It was about one month ago and it was the first time I visit such an event dedicated to cameras. It turned out there was no major announcement concerning new cameras or gears but it was a nice afternoon among camera hobbyists and pros.
Very difficult to tell who are the pros and who are the amateurs... Japan is not the country of photography for nothing and some amateurs possess gears that other pros can only dream to have...
Anyway we just randomly walked around from one booth to an other, with a constant : shooting the models presenting each brand :-)
For the occasion, Web Designer / Art Director and blogger Keith Morrell from UK spent the day with me. He was visiting Japan for the first time. You can read about his Japan adventures on his blog at : https://www.goukadesign.co.uk/
As you can see Keith had a fresh tattoo "Made in Japan"; he did a long trip to the tattoo artist's shop on the north of Tokyo just for the occasion.
The Misses are very professional and keep smiling and posing for the whole day for the pleasure of visitors. They even invite you to take their pic :)
Actually I even noticed a girl giving a personal meishi (name / business card) to a photographer. So it is a good day of professional networking for them, I guess.
Pentax sells a nice model in a wide range of colours. I almost bought a Pentax when looking for a "beginner DSLR" but Nikon released the D5000 just at that time and I chose it.
Ricoh Girls :
Ah! I haven't any shot of their cameras...
Canon of course had a huge booth, it was possible to try their latest cameras and even print out one of your shots.
Here is my shot, with an EOS 5D Mk II (I know it's not a new model). The thing is heavy!! When I took back my D5000 I felt like it was "empty" o_O
[it is a scan of the printed version they gave me]
Toy Camera are also popular, there was a nice little booth for them, I should try one , one of these days as they are quite inexpensive.
And yes everywhere I go I can find a fixed gear bike! :-)
Bianchi sells also some messenger bags, that is why.
I own a Messenger Tenba bag that I carry pretty much everyday, it is a good bag. I usually carry my 15" MacBook in it to go to the station on my bike, sure it is not light but at least it is comfortable. On days off, the Mac is replaced by the D5000.
Some more girls ;)
Some teaching/PR session.
Nikkor lenses, I am still using the basic kit 18-55, it covers pretty well what I need for now. I may buy one day the 35mm, 1.8 lens recommended by Ken Rockwell for low light photos though.
Hum... auto-portrait... me trying the up300x by Nikon. At first I use it on my right eye but could not see anything... Thing is that my "director eye" (not sure how we say that in English, French is "oeil directeur") is the left one... So I switched and after few seconds of adaptation it was possible to watch the screen with both eyes (well sort of). Nice gadget, Akihabaranews.com did a nice review of it last year (indeed it is not a new product)
Manfrotto's booth with a tripod... for giant guys ? :)
I am still not using of these...
A paper / scissors contest to win ... I have no idea ... Looked like the speaker woman was little bit famous (?).
Old school camera displayed by Polaroid. Keith seems very interested.
Nikon offered a "fashion show" with western girl models. It seems that it is not allowed to smile in this business... how sad they looked... and skinny (even for Japan "standards"...).
Olympus pen is quite popular, for some reason that I don't know especially among women (Kawaii effect ?).
Okay one last model for...ah no, I don't even know what brand she was representing :)
One last thing, I found recently this free Nikon application for iPhone, a very well documented thing, you need a US itunes account though : Learn and Explore