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September 25th, Day Three
Although you would think that Photokina show managers work under the assumption that every day brings along different visitors and therefore spare themselves the hassle of arranging new events every day again, this is certainly not the case. It seems that the Photokina innovates itself everyday again. New attractions and gimmicks are constantly introduced, providing the visitors with a reason to come back tomorrow as well.

Special Guest- Todd Essick
Todd Essick was interviewed today at the “Underwater Imaging World” events stage. Todd is a well known and extremely creative underwater photographer, who usually integrates beautiful women and wild underwater nature in his art. He is especially famous for the photos which display a special interaction between sharks and semi-naked gorgeous women.

During the interview, Todd revealed some of the stories behind the scenes as well as important underwater photography tips. Obviously, when it gets to sharks, the stories become even more interesting, especially when Todd has videos which prove it all. The first story is about an underwater scene in which a model was wrapped with a net and surrounded by sharks. At some point, one of the sharks got caught in the net together with the model, though it eventually struggled its way out. As you can imagine, these intimate moments between the trapped shark and model were quite a surprise for both of them.

The other story is about a different scene, in which one of Todd’s models accidentally kicks the shark and he bites her foot in return. In the video you can see how the model, who was just brought down, peddles with her legs to stabilize herself while at the same time a shark passes behind her. The innocent shark gets a hell of a kick from the model and simply, less innocently, decides to bite her back. Fortunately this was only an act of warning and not of hunger, as the bite was small and no damage was caused to the model on the long run. This way or another, a short time after the incident occurred, the model seemed to look very relaxed and assured on the boat. Probably thanks to Todd’s tones of charm, it took the model a very shot period to go back underwater. What can I say, Todd, when you introduce such stunning models on your scenes it only makes sense that the sharks will eventually claim their share as well!

News from Hugyfot and Light & Motion
It was quite difficult scheduling a meeting with Andi Voeltz, a distributor of Hugyfot and Light & Motion in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Lichtenstein, as his booth had drawn so much traffic and seemed to be always busy. Finally, I managed to grab a few minutes of Andi’s time and to be updated with the new products and technologies introduced by Hugyfot and Light & Motion.

Andi first showed me the Light & Motion Blue Fin Housing, which accommodates the current Sony video camcorders, such as the SR12, SR11 and HC9/7. It is a full functional housing, also providing the photographer with access to the LCD touch screen and featuring a remote control for the lights attached to the housing.

The new Light & Motion LED Lights, the Sunray 1000 and 2000, are extremely powerful lights, designed to work with the Light & Motion Housing system and with other housings as well. In fact, they are so impressive that even studio photographers, who have nothing to do with underwater photography, showed much interest in those lights during the show. These lights make use of a reflector system that it took one whole year for Light & Motion to develop!

Andi then introduced me with the Hugy-Check, a new technology featured on Hugyfot housings. Recent housings do not make use of the regular screws that have been used so far in order to ensure the housing’s closure. Instead, the housing is sealed by reducing the air pressure inside it. After closing the housing, a special Hugy-Check device is used to reduce the air pressure inside the housing, thus ensuring that the back and front doors of the housing cannot be separated, even when using a great amount of force. Two LED Lights which are placed on the housing’s hot-shoe connection serve as indications to the amount of moisture and air pressure inside the housing. These LED Lights are visible also through the housing’s viewfinder. Andi was the one who came up with this idea when he experienced difficulties opening a housing after it was on a flight, due to the drop of air pressure inside the housing. Instead of getting frustrated, Andi recognized the potential of such an intended system.

News from Canon

After I came up with this idea, which I initially thought was brilliant, to visit the Canon arena in the afternoon hours, when the visitors’ crowd was expected to be a little less hectic, I realized that there is no such thing on the Canon arena. This section of the show seems to be busy all through show opening hours, as Canon products and new releases draw massive traffic.

Among all compact digital cameras, the new Canon G10 was one of the biggest attractions. Equipped with a 14.7 MP CCD sensor, a new DIGIC IV processor and a 28-140mm lens, the G10 also features a RAW shooting mode. A waterproof housing for this camera was also already introduced at the show.

Another new and interesting compact digital camera is the PowerShot SD980 IS, which also features a 14.7 MP sensor. It is equipped with a 36-133mm equiv optical zoom lens and a 2.5 inch LCD screen. 

Canon also announced their new 50D, which is quite similar to the 40D camera, although it is equipped with a new 15 MP sensor, which is claimed to produce much less noise than recent sensors. The 50D also makes use of an improved LCD screen, which features a specially high resolution of 920,000 dots.

Finally, I also got to see the Canon 5D Mark II DSLR. The 21 MP camera is the world’s first compact full frame DSLR. It makes use of an expanded ISO range, 50-25,600, a live view 3.0 inch LCD screen and an important innovation of a full 1080p HD movie recording capability.

Nikonians
Nikonians, a community for passionate Nikon users, did not take the risk of other show attractions drawing the crowd away from their booths and pulled out the winning card, which is of course, a naked lady. In the afternoon time, when the number of visitors was especially high, Nikonians introduced a great looking naked model on their stage, allowing the obviously increasing crowd to take photographs of what is considered to be the most natural art. This not only drew a mass of visitors to the Nikonians section, but also ensured that Nikonians is the talk of the day. Everywhere you headed afterwards, you encountered enthusiastic photographers sharing their images with their friends, feeling lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Considering the fact that this was only the third day of the show and I already got to see a naked lady, I cannot wait to find out what else is waiting for us tomorrow…

-Sharon Rainis, Fantasea Line

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