photokina 2002 Gary L. Friedman crossed the pond to report for us from photokina – his fi rst visit to the biennial photo show, arriving with no prior expectations, and briefed to avoid covering all the ground the press releases would fi ll in…

will forgo the big announce- System placement interactively as ments – the Canon EOS 1DS, an afterthought! This obscure prod- the Olympus/ 4/3 pro- uct points the way to the future, I posed digital standard, and you saw it here fi rst. The and others – you can read about camera, sans lens, sells for a mere these just about anywhere. Instead £11,688… I will concentrate on bringing you You say the 200-year life of the interesting and innovative your archival acid-free B&W prints products that the other headlines is too short? Meet The Metal will likely miss. Photo from Woo Youn Master of Or I’ll talk about interesting Science Co., Ltd, Korea. They own yet unimportant things, like how a process where a B&W image is Canon and Nikon tried to out-do screened and then permanently each other in terms of buying fl oor engraved into a sheet of metal. space, yet both were dwarfed by They claim this print method will Fujifi lm and Kodak displays… last 20,000 years (1,000 years if outdoors). The samples they pro- The Unusual vided looked pretty decent, like a high-quality newspaper photo that Let’s start with the unusual. Sphe- had been bronzed. Steel or copper ron VR AG claims to be the fi rst mediums translate roughly to cold full-spherical in tone black or warm sepia in the fi - the world. That is, just like a 360° nal product – ideal for gravestones, camera will translate a cylindri- not continuous tone fi ne art prints. cal section in to a 2-dimensional An 11 x 14 “enlargement” will run rectangle, a spherical camera will to £230. www.koreamemo.com render an entire sphere on to a If you do studio work and are rectangle, including the sky and looking for an in-camera way to the the camera’s sitting on. do projected backdrops, the Scene Useful for building virtual reality Machine by Virtual Backdrops is environments, and converting worth a look. Adding to the stand- directly to QuicktimeVR, this can ard half-silvered beam splitter and save loads of time shooting and projector in front of the camera is stitching an environment together a special highly-directional refl ec- by hand. It is essentially a 360° tive screen from 3M. At £1,900 for camera with a fi sheye lens, and a basic setup, it’s not the cheapest software to remove the tripod but it is one of the more effective artifacts on the bottom and “heal” front-screen processes I’ve seen, the sky on the top. and still keeping going despite the What is probably the most competition from digital backdrops. notable achievement in this prod- You can of course use it with fi lm uct is the sensor (which Spheron or digital . www.Virtualbac developed in-house). It has a lati- kgrounds.net tude of 26 stops! They showed an The Loreo Lens-in-a-cap series impressive image of two helicop- is exactly what its name implies ters inside their hangar, and all the – a variety of 35mm body caps shadow detail in the cockpit and which have 1-element instama- the outside highlights through the tic-type 35mm lenses embedded window had all detail intact. Now within. It turns any SLR with aper- imagine what this would mean to ture priority into a point-and-shoot “normal” once this with an ƒ5.6 to ƒ64 range. At ƒ64 technology trickles down. the covers 50 Don’t worry about exposing for cm to infi nity. It’s also available as shadows and developing for high- a shift-lens (pictured) with a 3-ele- lights; just shoot for the average of ment 35mm ƒ11 to ƒ22 lens, with the scene (and you can even be off about 3.5mm shift in any direction. by half a dozen stops), and have Image quality was decent, but for the computer compress the image The Dom at night (all by Gary Friedman on Dimage the £8.27 price (£11.45 for the for you after the fact. Or, go to 7i, except on next page). A view of the main halls, and above, PC-Shift version) who cares? It fi ts your computer and play with Zone Metal Photo for 20,000 year archival print life. Is she worth it…? Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and M-

7 screw-mounts. If that’s not unusual Above left: lots of tricks were used by companies to lure the mostly which was designed specifically to enough for you, they also make male attendees into their booths. In this case a painted model was communicate with this camera (but body caps with lenses that can posing by a medium-format vendor’s booth. Above right: one-of-a-kind will be able to work with others). take stereo pictures (two images 3-D cameras, such as this stereo Canon T90, were on display by RBT You can probably imagine how on an split frame, non-interlaced). (“Raumbildtechnik”) stereo enthusiast’s club. great the output looks. www.loreo.com I had an in-depth discussion with Lave Tenne, the camera’s Hidden eye primary designer, and he gave me