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| Manfred Baumann's Photo Workshop |
In almost last minute I (we) decided to visit Photokina 2012 fair in Köln, Germany. With two of my photographers friends based in Vienna - Rafal Konkol and Robert Kolsut - we were planning outdoor shooting and then idea popped-up... let's got to Cologne for Photokina 2012, one of the biggest photography fairs in the world, definitely the biggest event in Europe. Fast idea and fast decision and trip's plan quickly evolved and matured. It is only 900 km and that can be covered in roughly 8-9 hours using German motorways...
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| Just about to enter Photokina 2012 |
We left on Friday noon and arrived to our booked room outside Cologne, in Düren, little bit before 10 p.m. Quickly unpacked and looking for some food had a chance to see this small city's centre. Could not really go off having in mind early wake up in order to be at Photokina at 10 a.m.. We decided to leave the car and travel to Cologne by train. We found out that Photokina ticket also covers train trip to and from the fair.
Finally we got there... the place huge, massive to say the least. I do not remember so many people around me with cameras and tripods. Seemed like everyone had a camera, people were shooting each other like crazy. During those few days millions of pictures must have been taken.
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| River of people all over |
Once inside, there were... there were... 1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 6, 9 halls to visit and that is 11 halls! If you think you can do in one, two days, I'd say it is tight. OK, Hall 1 was really Leica and exhibition section but then you go towards building 2 and on one side you have Canon and opposite Nikon, Panasonic with Lumix and I simply cannot remember. There was too much. I think Sony took hall 3. Canon took massive amount of space and I spent there substantial amount of time playing with new 1Dx which I will be getting during next weeks. I had a chance to touch and feel it with 70-200 lens. Absolutely amazing piece of equipment. And I will need quite some time to learn how to use it properly. Queues to test camera and lenses were massive so you had to patient, really patient.
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| Zeiss Stand |
Then in next hall... Zeiss had fantastic stand with their lenses attached to number of Canon and Nikon bodies. My first steps were to locate their quite fresh prime 15mm Distagon T* 2.8 and get few shots with it. What a glass with manual prism focusing! On the shopping list!
The list is getting longer and longer I only need to get some cash first so hope to make some sales in the near future. Tamron, especially Samsung had massive areas as well. Then come Mamiya and Haselblad. However having now in my hand Haselblad, it is not camera for me, not even thinking about the price, but this is studio camera. I cannot imagine myself wandering outdoor in crazy weather with it. I need something more ruggedized.
I had a feeling I covered all halls and stands during first day but somehow on Sunday wandering theoretically around same areas I kept finding more and more booths which I must have obviously missed day before. To cover everything thoroughly you really need 3-4 days. There is so much stuff to see and so many questions to ask... so much gear you saw and you think you'd need. I have never seen so many tripods under one roof, 90% of them from Chinese producers. They looked good but I did not trust the look only and did not get one. Actually now that I think, I have not seen stand of Manfrotto and Gitzo at all.
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| Waiting for the train back to Düren... it was late... in Germany! |
Overall impressions are fantastic, however I am disappointed a bit. You see all the gear and accessories but in most of the places you could not buy anything...except Chinese stands where you could really fight for the price especially on Sunday. Larger and known brands purely exhibited their products only teasing you. I spent some time going through really great bags and I wanted to buy one just to hear that they do not sell over there. Same with baby lenses. Blind me. On the other hand at Lee filters stand where they were only partially selling I got really good deal buying few sets for absolutely great price and got Lee book as a gift... I have been using Lee for long time and guys realized that during our conversation. The discount I got almost paid off trip costs.
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| Leica Hall |
Besides gear and sales and stuff there were so many presentations and lectures and workshops performed by well known photographers where sometimes you had problems to find free seat or good view. You need a list and schedule and move fast in between the halls.
Two days ran so fast I cannot even remember all the details and I had only 2-3 beers over all. I am still recovering from Photokina visual and mental hangover. And physical, my legs are still killing me.
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| Eagles Show during Photokina |
Cheers
Jerzy
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