As Dumbledore says in the Harry Potter movies, “Another year, gone”. And so it is with Photokina.

The last day brought out the people eager to buy the products, the last minute sample grabbers and the last chance to see the naked painted ladies. And, although I am blessed with a wonderful husband who believes in my photographic abilities and begrudges me nothing that I need or want, this year our pocketbook came home fairly intact. I did find my way back to the Jill-e bags and came home with a medium sized “purse”. Whether it will hold all that I want it to remains to be seen. But, I have to admit that it has a nicer, more feminine look than my 20+ others.

The next Photokina, Sept. 28 – Oct. 3, 2010, has already been added to my calendar. As in past Photokina’s, it’ll no doubt be exciting and full of surprises. I’m looking forward to it already.

With every Photokina, it seems that companies focus on a new product. Four years ago, it was mat cutters. There were at least a dozen companies carrying their special can’t-be-done-with-the-others cutter. Two years ago, when I was looking for a mat cutter, there was only one company with mat cutters (they were selling a couple of boxed Logan cutters). But, there were plenty of companies carrying digital frames and micro-fiber lens cleaning cloths that pop out of their own little clip-to-your-camera-bag pouch. This year, the micro-fiber cloths weren’t to be seen and the digital frames were scarce. This year it was the canvas gallery wraps.

While the “kitsch” comes and goes, there are several things that are constant with every Photokina: paper and darkroom products. With every Photokina, it seems that I come home with more paper samples than ever before. This year is no different. I did, however, notice more companies carrying darkroom supplies. Given the popularity of digital, I expected to see only the usual display of darkroom equipment by Kaiser. It was a surprise to see at least half a dozen companies carrying everything from developer to enlargers. Maybe there’s hope for us dinosaurs who can’t bring ourselves to switch completely to digital.

Today, thanks to an alternate route, we were able to bypass the many kilometers jam that we were in yesterday. Our first stop was the Buyer’s Lounge for a bit of breakfast before joining the crowds.

The first thing that struck me was the lack of people. Granted, it is the weekday but in Photokina’s past, it was always packed during the week. We had no problem with having to push our way through the halls this time. The up side to this was that it took us less time to navigate through the many buildings.

One of the vendors that I had on my list to visit was one touting gallery wraps. He did, indeed, feature everything from the canvas to the machine to stretch it. By the end of the day, I was surprised at just how many vendors there were featuring gallery wraps. It’s the first instance I’ve seen them here in Germany, although I know that they’re wildly popular in the States.

We proceeded to the hall that featured the watertight cases and photo bags (my weakness). I have heard of the Jill-e photo “purses”, but this was the first time I had seen them. I must say that it was love at first sight! They have three sizes (the largest being on rollers for travel). The smaller ones, while in nicer colors (the yellow was my favorite), were a bit too small for all that I want to carry. I have my sights set on a medium case and asked if they would be selling them at the end of the show. After a hopeful “maybe”, I put them on my list to visit on Sunday.

There are less book stands this time, with one featuring all German language photo books, on featuring all English language ones and one featuring a mixture of both. I got out rather cheap this time, buying one book in English and one in German.

What we have found more of this year is photo exhibitions. There are twenty listed – from aspiring amateurs to seasoned professionals. We checked out some today of the German photo clubs. Some of the photos, I must say, seemed to me to be no more than snapshots, while others were wonderfully composed and processed. We found a sign at one exhibition that stated that the photo that should have been there had been disqualified when it was discovered that it had been too manipulated to be included.

Tomorrow, we visit the lighting systems, including my favorite Dedolights. It was that stand that caused us the most problems (or just cost us the most!) at the last Photokina, with us buying a set of four Dedolights and accessories. They were worth the 1500 euro we paid for them, as were the four others that I have bought since then.

After a stop at the Buyer’s Lounge for a hot tea, we hit the road for home.

Armed with my list of vendors that I wanted to see, we set off for Köln. The first thing we noticed was the traffic. In years past, the traffic was so well managed that jams were unheard of. This year, though, was not the case. Not knowing what to expect, we sat in a jam for almost an hour. We spent that time planning an alternate route for the remaining days of the fair to avoid the problem.

Once we got there, parking was well managed, as it always has been. Buses were lined up to take us to the main entrance. Since we bought our tickets online, and printed them ourselves, we were able to bypass the long lines at the counters. We were on our way!

First stop: the International Buyer’s Lounge for breakfast. Since we purchased our tickets under our company names, we qualified for this wonderful perk (free breakfast, lunch, massages, fair catalogs, internet access, to name a few benefits). Afterwards, we plotted our strategy.

The top of my list was to visit Fujifilm and ask about the rumors that the S5 Pro would be the last professional DSLR that they would be carrying. Not so, insisted the Fuji reps that I talked to. The S5 Pro has only been on the market for a year and a half, which is why they’ve not released a new DSLR, they told me. I noticed that they were aggressively marketing the S5 Pro, which gives me hope that the rumors are false. After seeing the prices here in Germany drop pre-Photokina, I snapped one up for 700 euro.

We visited Nikon, whose stands were not that crowded with people. We checked out the latest DSLR and picked up their catalogs on camera bodies and lenses.

We next checked out Canon, although I’m not a Canon user. I wanted to pick up their catalogs – in English – but they charged for them (the only ones that did). No thanks!

We spent quite a bit of time talking to the reps at Bibble Pro about their upcoming release of ver. 5. One of their staff demonstrated the program to us – all I can say is “WOW”! That will be one great piece of software and well worth the price. My favorite feature is being able to have both the original and working files on screen at the same time.

I also spent a bit of time bending the ear of ACDSee’s product manager about past and present problems with ACDSee’s Pro 2.5 program. Hopefully, they can work out the quirks in the new version of the program and address problems other photographers like myself have, such as having the program crash when attempting to render thumbnails on large files (over 100meg).

I promised myself this time to be more selective about picking up catalog materials – they can get quite heavy after you’ve carried them for a while. But, by the time Photokina is over, I predict that my stack will be just as large – if not larger – than the last Photokina.

We ended the day having a hot tea in the Buyer’s Lounge before making the two hour drive home. It was a great first day, with me being able to strike off a number of companies off my list.