some interesting insights into the More on the unusual front: fans camera’s five-year development. of who don’t You’ll notice an absence of the like to get beaten up by their words “Carl Zeiss” from any of the subjects would be interested in H1’s marketing brochures. That’s Pretec Electronics Corp’s new Pen because Uncle Carl was too busy to Cam which really does look like a accommodate Hasselblad’s request pen (it even writes!). The pen top to design new lenses, and so Fuji contains a very tiny lens which got the contract. Lave was incred- feeds a 1.3MP sensor, and the pen Above: the digital Pen Cam, for spies. Below: the Loreo lens in a cap, in ibly impressed with the diligence can store 500 images before they various flavours, turns an SLR into a snapshot or pinhole equivalent. of the Japanese designers, and says have to be downloaded via a serial the Fujinon lenses even have an link. There is even a “surveillance” edge over the older Zeiss optics for mode where the camera snaps a the stringent digital needs. picture whenever anything passes Other components were out- in front of it. The back of the pen sourced as well: Minolta did the contains the release and a autofocus and the bright focusing tiny 2-digit LCD display. screen; the in-lens shutter was The unit is so new that no outsourced to an anonymous com- sample images were available at pany in Sweden, and the display/ the booth, nor was anyone there user interface was done by Sony able to demonstrate to me how Ericson’s cell phone team, which it works. The biggest disappoint- is why it has the familiar feel of a ment for me was the fact that cell phone. The H-1 and the Kodak you must be holding the pen (and digital back also talk to each other; preferably looking through the allowing you to view the image’s tiny hole/viewfinder at the top) in histogram on the camera’s low- order to take a picture; I wouldn’t power LCD display rather than on mind modifying one so it can be the power-hungry TFT display fired by remote control (while my on the digital back. hand is in my jacket pocket, for Lave admitted he was very nerv- example). Or even better, take all ous about the product’s introduc- the guts and hide it in a hat to tion until the official unveiling better ensure proper when on Tuesday, when the crowd of shooting blind. Lots of possibilities journalists politely applauded the here. The expected price will be camera’s introduction. Then he £76. www.pretec.com knew he had done the job right. Like many camera brands, Hassie ’Blad with a pop-up has an almost religious following, and changing something so drasti- It’s a dual introduction, really. Has- cally (in addition to making very selblad introduced their new H-1, The Hasselblad H1 was the only real ‘film star’ of photokina, and Fuji will little of it backwards compatible which is a 645 format with autofo- no doubt feel the same for their Japanese-market-only version. We must with exiting equipment) was a very cus and motorized film advance. At thank Hasselblad for their invitation to attend the full launch of the large risk. the same time, Kodak announced new system, but to do so would have meant missing several other Press The unit feels and handles like their new 16 Megapixel DCS Pro Day launches as they held this in a private location some miles from a large 35mm AF SLR, not unlike Back 645H digital camera back photokina. That 35mm really has a Distagon look to it… the , , and

8 9 pioneers in this field. The big dif- ference is the user interface and better integration with the digital back. And, of course, the pop-up flash! The retail price has not yet been set; a reference price for a complete set (lens, magazine, view- finder) would be between £3,500 and £4,200, available by November 2002. www.hasselblad.com Innovation in rollfilm Spandex-clad dancers were a common theme throughout the Olympus booth. Right: Another common trick to lure attendees into a booth. If you think that all “new” features Will they stop at nothing? of medium-format cameras are just things the 35mm consumer world pioneered 15 years earlier, think again! The Horseman X-Act-D is a which offers a sliding back plate that switches between ground glass and the film or digital have successfully incorporated back at the push of a button. And AF into their platforms (Mamiya, since the slide can be under Contax, Pentax), this had the feel computer control (specifically their of a tank motor driving the AF, in ISS-G2 control unit) a skilled pho- small uncertain bursts which not tographer could actually use this only took a long time but made and a digital back as a horizontal a lot of noise in the process. An shift lens, taking multiple images experienced user might not gain a few degrees apart, forming one anything by going to this model; long rectangular image, and then on the other hand I believe it’s the stitching the image together only 6 x 6 format that now offers later in a computer. Although it is AF. designed to