Photokina always strikes me as being photography's
equivalent to the silly season. You know, the time when all the World's
practical jokers strut their stuff. It was at the 1982 event that Kodak
unleashed the Disc cameras and film. You don't remember the system that
was going to change how we all took photographs?
What about Agfa Contour in the
Seventies? Contour? Agfa? Perhaps you remember APS? Or any of the other
wacky build-a-better-mousetrap inventions that have come our way.
This years crop haven't disappointed. Does
Mamiya really think that the World is going to beat a path to its door
to buy a canary yellow 645 Pro TTL? It's true that there have been other
attempts to sell coloured cameras but mostly they have been box cameras
or disposables, not expensive medium format models.
Then there is the LG combined digital photoframe
and DVD player. Now there's a way of really boring the pants off the relatives!
Even the built-in memory has the capacity for a 250 frame slide show.
In the same vein is the Jobo digital frame
that turns into a natty mirror when it is turned off. There was a time
when Jobo was one of the leaders in innovative darkroom equipment - at
least they still make some, but I guess they had to find something to
do with the advent of digital.
But perhaps the best prize for oddness
goes to Minox which seems to be suggesting in a press releases that it
is going to release a digital photo taking belt buckle. May be the company
is anticipating a return to the Cold War when such a gadget might have
a modicum of usefulness ... but I'll leave if off my must have list.
However, the suggestion that there
will be a digital version of the classic Minox spy camera is tantilising.
My wife loves her Minox and continues to use it in the face of the digital
revolution.
