Our main analog enthusiast Dima But last week attended the world's leading photography event - photokina 2016 exhibition, held in Cologne, Germany. Here, the major players in the photography market, as well as small but interesting startups, present their developments, new cameras, improved camera models, and much more to the world. Coming here, you can understand what photo amateurs will be holding in their hands in the coming year.
About what was seen, heard, and touched - Dima's impressions.
The first booth I headed to was Lomography. A nice booth, I must say, full of visitors. Photographers with professional cameras are very interested in lenses. Lomography already produces 5 different ones. Called "art lenses," they really create very interesting and distinctive art shots.
The rest of Lomography's products are well known to us: these are the items we sell in our store. At the exhibition, a new product was presented that raised the required amount for production ($100,000) on Kickstarter in just 1 day - Lomo Instant Automatic. This is an instant camera, very simple and lightweight. And true to its name - automatic exposure. Sales will begin at the end of this year, before the holidays. What else the Lomo Instant Automatic is memorable for is its size: just the size of instant film cartridges.
Fujifilm impressed with a huge booth, simply incredibly large. For each Fujifilm product, there was its own "room" where you could spend an entire day. Great excitement was caused by the black-and-white Instax Mini cartridges. I tried shooting with them - they are amazing! They give very deep colors, with a slightly bluish tint, very, very beautiful.
Of course, many were interested in square cameras. Fujifilm promised to release them, as well as cartridges for them, already in April-May 2017, so we will wait. By the way, interestingly, Fujifilm held a vote at the exhibition for new colors of Fujifilm Instax 7 cameras, and the winner was mint. Let's see, maybe soon there will be a mint instant camera :) Another interesting fact is that Fujifilm Instax cameras can be customized: you can "paint" the body in any color, add logos, and so on, but the minimum order is 5,000 units.
Unfortunately, the Polaroid booth did not show anything interesting. There were not many products presented, nothing to really talk about. Currently, the company is engaged in producing digital cameras with thermal sublimation capability.
What was interesting to learn is that the first instant Leica is being made - guess who? - by Fujifilm! It is an exact copy of the Fujifilm Instax 90, only 2.5 times more expensive and with the famous red dot.
Only positive impressions remained from the exhibition. And most importantly - it is pleasant to see the audience's interest in genuine analog photography, as well as companies' desire to develop precisely in this direction. Long live analog photography!
