Photokina 2012: First Impressions

Photokina girl showing the new Fuji X-E1 mirrorless with EVF

I have just returned from my first trip thru some of this year's Photokina booths.

First things first: I've met Adam and Oleg from pentaxforums.com and it was great and very enjoyable to assign faces to big names :) They even gave me an official pentaxforums.com shirt which I really enjoyed.

Of course, this is before official opening and most booths and some halls are still blocked, esp. to the to the press. But I had a chance to have a glimpse at most of the recently announced stuff. It is all here :)



Pentax

Pentax said that the new AF in the K-5II does more easily lock in situations where the K-5 would begin to struggle. They have a nice demo of the 560/5.6 super tele coupled to the new Q10 :)

No signs of a K-3 or anything above the K-5II. I personally do not believe Pentax is launchning a full frame anytime soon. There may probably be an update to the SLR line spring next year.

I had the honor to meet James Malcom from Pentax USA and Wolfgang Baus from Pentax Europe.


Nikon

Of course, Nikon has an array of D600 ready to try out.

I had the chance to make a couple of test shots with the D600 and I may be wrong, but the shutter noise of the D600 is a pleaseant surprise for me: Relatively silent and smooth, definitely more on the D7000 than the D800 side of things, if not more silent.


Canon

Same for Canon: Many of the new 6D to try and test. To my hands, it didn't feel as solid as some other full frame bodies do, but that's certainly subjective. I am sure it is a nice camera :)

Canon said that there won't be any additional announcements at Photokina from Canon.


Sony

Sony has all its new  gadgets to show, RX1, VG900, A99. Nice. And all full frame. I didn't notice any other announcements. The image of the RX1 above is such that one should be able to determine dimensions of the body w/o lens. It wasn't possible to touch the RX1. There is only one here in Cologne.

Fuji

Fuji has the new X-E1 on display (cf. title image).


Leica

Leica will have a big announcements this night (7 PM European Summer Time) in hall 1. I have been able to have a glimpse at their hall before I was discovered. I promised not to say anything. But it looks big. More will be in a separate blog post.

Below is their special entrance area reserved for invited guests tonight.

to be continued ...