Off to Bangkok for the annual Photo Fair at BITEC. Attending the Photo Fair is the same as going to a tech-inclined mall, but with more noise; thanks to the hundreds of “pretties” simultaneously screaming into microphones about products they know nothing about, whilst attempting to retain the centimetre thick layers of make-up caked on their faces.
The front of the show has always featured large displays from Canon and Nikon.
This year it was refreshing to see both Somy and Olympus with a presence. Olympus in particular had a big stand, mainly focused on the EM=5.
Even Panasonic, master of wanky marketing, had bothered to turn up and I had a nice little play with the new G5; a fine machine. Fuji also had a presence and their bodies look good, just a shame that their lens selection doesn’t need much shelf space.
The camera I really wanted to see was of course the ground-breaking Canon EOS-M.
How good it was to finally hold one; to run my hands over it’s gorgeous body, unencumbered by anything as crude as controls. With a frisson of excitement I pointed the magnificent lens at a Canon assistant and pressed the shutter half way to obtain focus. Would it be as slow as reviews indicated? No, it wasn’t; it was slower.
I asked the assistant which bit of the camera featured “agility”? He didn’t know, but I guessed it was the moment it bounced off the wall after you threw it in frustration having failed to focus on anything in less than a minute.
I was half interested in lighting solutions and quite liked this:
For a while I imagined filling the tent with bar girls and snapping away; then I stopped imagining that and decided I should concentrate on my main mission for the day.
Nik wanted me to look out for a lens hood for his new Olympus 60mm macro, which I had rather enjoyed playing with. Found a shop that had them in stock, and then made a bit of a mistake and for some inexplicable reason I bought two. This means I was stuck with a spare lens hood for a 60mm macro, so the only solution was to buy the lens to go with it (I am refining this story to tell to she who must be obeyed when she gets home).
New lens (and hood) mounted, I went off to take some photos. Played with products placed in light boxes for a while:
But that soon became boring, so I pointed the lens at some pretties instead, not all of whom are the same gender:
The macro seemed to do an OK job, especially with varying lights and ISO up to 3200.
The star of the show, for me, was the Olympus OMD EM-5, and it seemed that others agreed. When I bought the lens hoods there were three people with credit cards on the table buying the camera. The Fuji offerings looked good too, and a couple of large Sony RX1 photos hanging in the lobby looked spectacular. No sign of the camera yet.
A fun way to fill a couple of hours. The Photo Fair is on until Sunday; but given the large crowds today, I expect it will be rammed at the weekend.
Comments 🔗
2012-11-29| Robin Parmar saysAfter investing so much in the lens hood it was inevitable the lens would follow. I am one with that logic. :-)
2012-11-30| Grant saysYou’re so right Robin! I once bought a very nice set of Hartford telecontrol shock absorbers, much later I bought the whole 30-98 Vauxhall they’d been removed from decades before…
2012-11-30| Pete saysThere’s an interesting train of logic here - I’m trying to figure out how I can get it past my own financial director …..
2012-12-01| Grant saysTrain of logic yes - but to get it past anyone in “the system” it first needs to be lightly derailed…
2012-12-01| Spacefruit saysI was thinking that a new macro lens might be the weapon you needed to defeat the watch…
Go on, try again?
2012-12-01| Spike saysI feel the problem is light rather than lens; but I could have another go provided you know who hasn’t broken it.