accommodate a myriad ’s latest foray into the dig- digital backs, there’s no reason a ital realm, the 5 megapixel d530, plain old film back can’t be used if is almost as disappointing. At least you’re looking for more conven- the AF is as quiet as it is slow, and ience. www.komamura.co.jp/e/ the motorized zoom feature slows you down and consumes more 3-minute wonders batteries to boot. Not a responsive tool; but then again, I am told Now for the “I handled the camera it was shown at Focus in Britain for three minutes” Department. in February, and that it is not Canon EOS 1DS – it’s big, exactly visible in the marketplace. heavy, handles like an EOS 1D and www.rollei.de costs £3,800 (though we heard Sigma SD9 – “the last of the £5,000 later on). It is also 11 pre-production cameras”. They’ve megapixels and digital. Enough been saying that for a while! This said. The Horseman sliding digital back holder on a 5 x 4 system. Sliding backs is the first digital camera to use Rolleiflex 6008 AF (with the are not new, but this one can be controlled by computer, servo operated, the Foveon X3 chip, which works 80mm Xenotar ƒ2.8 – one of three and even stepped across the image field to provide a stitch-together differently from all other image AF lenses available for it now). panoramic image. It also works with film… sensors. Don’t expect to fall in I was woefully disappointed by love with the build quality, but the the AF’s, umm, “lack of grace”. camera is well designed and has Compared to other MF brands that a very simple and intuitive user interface despite being digital. Removing the Sigma-mount lens reveals an unexpected but welcome glass plate for sealing the mirror, shutter, and sensor against dust and moisture. The shutter is not as well- damped as some higher-end 35mm bodies, and there’s no PC sync con- nector, but the autofocus is decent and quiet, and the camera is very responsive. A bargain at £1,130. But I didn’t bring up the best part about this camera – the image quality is phenomenal! 26 x 40” enlargements adorning the Foveon Above: crowds at the Voigtländer booth. Left: a trained dog on booth looked like medium-format a radio-controlled scooter was a real crowd pleaser outside of Cibachromes! the convention hall. It was not obvious why he was there or Foveon folks were quick to point who the sponsor was. out (as I’m sure they were doing all

8 9 week) that their 3 MP chip cannot or vacuuming) is the Kinetron- be compared to other 3 MP chips ics SpeckGRABBER. It is merely of conventional design. And al- a flexible stick tipped with a very though they were very tight-lipped malleable rubber piece on the end about future products and partners, – it easily picks up dust pieces the they did seem to indicate that their same way your finger does, but next projects all deal with smaller without contaminating the surface chip sizes and higher densities. with oils or other nasty stuff. This, along with the Olympus/ Probably a lifesaver for remov- Kodak 4/3 announcement (read on ing particulates from CCDs, the for more details on this) and the product sells for a mere £1.87. realization that the small digitals www.kinetronics.europe.de are by far outselling the retrofitted A company called DPS Promatic 35mm SLRs, leads me to believe makes a low-res camera with that the future of digital will be a built-in GSM phone module more like the DiMAGE 7i or Coolpix – it can accept SMS messages 5700 in terms of form factor and as a command (“Take a picture”), backwards-compatibility with and upload the picture to a 35mm SLRs. www.sigmaphoto.com specified location, all wirelessly. Leica R9, which continues to www.dpspro.com look and handle exactly like its The Steady Stick is a low-tech predecessors. With the exception of camera stabilizing system that high-speed sync flash capabilities, doesn’t employ gyros (okay, it’s a there is little major improvement stick, but very well-designed and over the R8, but it is a more re- will do a very decent job for not- fined camera. Some of the smaller that-much money). £276; available improvements include: immediately. www.steadystick.de. • 1/10th of a stop control for Rollei makes the Rolleivi- Shutter Priority and Program mode sion Twin MSC 535 P dual-slide • 2nd display on the back which projector with built-in dissolve shows ASA and some control func- capability. Technically, this isn’t tions. news since the unit’s been avail- • Magnesium top plate with a The lens trial areas – secured chained and locked, alarmed and surveilled able since 1995 and had many special coating that resists corro- – are very popular at photokina. Leica and Canon both have theatre- predecessors, but I wish I had sion. style set ups. Agfa’s entire hall, above, was very dramatic in design. known about it before I designed • Easier-to-read coun- my own dissolve unit from scratch ter 3 fps by winding manually. It also are still the same as my 1980s back in 1985! • “Level Correction” – essentially comes in an olive green version, era model (which in turn were the A Czech Republic company for multi- last seen on the Leica R3 Sa- same as anyone else’s 1940s era called Lomographische AG has pattern . fari. Word has it that this camera model!). 