The biannual trade show, photokina 2004, proved itself once again the international show place for photography. The mood at the show was upbeat, the aisles were crowded, and interest in both professional and consumer products was high.

By the numbers, 2004 proved to be a bigger show than 2002. This year, 1,589 exhibitors from 50 countries showed their wares in Cologne, Germany, from Sept. 28 to Oct. 3. with 160,000 visitors from 128 countries in attendance. In 2002, 1,546 exhibitors from 46 countries, and more than 160,000 visitors from 136 countries participated.

Along with differences in the numbers, the nature of the show itself is changing. In some respects, it's becoming more of a European show. This is because many of the mass-market digital cameras and other consumer products don't make it to U.S. shows like they did before.

Because of that, some people say that it is losing its relevance for the American market. That’s not the case. It’s still very important to the U.S. photo market, particularly for high-end imaging market segments, where product cycles are longer and equipment introductions don’t come quite as fast as in the consumer market, and geographic markets aren’t as segmented as on the consumer side.

Digital Cameras Get Better
As might be expected, professional cameras make up a big part of the show. Until relatively recently, digital camera manufacturers were reluctant to compare their products to film cameras, because they often came up short. This year, with professional, digital-camera resolution climbing and the responsiveness of new models improving, more manufacturers were making the comparison.

It’s true. The newest generation of digital single lens reflex, or SLR, cameras and medium-format digital backs do shoot more like conventional cameras. Things like shutter lag, lengthy focusing time and excessive write times made shooting with digital SLRs sluggish and frustrating. Newer generation digital SLRs – even some entry-level models – are much better. With medium-format digital backs, much of the cumbersome equipment – a laptop and external power that had to be lugged around – is no longer required.

Many professional digital cameras were introduced at the show. The newest camera with the highest resolution was Canon’s EOS 1Ds Mark II, a 16.7 megapixel digital SLR that can capture images at up four frames per second at full resolution. It has a maximum burst rate of up to 32 JPEG or 11 RAW images.

What sets this new model apart is that Canon designed and built all the components – including the new complementary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, sensor and the advanced DIGIC II image processor – to ensure optimum image quality. With the new Mark II, there’s really very little difference between shooting digital and shooting film.

Leica has come up with a somewhat different approach to going digital with its Digital-Modul-R. Developed in cooperation with Imacon and Kodak Image Sensor Solutions, the Digital-Modul-R is a digital camera back designed to fit regular production Leica R8 and R9 bodies. Because the two cameras had been designed with digital conversion in mind, the new digital back can communicate with the camera body and controls.

The Digital-Modul-R is designed around a 10-megapixel Kodak sensor and uses secure digital, or SD, removable media cards for image storage. Since the sensor is smaller than a 35 mm frame, it has a lens conversion factor of 1.37x. With the new module, the Leica R8 and R9 cameras are the first hybrid, 35 mm cameras that can be used as either film or digital cameras.

One of the major announcements at photokina was the merger of Hassel-blad and Imacon. The two companies complement each other very well. Hasselblad has built a strong reputation with its medium-format cameras and digital backs. Imacon is one of the leading higher-end scanner companies in the world.

Besides the merger, Hasselblad made a number of other announcements at the show, including the H1D, a new camera with an integral digital back. The H1D is a medium-format camera with a 37 by 49 mm sensor that can capture 22 megapixel images in 16-bit per channel color. With its proprietary Double Duration Circuit technology, the H1D runs very cool, more than twice as cool as similar digital camera systems. That results in less electronic "noise" in the images, and consequently, higher quality images.

Other companies that released digital SLRs at photokina include Olympus and Konica Minolta. Olympus’ new digital SLR in the Four Thirds system is the Evolt E-300, an 8 megapixel camera designed as digital from the ground up. While it’s an entry-level model, it has advanced features, including a proprietary TruePic Turbo Image Processor and the same proprietary dust reduction system – a Supersonic Wave filter – that’s found in the original Olympus digital SLR, the E-1.

Konica Minolta showed the Minolta Dynax 7D, which is designed around an APS-sized, 6.1 megapixel charged coupled device, or CCD, sensor. It’s equipped with a proprietary Anti Shake, or AS, system that rapidly adjusts the CCD to compensate for camera movement. With the AS system on, it’s possible to gain two whole stops when shooting hand-held.

