Sony said nothing at PMA, but did anyone else?

[james_frater]

Now I know many people were hoping Sony announced something at PMA,

but correct me is I am wrong, but can someone tell me the new stuff

announced in the DSLR market from Canon or Nikon ????

 

Olympus, Panasonic showed stuff, but nothing really from the big 2

players in the digital SLR market.

 

Apparently Sony did not need PMA, neither did the other players..

[cmphoto1]

Nikon had blown their R&D budget on the D200, (plus a couple updated lenses). Canon had the 30D, which was a dramatic step sideways.

 

Other than that, there was a HUGE number of P&S cameras.

 

Check out DPReview.com. They had a really good write-up.

 

But, right, no real fireworks.

 

chad

[clinton_abe]

J.S.- Don't forget that Pentax showed new DSLRs at PMA. However, PMA has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. All of the digital camera companies are attending CES nowadays. Just two years ago, Kodak started to show at CES and has a display area of about 2000 square ft. The whole of CES took up over 3,000,000 square ft. of space. And this year, Nikon attended for the first time. Also, this is a Photokina year, and it is still considered the BIG photo show. Next year, PMA will hit Las Vegas, which is a more popular location for attendees, and I think attendance will go up.

[bill_thorlin]

In chronological order :-

 

"Sony needed PMA"

 

"Sony did make a statement at PMA"

 

"Sony said nothing at PMA, but did anyone else ?"

 

Pre-dating all of these a play by Shakespeare entitled "Much Ado About Nothing".

[james_frater]

Me thinks someone here has too much time on their hands, and protests too much abouts everything.

[bill_thorlin]

Now that is truly hilarious !

[ellis_vener_photography]

"Olympus, Panasonic showed stuff, but nothing really from the big 2 players in the digital

SLR market. Apparently Sony did not need PMA, neither did the other players..."

 

You also left out Samsung and Sigma.

 

And like a lot of armchair quarterbacks, you are mostly wrong in your analysis. But it is

true that PMA 2006 is apparently much less of a show for dealers than it used to be. I

think a lot of that is the rise of internet sales and the demise of smaller local dealers and

labs.

 

However like a lot of trade shows and Fashion Week in NYC PMA was a good place to spot

trends for the upcoming year. And from what I saw, from what I overheard people talking

about and from taking with other journalists who cover the photographic industry

The general consensus is that the big PMA 2006 story is smoothing the digital workflow

to make making exploiting the capabilities of digital photography a more user friendly

process : iView Media Pro, Apple Aperture, Adobe Lightroom, Nikon Capture NX, Bibble

Pro, and Peter Krogh's "The DAM Book" were the stars in this arena.

 

Nikon's big announcement was indeed software: Nikon Capture NX, which is significantly

more powerful than most raw image processing software. Nikon Capture NX incorporates

Nik Media software so you can now do much of what you previously needed Adobe

Photoshop CS2 to do. Manipulations that are possible in NC NX include selective burning,

dodging, tonal and color manipulation, sharpening, and sizing for printing. Smartly,

Nikon is not repeating their earlier mistake of saying you don't need Photoshop CS2.

Because these manipulations that the form of instructions sets saved with the NEF image ,

they are non-destructive to the original NEF image which remains in its pristine raw state.

NC NX runs significantly faster with the same computer resourses than previous versions

of Nikon Capture. I think these improvements will (finally) justify the separate price for

Nikon Capture. My (unsolicited advice to the Nikon execs I met with is that it should be

bundled with the D2X).

 

Camera wise from Canon there was the 30D , which is a definite evolutionary improvement

over the 20D, and a new lens, a 17-55mm f/2.8 EF-S lens for the 1.6x factor (APS-C)

format Canon's: the D30, D60, 10D, 20D and 30D cameras. there was also talk about a

new version of an evolutionary upgrade to the 1Ds mk. 2 but I forgot to ask the Canon

execs I met with about this.

 

As well as announcing the EOS 30D camera, Canon showed new printers which look like

they will give Epson a run for the money. Canon has a lot of money to spend on marketing

and product development , so I think they will be looking for a slice of what has been

pretty much Epson's Epson's pie. HP will be at the table too.

 

Given the improvements in chip technology and image processing tools in the camera and

software, I think 24x36mm format DSLRs are going to remain higher priced specialty items

for a while longer.

 

This was the general consensus gathered from my own observations and talking with

other journalists who were there is that the big PMA 2006 story is smoothly the digital

workflow and making exploiting the capabilities of digital photography a more user

friendly process : iView Media Pro, Apple Aperture, Adobe Lightroom, Nikon Capture NX,

Bibble Pro, and Peter Krogh's "The DAM Book" were the stars in this arena.

 

The rise of the Chinese as manufacturers of camera and studio equipment was very

evident. The best of this lot appears to be Benro. Much of this gear looks to be heavily

based on Gitzo and Manfrotto (AKA Bogen in the USA) designs.

 

Not much news in the lighting department. Metz's new line of flashes and a new product

called the Rololight.

 

MItsubishi showed some really nice printers for event photographers or anyone else who

needs to produce 4x6 to 8x10 prints quickly.

 

Epson also showed the new V-700 Photo and V-750M Professional scanners. The V-750M

looks extremely promising.

 

Sony didn't say anything about their forthcoming DSLR because they aren't ready too. But

it is going to be here shortly.

 

Wacom's booth was popular too.

 

Phase One was handing out lots P-45 digital backs for people to take home. (just joking:

they weren't doing that)

[greg_heil1]

Well ... Sony MAY have said something, but it was behind closed doors: press by invitation only. Kiklop (of Dyxum) apparently was privately contacted before all that and he has been putting out enthusing nuances since. Any press here who can at least say if there was mention in the private briefing of what we can expect? Don't want you to blow your credentials just maybe stop all this foolish fretting about Sony's "silence".

[craig_gillette]

Sony, like KM, if like the typical Japanese company, is very close-mouthed. The customer, (or employees), will be told what the customer needs to know when the customer needs to know it. They've announced, as has KM, that there will be a dslr/dslrs this summer. Given the relatively short span of time since the major announcements, I don't think it's a big deal that they haven't said more.

 

Speculating, were they to have had an imminent release of a KM dslr, then assuming solid schedule and building on an existing product, one might hear more - but that line(s) may have been terminated with prejudice or may not have been moving any faster than the other KM dslrs' glacial progress. (I'd personally love parallel product lines, but not with mutual leave-outs - I don't believe in the show biz "always leave them wanting more.")

 

Regardless of the input from KM, I doubt we'd see schedule "dates" before they are actually rock solid. Plants and workforces are changing, support structures are changing, "new" products are being brought on line. Even well planned, giving a date to rabid customers will result in raucous speculation, so why bother?

[craig_gillette]

Speaking of speculating, can we stir the tea leaves and wonder if Ellis posting here is significant? Gasp, who does he know? What does he know? When did he know it?

[ellis_vener_photography]

When setting up press meetings prior to PMA I asked Sony's PR people specifically about

the DSLR. they said they weren't going to be able to discuss it.