B&W had a couple of booths; one with their wonderful filters and another with their waterproof outdoor cases. We bought two of them – one smaller one for Wolf’s computer disks and another for our important papers and my CD and DVD photo back ups.

The most wonderful thing about Photokina is that, on the last day at most booths, you can buy their products at a reduced price (usually 20% off). I didn’t come home empty handed. In addition to the B&W cases, I bought a few books from the PMA booth and a Logan mat cutter so I can mat and mount my fine art prints. I also found a nice looking hand painted collapsible background that I had to have. I grumbled to myself about paying 100 euro for it, but it turns out that I spent less than what Wolf did.

The last item on my list was to look at continuous lighting systems. What I have in my studio is functional, but I wanted something a bit more flexible for my flower photos. We looked at the Dedolight booth at their line. Nice professional lighting, but expensive!

As I joined Wolf at the Dedolight booth with my backdrop purchase (the booths were near each other), he was handing over the credit card for the four lights and accessories he just purchased. I’ve only had a short time to try out the new lights, but as I told Wolf – “I’m in love”. The lights are definitely the cat’s meow!

A couple of tidbits from Photokina:

• 230,000 m² of gross exhibition space, up from 196,500 m² in 2004

• 1,579 suppliers from 46 countries

• Over 162,000 visitors from 153 countries

• A total of 354 exhibitors and 196 additionally represented companies came from Germany, while 711 exhibitors and 318 additionally represented companies were from abroad. The number of companies from outside Germany rose by 5 percent.

Yes, it was six days of pure delight. As we left Photokina on Sunday, our last glimpse was of an overhead banner announcing the dates of the next Photokina – Tuesday, September 23 to Sunday, September 28, 2008.

Mark your calendars!

At the Epson booth, I checked out the new 3800 printer that they have. If you don’t need or want the roll paper function, this is a great printer for you.

I visited the Tamron booth in hopes of hearing that they would release a line up of digital lenses, but was told that they have no plans on doing so.

I drooled heavily upon seeing the new Carl Zeiss wonder: a 1700mm/4 lens. It weighs in at 256 kg (564 lb.), and has 21x magnification. They had it suspended (and out of everyone’s reach) from the rafters by cables. Wolf swears that it was a fake, but I don’t think so…

And, of course, I visited the Fuji booth. They didn’t have an actual S5 Pro to handle; the mock up was behind glass, but they did have a lot of information on it. The rep told me that it would be out by February – maybe a bit sooner, depending on production times. I’ll probably wait for a few months after it comes out before I order mine.

For those of you who are Nikonians – it was a nice surprise to see them there. I have ordered their tripod leg wraps as it looks like we’ll be heading to Tirol again this year over Christmas.

One sample I received that I’m really using is a Spudz (www.alpineproducts.com). It’s a lens cloth attached to its pouch which clips onto wherever you put it. Why didn’t someone come up with this idea before? It’s really handy!

And, another surprise, Adorama was there. I had always wondered why B&H and Adorama never had booths – after all, they’re also well known on this side of the pond. The rep told me that they always checked out Photokina; just would spend time with the other companies at hotels. This year, they figured it would be just as cheap to get a booth. I had finally ordered the one thing that I had always wanted and which only Adorama makes – their Tuxedo Vest. Having just worn it at a wedding I shot, I must say that it’s terrific! I had enough room for extra batteries and CF cards, along with an extra lens.

Photokina concludes in Part 4…

Nikon’s booth had a nice addition this year – a mini exhibition of all of the Nikons – from the first one to present. Wolf really enjoyed the ones that they sliced open to show the side view…the engineer in him, I guess. The Canon booth was nicely organized, as usual. Unfortunately, if you wanted to get a catalog from them, you had to pay 1 euro. It was the same catalog that one of the online photo stores that I purchase from sent me gratis.

I did go with a list of products to check out. One was the ink tank systems. I use so much ink in my Epson R2400 that I wanted to see the alternatives. One company that I was impressed with was Fotospeed out of Great Britain (www.fotospeed.com). I remember the company from the 2004 Photokina, when they were the only one I found offering ink tank systems. Their system was the only one at Photokina that incorporated all nine of the Epson’s inks. With the other systems, you have to go through the hassle of changing the black tank out to accommodate the photo/matte black. That means, wasting paper to clear the remaining ink out before installing the other black. I ordered a tank set, which is on its way.

Fotospeed also offers their own brand of paper. In addition, they offer a free custom profile set up to your printer. They will email you the target file, which you print out on your printer on their paper. You then mail them the paper and they will email you a custom profile based on your printer and their paper. To those with no color management system set up on their computer, this can be a paper and time saver. While the canned profiles that companies like Ilford and Hahnemühle offer are a great start, they can leave a bit to be desired.

The makers of Lensbaby, a fun trick lens, have announced a new lens – the Lensbaby 3G – to debut in November. It looks like something from outer space but it differs from the Original and Lensbaby 2.0 in that you can focus and lock (and fine focus). It was great fun to try out and I was given a coupon for a free macro filter set when I order mine. They have the info on their website (www.lensbabies.com) in preparation of the release. This new Lensbaby promises to be something extraordinarily different from the previous versions and a serious contender for space in your camera bag.

Still more to come in Part 3…

In a word, Photokina was AWESOME! Time after time it amazes me, given the size of Photokina and the number of visitors, how well organized it is. From the attendants in the parking lots to the ticket booths, buses that shuffle you from hall to hall and to the train station, to the information desks, the Kölnmesse really displays their professionalism. They redesigned the Messe, so it was even larger than before. A big plus is that buses are no longer needed to shuttle you to the Messe – it’s just a short walk away from the parking lots. And, if you wait until after opening to arrive, you can park on top of the Messe itself. A big advantage, especially on the last day if you purchase a lot of the vendors’ products.

I did notice some companies’ booths – namely Kodak – were a bit smaller this year. There were a large number of English companies that didn’t show up when several of their group cancelled. But, all in all, it was six days of heaven for me. My husband was the designated sherpa, hauling around all of the brochures and samples that I received. I have close to a three foot high stack of brochures to go through, along with about 30 or so CD’s and DVD’s of photo programs and catalogs. Plus, I received about a dozen boxes of fine art paper samples to try.

One of the big things this year is the photo frame that you can insert your CF or SD card into and it goes through a program of your photos. A large number of companies had those, in many different sizes, all purporting to have different you-can’t-do-without features.

Another large draw is the software that you can design the pages of a photo album, upload to the company’s server where they print it out, bind it and send it to you. A neat idea, but at around 100 euro per album, a bit expensive for my customers. Innova (www.innovaart.com) has an album (their Opus album) where you print the pages yourself and put them in the provided binder. The paper is a thick fine art paper, the binder such that more pages could be easily added. They also have templates that can be downloaded to help in designing your album. More importantly, it is archival quality. I can see printing several of these and selling them at fairs.