Due to my work I had only one day for visiting Photokina. I had to drive 2200km all the way from Bratislava to Cologne and back. But it was worth it. I met a lot of interesting people there, among them my friends from Train to create (I wish I will have more time to spend with them on my next visit to London) and I have seen a ton of new products but most of all I was inspired by its atmosphere and the fact that there are so many people fascinated by photography.

I was not asked nor payed to write that post. This is mostly a recap for myself but I hope it will be useful for you as well.

Here is my top10 from Photokina 2014

#10 Eizo book “One lesson I learned in Photography”

Really nice book on Insights about photography and everyday life from 25 acclaimed photographers I am reading right now. Here are some ideas from it:

“Mastering techniques is absolutely required but the most critical thing about photography is to envision the final result in your mind’s eye and then to make it so with your toolset hand. Your high technical skills will be the translator of your imagination and the tool that will materialise your vision.” David Abdallah

“One thing I have learned in my years of photography is that rejection is not a failure and the way to hurt your career the most is to let rejection hold you back from sharing your work or prevent you from producing with all your heart and soul.” Linday Adler

“On my trips it is often necessary to have some form of plan of what to photograph and how. However, practically every time I have been surprised, and confronted with situations that appeared magically in front of my camera. Each constellation of time, place and event is unique, and the capturing of these moments is always worth the attempt, and wonderfully rewarding when it all works out as a perfect composition.” Andreas H. Bitesnich

You can download free pdf here

#9 Go pro hero4

Not yet! Unfortunately but @Go pro stand they had a great amount of accessories to consider. Check out their go pro app at App Store and go pro studio at gopro.com. What I found interesting was a lee ND filter bug for go pro @leefilter stand

#8 Two (I think) usefull apps

Artist’sViewfinder assists the still photographer or film-maker in exploring different places and angles to find the optimal placement for the camera. By simulating real camera and lens combinations it allows you to visualize what you are going to shoot- and its also a great tool to train yourself to see.

and

This little app called Shutter count displays the number of shutter actuations (the shutter count) of your Canon digital camera. With shutter count you can easily check whether a newly purchased camera is really new, or check how heavily used a pre owns item is.

#7 New Elinchrom products

I will start with the little things I am really happy about

Heavy duty, stronger for longer Quadra Reflector Adapter MK-II and Quadra protective cap.

Next would be FS30 which offers a classical cinema light.

Litemotiv a parabolic extension to Elinchrom’s Rotalux Deep Octa soft boxes

and finally ELC Pro HD 500/1000 compact studio flash units

#6 Phase one and their products

I admire, from phase one camera to IQ backs (I am a proud owner of IQ back 140) and new release of Capture One 8.

I had a chance to see Adrian Weinbrecht a London based commercial photographer and his “lighting a model” session.

#5 Andreas H. Bitesnich

had an nice talk about his workflow @datacolor and as a gift I got an ebook on Color management you can download it from their page as well

#4 Frank Doorhof

Frank Doorhof and his photo session with a beautiful model Natalie Jegel on vespa @mamiyaleaf was funny and inspiring at the same time. Have a look: here

#3 Asuka Photobooks

Asuka Photobooks for professionals where I picked up an nice book of India photographs and I was told that the author will have speech @fujifilm stand in 15 minutes so I hurry up to meet him there