On the high end, one of the trends was toward greater mobility for medium-format digital backs. Until relatively recently, shooting with high-resolution digital backs required that the camera and back had to be tethered to pull power and transfer images. That significantly limited use of the equipment, particularly on location.

Newer medium-format digital equipment doesn’t need to be tethered. All the power and storage needs are contained in the back or add-on modules. Sinar’s approach is a good example. The Sinarback 54 M is a one-shot digital back with a maximum resolution of 22MB. It overcomes some of the heating problems experienced by other digital backs, with a sophisticated Peltier element cooling system, controlled by a temperature and dew point sensor. All the other required components for self-sufficient shooting – such as hard disks, displays and processors – that might cause noise interference have been removed from the back.

The liquid crystal display, or LCD, or the hard drive and other components that might add to the noise interference level have been incorporated into the Sinar Action Module, which includes a 4-inch thin film transistor, or TFT, color screen and an interchangeable hard drive that can store more than 1,500 full-resolution images. With the Action Module, every Sinarback with a Firewire interface can be used as a mobile system.

Sinar has refined this combination to the point that most of the bugs have been worked out, and it’s becoming more compatible with a wider range of cameras. At photokina, the company announced the Sinarback 54 M’s compatibility with the Mamiya RZ 67, the Contax 645 AF and the Hasselblad H1 cameras. The adapter boards for 645 medium-format cameras permit the use of the actively cooled 54 M just like a film cassette.

Show News and Trends
There were a number of major announcements at the show, including various new working agreements and technology standards between major camera manufacturers. One briefing that received much attention was Adobe’s announcement of enhanced RAW file format support. The RAW file format is becoming increasingly important in professional photography. Adobe introduced an update to its Camera RAW Plug-in, extending RAW file support in Photoshop CS to more than 65 digital camera models, and enabling the program to handle files in the new .DNG format, which also was introduced.

One growing market segment identified at photokina was digital publishing, which includes the traditional fields of typesetting, prepress and printing, and newer specialties such as electronic publishing to discs and the Internet. New publishing tools and less expensive equipment have democratized digital publishing. Through desktop publishing and Web-authoring software, just about anybody with a message to tell can do so.

The International Digital Publishing Congress, which was part of photokina, presented a unique overview of the state of digital publishing technology. Targeting printing companies, publishing houses, agencies, photographic studios and prepress firms, companies such as Xerox, Heidelberg, Océ and HP Indigo provided real solutions to the problems working professionals are facing, such as cooperative production and proofing over the Internet, ultraviolet printing issues and ways to increase production.

Production was an issue at the show itself, too. There was a lot of emphasis on workflow optimization. Companies like Fuji and Agfa have enhanced their software and modified their equipment to optimize workflow and streamline their production process.

Wide format is becoming a more important photographic market segment. There were a couple of noticeable trends. First was cost. Until three or four years ago, wide-format printing equipment – even entry-level equipment – was too expensive for individual users. That has changed. Lower-end wide-format printers from companies like Epson and HP are becoming affordable enough for professional photographers and graphic artists to install.

Another trend was increased output quality. For a long time, output quality – both in output resolution and in color rendition – was a secondary consideration with wide-format output. Resolutions were limited and color fidelity questionable. The theory went that nobody really looked at the output too closely or for too long, so quality didn’t matter. As output longevity climbed and applications broadened, wide-format equipment manufacturers realized that quality had to increase – and it has. Output from many of the wide-format printers on display matched output – both in resolution and color quality – generated by smaller, photo-realistic printers.

Epson unveiled two new wide-format models in its well-received line of graphic printers, the 24-inch Stylus PRO 7600 and the 44-inch Stylus PRO 9600. With maximum resolutions of 2,880 by 1,440 dots per inch, the new, seven-color, inkjet printers are targeted at portrait and commercial photography applications, proofing, point-of-purchase display generation and fine-art printing. They combine the features of dye and pigment ink, resulting in vibrant and vivid color output. Depending upon the media type being used, output has been rated to last from 45 to 75 years.

Epson has put a lot of effort into ensuring that the units meet the different output requirements of their target markets. For example, it offers three different types of black ink. There’s photo black for high gloss, photo-realistic output; photo matte, for plain, matte and fine art; and light black, to enhance gradations and extended tonal values for monochrome output. Ink cartridges can easily be switched out. An onboard chip tracks individual cartridge usage.