After days of walking the multiple football field sized halls of the Vegas Convention Center, we were amazed, bored, schmoozed, and honestly delighted at the enormity of it all.
Seems we walked about 4-5 miles a day, (yep, all tracked with a FitBit tracker) and along with scheduled meetings, stopped at what caught our eyes.
The big news overall?
Thinner 2K-4K TVs, health tech, a 16 MP camera in an HTC Windows phone, and Wi-FI Enabled cameras, vid and still, and sound-earbuds, airplay speakers, and blue tooth headsets
So…..
The TV’s were great but not here yet, and very expensive. For now.

Let’s get to the cameras first:

From Nikon, Inc.:
Toshiaki Akagi, General Manager, 1st Designing Dept., Development Headquarters, Imaging Company
Kenji Suzuki, Technical and Engineering Liason

There were stars of the show – The Nikon D4, just announced as the new flagship of the line, was in high demand at their booth, as folks got their first hands on with this beauty,
Their is a video coming with a walk through of the features. It was also our honor to interview the team from Nikon Japan responsible for this gem.

Canon moved forward in the G-series, with the new GX-bigger sensor, Digic 5, and more MP to go with that bigger sensor. One thing we found a little off though was the viewfinder. Sure, most folks prefer to look at the beautiful, big LCD screen, but many old school shooters prefer a viewfinder. Like the big boy DSLRS, or rangefinders.
This unit has a strange lens blockage when lens is at widest. I was told that the full view is available when you zoom out. Really? About $800.

On the other side of the Canon coin, was their series of wi-fi enabled hd vid cams, which worked like magic.
the HF-M series of Vixia video cams:

“Share: When connected to a Wi-Fi network, videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube or Facebook. When on the go, use an iPhone or iPad and free Movie Uploader app to connect a VIXIA camcorder to a cellular network to enable video uploads.

Watch and Store: Select 2012 VIXIA camcorders allow users to wirelessly transmit videos to a PC for storage, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch through a free Movie Uploader app enabling quick storage on these mobile devices, or on-the-spot playback for friends and family. Users can also enjoy wirelessly viewing on a DLNA-compatible HDTV or through other DLNA-compatible devices such a game console.

We saw first hand the full operation and can’t wait to put it to use. Better than any iPhone.

You see, many companies have been trying to do wi-fi well, and there wasn’t enough of a demand, or the technology wasn’t wasn’t there or some other reason.
Then Facebook happened and Youtube before that. Smart phones took over as the tool of Choice to share your life with the world.
Look like we’re about to see a change with higher quality the outcome.

Even Sony upgraded their Flip Video competitor, Bloggie, to wi-fi with LIVE STREAMING capabilities. Cost about $199.

Samsung had their entries as well, and we can’t wait to test them all.

One thing you should know, is that the way they all do it is to first upload to a proprietary website, then you can access the files, and post wherever.

Is there a downside? Hmmm… you may want to make sure you have an excellent wi-fi connection, and edit as you shoot. Once we get one of these in our hands, we think we have a workflow that will work, that we’ll share.

Then the camera that had all of the fanboys crazed, was the Fuji Pro-X1 (wow, everyone likes “X” in the name these days).

Rangefinder, 16MP, APS-C sensor, and a handful. Meaning, it’s not lightweight, but fits great in the hands. MSRP at about $1800.

We saw some great products for one of our fave new interests: panoramic VR’s.
This camera, called the Tamaggo may change the way you see things. Could be introduced for between $150-$200.

Ok, that’s top line, just on cameras.
More to come, and detailed video walkthroughs on the Nikon D4, Fuji Prox-1, and the Tamaggo.

Remember to check out our Facebook page and Twitter feed, as we were posting as we went along.

Let’s call this post Part 1.
next up: sound, special lenses, and general tools to make you image making life better.

Oh, yes, we know that it was called PMA@CES, but unfortunately, with the massive amounts of gear to see at the main convention halls, getting crosstown to another hotel just wasn’t going to happen.
We felt bad not seeing a lot of our manufacturer friends in the photo biz, but the venue wasn’t right in our opinion. PMA having it’s own time in past years, made sense. With the economic conditions, everyone is looking to cut down the trips. This made sense on paper or the PMA combo with CES, however in practice, the physical logistics were a nightmare.