1/500 top , a camera lineup with a cult fol- • Rear-curtain flash sync doesn’t suffer from the long list of flash sync at 1/30; and a new lowing: the Lomo L-CA is a tiny Leica also introduced 3 new compatibility problems that similar feature: the shutter release button point-and-shoot very similar to lenses: a 15mm ƒ2.8, 21-35mm machines (such as the RF now stops down the lens automati- the old Olympus XA, and follow-on ƒ3.4-4, and a new 90mm ƒ2. and the Minolta CLE) suffered cally before taking the picture… products can take 3, 4, or even 9 www.leica-camera.com from. A new compact 7-element Their native market prices are pictures on one frame. Similar to Bessa R2 – Cosina Voigtlander is 50/2.5 Color Skopar lens was astoundingly low – £33 gets you the Diana plastic camera from the taking dead aim at the introducto- introduced with the Bessa R2. The their high-end body (with TTL “+ 1960s, lots of artists and ordi- ry level M mount market, the same 50/2.5 will be available in black or 0 -” LED metering) and a 50mm nary people shoot every aspect of market which Leica has ignored silver. www.voigtlaender.de ƒ2 lens, which makes this the everyday life with their cameras, for close to a half a century. The perfect introductory camera for and now a new book has been R2 is a much improved Bessa R, Old Friends the beginner with no aspirations published compiling over 2000 an all-mechanical camera with for upgrading. However, you can images taken by 250 people from instead of screw I also ran across companies that watch the price triple itself as 40 countries using these cameras. mount, metal exterior body, trigger were like old friends from whom the camera makes its way across Throw out everything you ever winder capability, +/0/- LED meter- I have not heard in a long time. Europe. www.zenit-foto.ru learned about technique, composi- ing, ratcheted film advance, and Praktica is still around (or at least Fotospeed was there as well tion, sharpness, and exposure; much improved body covering and their name is, which is gracing (giving their regards to this maga- throw in every bad picture you scratch-resistant splatter paint fin- at least 50 different varieties of zine’s editorial staff), offering their ever discarded and enhance the ish as compared to the “R”. Closest point-and-shoots), and Alpa is historic/alternative photo papers effect with the garish of comparison would be with a Leica still kicking, concentrating on and chemicals. Each chemistry kit outdated film and you’ll have an CL with an exceptionally bright niche-market roll-film cameras comes with instructions on how idea for the flavour of this book. viewfinder (brighter than an M6). and introducing two new shift to light-sensitize your own papers, Definitely worth a look, although It actually went on sale in Japan and slide versions of the Alpa 12. plus software and large blank you might find yourself grumbling on April 1st 2002, and the UK not www.alpa.ch transparency so you can create “I throw out better pictures than long after, so this isn’t exactly Then there’s Zenit, the Russian your 1:1 contact using an this!” Ahh, the world of art… “new” to Freelance readers (already camera maker. Think of your stere- inkjet printer. www.fotospeed.com. www.lomography.com fully tested) but it was to me, they otype Soviet-era consumer goods, And although this wasn’t really don’t have the same impact in and you have a good feel for Unexpected surprises new or unexpected, the Epson the USA. And it does carry some what Zenit used to produce. Zenit booth was showing off the output features that have not appeared in now has a lineup of five amaz- In the “Why didn’t I think of of the 2100 pigment-based printer other cameras in years – it has a ingly similar camera bodies and six that?” department, an embarrass- with expanded gamut. Yeow! bottom-operated “trigger winder”, lenses, and although the cosmetics ingly simple yet effective method I gotta get me one of those! for example, which a skilled pho- of the cameras have been brought of removing dust specs from just www.epson-europe.com tographer could use to shoot up to up to date, the all-mechanical guts about anything (without blowing Even more unexpected (since

