I spent yesterday at The Photography Show, which is being held at the NEC in Birmingham from 1st - 4th March.
It was extremely busy, packed full of photographers, the majority of whom were men vying to compete for the biggest camera or the longest lens! Don't you guys know that it's not the size of your equipment that matters but the way you use it?
I felt a bit of a lightweight with my neat little Sony NEX-7 hanging around my neck. I was, however, very disappointed and surprised to discover that there was no Sony stand at the show. All the other big boys were there, including Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Samsung, but where was Sony? Where where you Sony? What a let down, as one of the reasons that I'd gone all that way was to have a chat about how to get rid of the crazed effect on my LCD monitor.
Also absent was the opportunity to buy software. Adobe had a stand but nothing for sale - bizarre. Nik was not there at all for me to check out their processing software.
One of the other bizarre, but very popular, exhibits was for the garden and flower photographers. This large stand was filled with flowers, plants, grasses and also a wind machine blowing out foam snow. It was a strange phenomenon seeing a posse of photographers clustered around imported nature trying to snap the winning shot.
Check out a couple of my images from the show:
http://365project.org/julieco/365/2014-03-02
http://365project.org/julieco/365/2014-03-01
http://365project.org/julieco/second-the-best/2014-03-01
I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has been, or is going, what they thought about it.
I went on Saturday, I thought it was rather poorly organised, cramped and way too expensive, I also thought the Nikon stand was very weak, and the show offers quite pathetic...... Very disappointing.... Sadly I see the internet taking over from exhibitions in the future.......
Sony's electronics businesses, cameras, game consoles, TVs, smart phones and such are being relooked at by the company, and perhaps spinning off some operations. Consumer electronics has not been profitable for the company for many quarters. Here's a New York Times article about the discussion within the company and the state of their business. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/global/sonys-bread-and-butter-its-not-electronics.html?src=me&_r=1&.
I would suspect the camera business would be a natural for spin off or a sale to some other firm in the market. It would be a suitable investment for someone like Nikon or Canon, traditional camera businesses, both of whom have fallen somewhat behind in the "mirrorless system" market. The NEX technology would fit extremely well with Nikon, a smaller and more specialized company than the much larger and diversified Canon. Interesting to see what comes.
@frankhymus Many thanks for your comments. It looks like a case of watch this space. Meanwhile, I'll go along and have a chat with the friendly local Camera Mart, which would have saved me a lot of time, travelling and money if I'd done that first. Shop local!
anyone attending any talks? would be interesting to see how this event is compared to the photo live one last year - but i imagine it'd be pretty similar
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How will I recognise you? I'm told I could easily pass for George Clooney, so shouldn't be a problem (I also lie!)
I would suspect the camera business would be a natural for spin off or a sale to some other firm in the market. It would be a suitable investment for someone like Nikon or Canon, traditional camera businesses, both of whom have fallen somewhat behind in the "mirrorless system" market. The NEX technology would fit extremely well with Nikon, a smaller and more specialized company than the much larger and diversified Canon. Interesting to see what comes.