PhotoPlus 2010 - An HDR World at 24 FPS!

My day trip to this year's PhotoPlus Expo was a exciting study in contrasts. While this was definitely a photo expo, the influence of video permiated the hall, with a good portion of dealers and lectures covering HD video in some manner. More than a few folks walked up and down the exhibit aisles with Canon 5D Mark II's with Steadycam Merlins or some other balancing device (their walking was a bit off balance, but that's another matter...) With even mid priced point & shoots equipped with HD video of some sort, it's application was the subject of much discussion and attention. HDR and other cool features were covered as well & the Nikon & Canon booths as usual were jammed packed with folks checking out the new D7000 &  60D. Sony had a garagntuan booth with a BMX setup with bikers flying in the air to test the new A33 &55's. Olympus had a cool booth as well showing off their new PEN cameras & E5 DSLR. I sat in on a photography blogging workshop in the morning with Lindsay Adler at Shoot NYC (whose work is fantastic!).  She posted her presentation on her blog (to save yourself a trip to the city) if you're interested: http://tinyurl.com/2ep8ffm & you should note an marked improvement in my blogging as a result. This expo is a great opportunity to catch acclaimed photographers like Rick Sammon (pictured left), Joe McNally and Vincent Laforet speak about their photographic techniques and new trends in the industry. I attended an afternoon gathering of social media leaders to network & intimately see some of the newest products & services. At the "Tweet-Up", I bumped into our buddy Marc Farb from Olympus who was showing the latest installment of his ongoing series we call "What The Hell is on That Camera?" (Pictured below) On his E-PL1 was a extremely rare Zuiko 1000mm F11 manual focus lens (circa 1973) which showed the PEN's ability to take just about ANY glass made!  It was comical seeing folks recreating a scene from a 21st century version of "Rear Window" while others tweeted away that they were at a "tweet-up" with some of them doing it to others in the same room! It was fun and showed the impact social media has in the digital imaging marketplace, both now & in the future. To cap off the day, I attended an after-party Sony and American Photo afterwards in Tribeca honoring their Alpha & NEX cameras & I mention it because I had the incredible honor of meeting the one & only Elliott Erwitt. It completed my dream of meeting & conversing with the 3 photographers whose work I deeply admire (the others being Robert Frank & Lee Friedlander). It capped off a wonderful day and if you're interested,there's still time to take part in the fun. The expo goes on until tomorrow (10-30)  at the Javits Center in NYC and for more info, you can click onto the link on the first line of this blog entry.

 (Photos of Sony After-Party, Marc Farb & Rick Sammon by Fred Bonilla)