What a weekend!
Having returned from our annual visit to The Photography Show at the NEC in Birmingham, it is time to review the event.
On arrival we headed straight over to see our good friends William and Ashley from STC, we were greeted with a warm welcome. We exchanged gifts with William and Ashley as a token of our friendship.
As some of you know we have tested a good number of filters produced by STC and in the coming months we will be testing some more of their outstanding filters.
We also had the opportunity to meet with the new European distributor for STC a company called InfinityX. As a result of this meeting we are delighted to announce that we will be assisting both STC and InfinityX with testing, reviews and more.
This year I resisted the temptation to buy any more printing paper (we have a very good supplier near us, so it makes more sense to go there)
It was interesting to try the new Panasonic full frame mirrorless camera. we are however still to be convinced of a good reason to swap to another system.
Irix tried very hard to sell us their 11mm Blackstone and 150mm Dragonfly lenses ( M likes the idea of the 150mm for his CSC setup!), we did however resist temptation, but only just!
Similarly the lovely people on the Intrepid Camera stand worked hard on us, once again we resisted. However we may still pop along to see them at their workshop, have a cup of tea and let them have another go at us.
On the subject of large format cameras, which incidentally is what Intrepid make, I was on the lookout for a supply of 5×4 film. Sadly our search resulted in disappointment, none to be had at sensible prices.
Also on our visit list were Platypod (they make an interesting alternative to a regular tripod). Again no purchase, but we came away with ideas.
Missing from this years’ show were Paramo, not a major problem because we can call over to Wadhurst to see them ourselves. Also absent was Adobe, from a large display last year to nothing this year.
Several companies seemed to opt for much smaller stands this year, this could be down to the cost of display space or a perceived lack of interest.
Having a whole day at the show certainly paid dividends, we were able to take a leisurely stroll around taking in the atmosphere, rather than our usual rush to get to the relevant stands in just a couple of hours.
This also gave us the chance to talk to some of the visitors to the STC stand, show them some of our printed images. This really did help, as by showing images taken using STC filters answer their questions and prove why STC filters are so good. This was far better than relying on adverts, plus you don’t always get this advice on stands.
We also had time to ask questions about the batteries and lighting that InfinityX market. It would be great to test the batteries in our cameras and the lighting in the studio.
The event seemed a little smaller than previous years, show deals were not as abundant and the car parking was as expensive as ever.
The usual question. Are we going next year? Yes! And for more than one reason!
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