Hello all.. it seems to be photography convention season. The first convention I am fortunate enough to attend is PMA 2010 held at the Anaheim, CA.
Exhibits: Feb 21-23
Conferences: Feb 19-23
It was a cold Sunday afternoon and I had scheduled to pay a visit to the PMA 2010 convention at Anaheim for my blog. Due to my time constraint for that day, I was only able to browse the halls for 2 hours. Surprisingly enough, I was able to walkthrough the majority of the showroom floor. It came to the point where i was able to see a few of the exhibits twice.
When I arrived in Anaheim, I proceeded to the convention center parking. it was a whopping $10. Which I feel is a small price to pay for a sense of security and convenience.
I then parted ways from my girlfriend which I dropped off at the Starbucks in the Hilton Hotel a hundred feet from the Anaheim convention doors.
After a few minutes of setting up my gear (attached my Nikon D300s with the 70-200 VR2 lens, I approached the convention doors eager to roam the halls of PMA.
At first sight, I was greeted by PMA doormen kindly directing me to the hall entrance without carefully inspecting my credentials. Once my credentials were reviewed and approved, I moved a foot through the convention hall doors and halted to take a picture of the first exhibit to catch my attention.
I was attracted to the big illuminated logos of one of the biggest brands in computers and printers HP (Hewlett Packard) and to my right is the bright yellow color of Nikon. As I approach the bright yellow attraction of Nikon, I find consumers looking through the lenses of Nikon’s largest zooms.
Nikon focused on their new lenses. The 24mm F1.4, the new version of the 300mm F2.8 and the 16-35mm F4.
I then proceeded through the halls and came across a product name SteadePod. Which is a camera steadying device alternative to a tripod.
After a few feet of travel, I ran into the Joby gorillapod exhibit. The Joby bike among other things. The Joby exhibit were covered with Joby products. You look to the top of the exhibit walls you will find a Joby holding a flash light partially illuminating the Joby Bike.
I look around for a few moments and the casio booth attracted my attention with the use of live models playing soccer in a small grass field with a goal.
The Casio Exilm exhibit showcases it’s High Speed technology with FPS up to 40 in High Speed Burst Mode , up to 1000 FPS video and up to 20x Optical zoom. I saw the Casio EX-Z2000, Casio EX-Z550, Casio EX-S7, Casio EX-Z35, Casio EX-H15 and the Prototype Casio EX-10HG.
After about 30 minutes observing the Casio booth, I moved on to the Think Tank Photo Booth. I was hoping to chat with someone from the Think Tank camp but everyone was busy. There were a good number of people checking out their booth.
Think Tank it seems introduced a new line of shoulder bags named retrospective and there are 5 different sizes with two different colors. The amazing innovators at Think Tank Photo also revealed a new lighting bag which looks very interesting indeed. It is called the Logistics Manager. Make sure to check out these new products by Think Tank Photo.
After about 15 minutes walking around the Think Tank Booth, I looked around and the Phottix booth caught my attention. It wasn’t their blue yellow and white exhibit walls but the rack of cameras with their devices attached for all to see.
The product offering that caught my attention the most was the Phottix Hero Liveview Wireless Remote.
I see a lot of potential uses for this product in my workflow. With the use of an assistant, I can truly be in two places at once. I can carefully instruct my assistant where to hold the camera and at what angle as I would be able to see the exact frame . This device will ensure my vision will remain consistent with multiple shooters.
After a few moments at the Phottix booth, an intriguing product captured my interest. The company is called snapizzi. snapizzi is an end-to-end workflow solution. Patent-pending image tagging organizes photos. This looks like a perfect product for school and sports photographers.
I then look around some more and come across another casio exhibit for their digital art frames. The difference between existing picture frames is that the Casio photo frame utilizes the “snapshot-to-painting conversion”. This product from Casio could create original photographic artwork from digital images.
After a few more booths, I come across the Sony Exhibit. I have to confess that if it wasn’t for the model with the incredible body at the Sony exhibit, I would have walked on as I really am not that interested in the Sony brand. Well at least when it comes to camera equipment, the interest isn’t quite there.
Anyways, I stayed for a bit and watched the exhibition of the Sony Camera’s ability to take a quick portrait. From the image above, I was able to capture the image at the right moment the beauty dish illuminated the models face and body.
immediately after I captured the model’s image i proceeded to move on to the next exhibit as I was running out of time. I only had two hours total to explore PMA 2010.
With time running out, I quickly moved around PMA for the rest of my stay. Through my sprint, I came across the Fuji Film Book Solutions exhibit, _LAP0067 and the HP retail publishing booth with Batman standing guard.
As I look around, the huge sigma lens captures my attention which as you can see warrants a picture.
Another exhibit that stood out was Samsung. The exhibit setup included a female model sitting on a table for spectators to use the point and shoots available on the exhibit to test out the equipment.
After 2 hours of roaming through the halls, I was able to check out the majority of the exhibits twice. I must say that my first experience at PMA was a pleasant one and looking forward to next year in Vegas . If I am able to get enough sponsors of course.
Below are more snaps from PMA 2010
If you would like to sponsor me and have your logo in the back of my shirt for next year’s PMA, please contact me for details.
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