Just a Thought - Inside the Photo Marketing Association Convention and Trade Show

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The Orlando Convention Center hosted the Photo Marketing Association Convention and Trade Show this week. Imaging professionals of every kind turned the spacious trade show floor into a crowded high-tech marketplace. Vendors, both international and local, displayed hardware and software that can aid the professional at every step of photo production. The list of vendors includes all the heavy hitters: Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Sony Fuji, Olympus, HP, and of course, Apple.

PMA 2006

If you can imagine taking all the lights and glitz of The Strip in Las Vegas and cramming it all into an area roughly the size of eleven football fields and you'd have some idea of the energy this show exudes.

On the Trade Show Floor

Booths, people, models, people, cameras, people, printers, tripods, and other photographic equipment, and still more people. Vendors did not disappoint anyone looking for the latest and greatest.

Canon arguably had the largest booth with a huge screen that showed off the latest in its line of consumer, prosumer, and pro cameras, video cameras, and printers. Of interest to the pros was the new EOS 30D, an incremental upgrade from the 20D that sports a larger LCD screen, among other performance improvements. The big news from Canon, however, is its new line of consumer cameras headlined by the S3IS, which supplants the S2IS as the top dog of Canon's consumer offerings. The S3IS offers, among other improvements, a 12x zoom (versus a 10x on the S2IS), higher ISO speeds (800 versus 400 in the S3IS), and a slicker black body (the S2IS is silver).

Canon is also offering a new member to its compact SD line; the SD 700 which includes image stabilization in a very small, very sleek package.

Right across the aisle, Olympus had professional photographer Jay Dickman showing off photos he took while on assignment in different parts of the world using the new e-330 and e-500 DSLRs. The photos were excellent examples of the capabilities of the e-330, with its Liveview feature: Liveview displays a continuous live image of your subject in the camera's 2.5 inch extendable LCD screen, even while snapping the photos, which allows you to take shots that might be hard, if not impossible to take using a DSLR that sports a standard mirror/prism system. The e-330 accomplishes this feat by using a second imaging system design expressly for the LCD screen. 

The big news about the 8 megapixel (MP) e-500 is that it offers loads of features and the ability to use Olympus' fine E-System lenses and accessories for a street price of about US$600 (body only) and under $1000 for the body and two (14-45mm and 40-150mm) lenses. It's quite a deal, and I may have found my next camera.

Casio was showing off its new slim EX-S600 and EX-Z850 cameras.  Both cameras include image stabilization, a 3x optical zoom lens, and MPEG-4 quality movies, but the EX-S600 gives you 6 MP, a big 2.2 inch LCD screen, and the ability to take up to 300 photos per charge while the EX-S850 offers 8MP, a 2.5 inch screen, and can take up to 440 photos on a single charge.

There were lots of other camera vendors, of course; Nikon, Panasonic, Fuji, and Kodak to name a few, but accessory vendors also had a lot to show.

For instance, Epson, the company best known for its top quality printers, was showing the P-2000 and P-4000 portable photo storage devices. These devices sport 40GB (the P-2000) or 80GB (the P-4000) hard drives, Compact Flash and SD card slots, USB 2.0 connectivity, and a huge 3.5 inch LCD screen that can display your photos in quality that has to be seen to be believed. Both units support a large variety of file formats, including digital video and audio files, and will let you display and play back these files on a whim. The P-Series portable storage devices are Mac and PC compatible, and can let you print your photos directly to an Epson printer. Very handy.

Nokia displayed another portable device that, at first, may not seem to be something photographers would be interested in: The 770 Internet Tablet is a small, pocketable device that will let you connect to the Web via its built-in WiFi. It has high resolution 800x480 display that does a really good job of rendering Web pages, allowing you to zoom into areas of interest. You can download music, videos and more just by logging in at one of your favorite hot spots.

What some people may find really intriguing is its ability to let you upload files: For instance, you can take your MMC card full of photos from a recent shoot and upload them to your .Mac account or other online service while you are out in the 'wild', thus freeing up the card for more photos. This could be very cool depending on upload speed. (I've one for testing, so stay tuned.)

Whither Thou Art, Apple?

Of course, the company that Jobs built and rebuilt has done a good job in keeping itself in the forefront of an industry it helped foster. So, I was hoping that Apple would have a booth at the show, but when I checked the list of vendors on the PMA site I did not see Apple listed. I had feared the worst, but much to my relief, Apple was there with a booth of respectable size to give demos of the latest version of Aperture (version 1.1). Along either side of Apple's booth were Macs (not of the Intel variety) set up to allow hands-on play.

Speaking of Macs, as I wandered around the trade show floor I took note of how many Macs I saw. In truth, I was a bit disappointed. Oh, there are Macs around, to be sure, and most were of the latest G5 iMac variety, but the numbers were not what I had hoped. Canon and Olympus both had Macs running somewhere in their display, but not so for Fuji Film, Kodak, or Nikon.

Behind and Beyond The Show

Since I live in Orlando I decided to check out the trade show floor the day before it was to open, and I was amazed at the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes of a trade show like PMA. It's like the floor is covered with ants, each moving his or her bit of material to just the right place to create something functional. For instance, it was mesmerizing to watch twenty-foot tall LED video display at Canon's booth being put together and come to life. Well, maybe mesmerizing to a gadget freak, like me.

Hanging out between show sessions was much fun too. There happened to be a SciFi convention, called MegaCon, going on in another nearby section of the convention center, and now and again you'd spot a Vulcan, an X-wing pilot, one of the members of the rock band, Kiss, or Odin, king of the Norse gods, bedecked with staff, sandals, and beard cruising the halls.

But, SciFi characters were not the only oddity cruising the hallway of the Orange County Convention Center, frequently you'll see a guy cruise by on a Segway, usually with a cellphone pressed against his ear. And there must have been a cheerleader competition somewhere nearby as well because scattered in the crowd are cheerleaders all decked out in short skirts and school colors. Toss in a healthy dollop of Japanese press, who tend to travel in small packs, and you've got a really great place to people watch.

Anyway, check out the photo gallery that accompanies this article for some shots from the show floor.

The PMA Trade Show ended March 1, 2006 

is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He's been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.

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