10 11 this has nothing at all to do with Perhaps Minolta is waiting to imaging) – many stands were join the Olympus/Kodak 4/3 Digital selling a Swiss-developed super System standard (which was also glue that actually works the way it announced at the show) which does in the superglue commercials. specifies a common platform Superglue doesn’t actually work designed around a future standard well in most situations... I was so of large 4/3-type CCDs, including impressed I bought a set. interchangeable lens mounts. The picture size is smaller than 35mm 3D Mania half-frame, so the lenses could be very neat indeed, but resolution The show had no shortage of could be up in the same megapixel inexpensive point-and-shoots, bracket as the new SLRs. digital wallet clones, and different The idea being a system methods of producing pseudo- designed around the chip from 3D images. Only two I felt were the ground up will be better and worthy of mention, oddly both smaller than a retrofitted 35mm or fall into the “pseudo-3D using the APS design, plus maybe for once lenticular plastic sheets” category camera manufacturers can agree (the kind that are often found on on a standard (Pentax baseball cards). screw, K, and Leica M mounts are A firm from Hong Kong Colour now almost the only standards Towne HK Ltd has a process for around). Let’s hope this initiative scanning a single 2-D catches on better than the Kodak and turning it into a pseudo-3D Photo CD standard. www.olympus- lenticular picture. Their propri- europa.com/FourThirds etary software accepts a scan of a normal print, and then outputs Overheard in conversation a massaged version on to a Canon inkjet printer. Coat with the plastic • Fuji’s acclaimed Frontier 1-hour lens and voila! No need to take lab system can automatically and merge dozens of images (as is detect if the images being proc- usually the case). How they can tell essed were shot using their cheap what is foreground and background disposable cameras by observing without human intervention is characteristic distortion of their beyond me. They sell components plastic lenses, and then correct for at £1.27 each in quantities of 500. all of its deficiencies. Thus a Fuji [email protected] disposable, processed through their Equally impressive (in terms of Frontier lab can produce Nikon- the technology behind the tool, quality images! rather than the results themselves) • Digital technology has dis- is a firm in Jerusalem called torted the traditional film-based HumanEyes which has developed business model so much, manu- a technology to create panoramic facturers are now considering a 3D stereo images from still photo dumbed-down technology to sell sequences or a video clip. to the mass market: proprietary Although this is closer to the way write-once memory cards for their such lenticular pictures are usu- point-and-shoot digital cameras. ally made, HumanEyes completely The established consumer photo eliminates the need to calibrate industry likes the idea since it the camera angles while shooting provides a revenue stream identical – just shoot 35 images each at a to the film-based model, and they slightly different angle, and feed Cologne Cathedral is one of the believe it will appeal to the aver- it to the computer – the compu- most magnificent (perhaps even age consumer since no paradigm ter figures out what the angles intimidating) structures to be shift needs to occur in their minds. were, and reconstructs the scene found anywhere. It took seven • A slightly more honest but just knowing where the background is centuries to build, beginning in as sinister plot is being considered and how far away each element is. 1248. Right: the Minolta Flash for the future, when cameras, Then the inkjet and lens treat- Meter VI took a little less time digital music players, and wireless ment as with the Color Towne to create, but even its EV-2.0 communication devices will all be process. Their system is available reading might but inadequate for integrated into one unit. When you for lease only, at £6,358 per year. the dramatic gloom of the Dom’s take a picture with such a unit, www.humaneyes.com furthest recesses. each picture automatically gets sent wirelessly to a pre-selected What Wasn’t Introduced over the pending release of a new for their new lenses was being photofinisher, so the user only line of lenses containing Canon- discussed. Minolta did introduce need pick them up (skipping the Probably the biggest disappoint- like ultrasonic motors. For some two new handheld meters (the boring step of dropping them off). ment of the show was the (lack reason the Vectis-based RD-3000 Flashmeter VI is an incident, 1° This sort of locks the customer in of) a true digital SLR offering from didn’t meet anyone’s needs! viewfinder spot, and flash meter all with one lab. It’ll be interesting to Minolta, whose fans have been Sadly, the folks I spoke to at in one – nicely done!), a consumer see how difficult they make the clamouring loudly for something the booth had no knowledge of a , and a 3.3 Megapixel process of switching (like the cell which can leverage their sub- DSLR even being developed (but ‘i’ version of the tiny DiMAGE X, phone companies do now) in order stantial investments in lenses and were sick of hearing people ask which is a very popular camera. to retain fickle customers. flashes, and have been salivating them about it!) and no release date www.minoltaeurope.com Ì

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