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Photokina 2008
By John Latta, WAVE 0815 12/8/08

Cologne, Germany
September 24-26, 2008

Photokina happens every 2 years and is the premier event in all aspects of photography. The venue, the koelnmessa, has improved significantly. But one still has to walk extensively to see the exhibits.

Here are some points of note.

GfK released data on the imaging market. The worldwide market for digital cameras will grow from 127m units in 2007 to 140m units in2008.

In 2008 the market, worldwide, has sifted dramatically to cameras with between 7 and 9Mp. While in 2007 it was only 6Mp.

DSLR camera sales make up 9% of the market in West Europe, 11% in Japan and 8% in the US.

Sony is making a significant push to be seen as a full range camera supplier. Its alpha camera, the alpha DSLR-A900 is a full frame camera at new low price, in this category, of $3,000.

Kodak continues to have a shrinking presence.

The heavy weights, at least at the high end, remain Canon and Nikon.

Digital is everywhere but one group was trying the make the statement that the future is analog – film. It had more humor than reality.

Photokina dramatically reflects the disruptive impacts of digital technology on imaging. The once stagnant market, film photography, has now become reenergized. With the race for Mpixels fading it has shifted to camera feature sets. It was impressive to see the many ways digital technology is being used to create better pictures, even in simple point and shoot cameras.

The impact on consumers was interesting to observe. The floor was populated with consumers touching and trying cameras. They even explored many of the technologies cited here. The GfK numbers reflected the excitement. The market is growing and shows no signs of slowing down.

From the Show Floor

Adobe

Adobe used Photokina to announce Creative Suite 4. The booth was always packed. Prices range from:

     CS4 Design Premium edition - $1,799
     CS4 Web Premium edition - $1,699
     CS4 Master Collection edition - $2,499

None of the suites include Lightroom 2.0. Adobe said this is a different product.

Canon

Canon was claiming superior motion compensation with a “Total anti-blur solution with motion detection technology for high ISO shooting conditions.

Its face detection technology allows for detection, face selection and tracking. Included is red eye elimination.

Compositor

The WAVE interviewed this company at IFA 2007. It then made photo frames and had an extensive product line. Now at Photokina the strategy has changed. The company recognizes that the photo frame market is a brutal one and it must add more value to its products. The tag line is “compose your digital life.” At the center of the product line is the meebox –which is a media server for the home. They then link to multiple digital frames in the home via wireless. There is support for a meetv and meeceiver. The company plans a major introduction at CES 2009.

FujiFilm

They were demonstrating Real3D. This is based on a Finepix camera which takes two displaced pictures simultaneously. Equally as important there was a prototype viewer to see the images.

Kolor

The Kolor software is autopano pro which has one click creation of randomly collected images into a panorama. We were impressed with the output product. Coming in December is autopano giga which can make gigapixel images and VR images.

Lenovo

Tucked away in a corner of the Microsoft booth was a stand with the Lenovo W700 mobile workstation. This will support up to 8GB of RAM, has the latest HD (up to 3 – including RAID 1 or 0), a screen color calibrator and much more. The price begins at $2000 and can exceed $5000. It is a BTO computer with many options. Yet the brochure states that Vista is the preferred OS; the buyers are voicing just the opposite. Lenovo is working on a version with 8GB running Windows XP 64 bit to meet the high end need.

OmniVision

OmniVision is a fabless semiconductor company which makes imaging chips for high volume applications. 75% of the business is for chips to be used in cell phones. The technology being highlighted is BSI – Back Side Illumination. This is to effectively increase the aperture ratio by placing all the metal layers of the chip below the detection array.

The most interesting demonstration in the booth was a medical camera which is stated to be the smallest NTSC video camera made. The camera diameter with LED illumination was slightly larger than a pencil lead.

Samsung

Showed a complete line of photo frames.

An interesting road map was shown in the UI developments for the digital still cameras. One path was touch and key and the other touch only. The touch interaction to control cameras was quite sophisticated..

Scanbull

Scanbull has a complete product line for 3D imaging, software for processing and scanning services. The objects which are to be photographed in 3D are rotated on a table and many images are taken as they rotate.

Sony

Showed an “Automatic Photographer” which actively tracked objects. In the booth it was the face of a clown that the technology tracked. It had the functions of Optimum Composition Shutter and Smile Shutter.

A section of the booth was showing its line of digital photo frames. Similar to IFA.

Toshiba

Toshiba was showing a line of photo frames. These included control by touch and the ability to detect the rotation position of the frame. Some of the frames had an Internet radio built in.

Toshiba was also showing a display panel in a portable foldable leather case. This was called a photo album. Creative.

Visual Similarity Search

There was actually a booth with this freeware. Created by Prof Kai Uwe Barthel of FHTW Berlin it automatically indexes images based on content. This allows for the search of images based on content which is similar.

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Page updated 12/12/08
Copyright 4th Wave Inc, 2008