Photokina 2010

Today, September 21, the Photokina “World of Imaging” Trade Show will start in Cologne, Germany.

The Photokina is the world’s leading fair for photography and imaging and is held every second year at the Cologne Exhibition Center in Germany. It is considered the highlight and the center of photography for all photo enthusiasts – be they amateur or professional photographers or simply photography aficionados. It will be held until Sunday, September 26.

The first Photokina was held between 6th and 14th May 1950, and over the years Photokina has been the place manufacturers have announced some of their most significant new products.

Click here for the Photokina Facebook page, and here to follow the Photokina on Twitter.

Photokina 2010 preview / predictions / hopes (source: Digital Photography Review)

  • More Mirrorless Large Sensor Compacts – Star of Photokina 2008 was Panasonic’s G1, and in the past 2 years Pansonic’s G-series Micro Four Thirds cameras have come on in leaps and bounds. We expect to see updates from at least one of the existing players, and hope to see bigger hints of what’s to come from those that have yet to join the party.
  • 3-D – As mentioned above the ‘next big thing’ to hit digital photography (whether you like it or not) is 3D capture, driven by the arrival of 3D movies/broadcasts and compatible flatscreen TVs. We suspect that 2011 will see a lot of talk but very little action, but once 3DTVs go mainstream the flood of compatible cameras that follows is all but inevitable. Expect to see lots of intention this year.
  • Compact cameras- It looks like we’re finally getting our wish for more exciting compact cameras and more to choose from at the high end of the market, with large sensors, photographic controls and high quality lenses marking a welcome return of the ‘enthusiast’ flagship compact. Further down the ranges expect to see even more HD movie capture, even more fancy gizmos (face recognition, GPS, touch screens, ultra fast CMOS-powered burst modes etc), but little in the way of genuine innovation in mass market compacts.
  • Lenses- They seem to take forever to develop, but we certainly expect Photokina to see new lens announcements from all the major manufacturers. This is especially important for the new mirrorless systems, which lack the support of a legacy lens system to bolster their lineup. They need fast, small lenses to entice system buyers.
  • Surprises?- These days it’s rare for there to be any really big surprises during the show itself (though it’s not unheard of). We do know of a couple of announcements due on the opening day, but we pray for a genuine surprise. Will Olympus announce that the E-5 is the last Four Thirds camera with a mirror (as they’ve been hinting)?, will Canon and/or Nikon surprise us with a mirrorless system camera or large sensor compact? Will Fujifilm announce a new film camera? (oh, yeah ,that’s right, they did that last time), will there be a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III or Nikon D700 upgrade? Only time will tell, and we’ll be on the show floor to ensure you get the very latest news as it happens.

The new renetimmermans.com is live

Finally I have my new website live!

The new site is completely integrated with Photoshelter, where I have now hosted my webshop. It has been a couple of weeks work, but I am happy with the result and I hope you will enjoy it as well when you visit. You are more than welcome to leave comments here with your opinion.

Photoshelter has some great tools to help building and modifying your site. I have used one of their templates and further modified this with their manual customization tools. In addition they support on various fronts to get “their” photographers known out in the world, e.g. web-seminars, blogging advice, featuring photographers, etc.

If you are a serious amateur or professional photographer you should definitely check out their site and see what they can do for you to help move your business forward.

Annie Leibovitz at Fotografiska

Finally I went to Fotografiska in Stockholm this weekend. This new photography exhibition center opened back in May 2010, but I did not manage to go any earlier.

Photo: Annie Leibovitz

The Annie Leibovitz exhibition “Annie Leibovitz, A Photographer’s Life 1990 – 2005” is absolutely amazing and truly inspiring. It is moving to see how her private work is blended with her professional work.

The exhibition will continue until September 19, 2010 so if you happen to be in Stockholm take your chance and go visit Fotografiska!

Additional photographers who are exhibited at Fotografiska (until September 5, 2010) are Vee Speers, Lennart Nilsson and Anders Petersen.

Migrating to WordPress.org

For the past year I have been using the blog services from WordPress.com. Since I will soon launch my new design on www.renetimmermans.com I wanted to change the look and feel of my blog too.

The last week I have been working on installing the WordPress.org blog application on my local server. That was the easy part! Much more time was spent on modifying one of the blog templates, the modularity-lite from Graph Paper Press, into a more personal style that will combine well with my new website design. As you can see I did manage, but it cost me a few nights sleep…

I hope you will continue to read my blog, from now and onwards with WordPress.org.

Nikon Photo Contest International 2008-2009

Nikon has announced the winners of the 2009 International Photo Contest. This year’s theme, “At The Heart of the Image,” drew over 51,000 entries from 153 countries and regions.

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The Nikon Photo Contest International has been held by Nikon Corporation since 1969 to provide an opportunity for photographers around the world to communicate and to enrich photographic culture for professionals and amateurs alike.

Click here to see the amazing main category winners of the Nikon Photo Contest International 2008-2009.

The PGB Photo Award

The PGB (Photographers Giving Back) Photo Award exhibition is shown in Stockholm’s Konserthus.

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The Photographers Giving Back Photo Award was founded in Sweden in 2008. The purpose of this event is to enhance journalistic photography and to strengthen the position for the professional photographer. It is also intended to inspire young and new photographers and get more people interested in photography. The winning pictures are very strong photos from our sometimes brutal reality.

Opening hours are from 11:00 till 17:00 at Hötorget 8 in Stockholm. The exhibition is available until August 29th, 2009.

To read more about the PGB Photo Award click here.