring out how to get that out from under the car…
