Attended PPE in New York yesterday. Played with a bunch of cameras and lenses, but won't offer any hands-on reports. We've had enough of those for all the new gear at Photokina. Just one observation, that Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens is amazingly fast on the OM-D E-M1, even with the converter in place. Coolest new product: The Lens Flipper. Hyunjun Kim from Korea came up with it. It's basically a double lens mount and rear cap on a strap and it allows you to quickly change lenses without having to juggle two lenses and a camera at the same time. Available for Nikon, Canon and Sony Alpha and E mounts. $80 at the show, $90 on the website. They were selling like hotcakes.
The Canon 6D is not discontinued. Amazon UK made a mistake by listing it as such.
Zeiss expects to introduce wide angle versions of its Loxia line in about a year.
Sigma's new 150-600mm Sports edition lens is about to ship for $2,000. It's one heavy beast. The Contempary edition, which is lighter, will probably not ship until next year. Price is not yet known.
Like last year, Ricoh Pentax is missing from the show.
Finally, walking around, looking at all the different prints, I got the impression that despite all the handwringing about the state of the market and the absence of innovation this year, for us photographers it's all good. The tools that are available can create wonderful images, almost without fail.
The show ends tomorrow.
By John van Rosendaal