Prototype Photokina

Even though statistics tell us that digital camera sales can be around 15% of the whole market, hence still far away from the film cameras, there is no doubt that the digital era is here, now!
If the last edition of the Photokina fair saw a rebirth of the medium format camera, this 2000 event is mostly focused on digital stuff. Every camera manufacturer has to show his digital products, being them ready for sale or not. For this reason, we are seeing prototypes again at Photokina, a trend that was in fashion back in early Sixties, and now is here again.
There must be some reason for that. I believe this is because improvements in film cameras are quite easy, so that having new products is mainly a decision of the marketing department.
Please don't misunderstand me, I don't want to minimize the rôle of design here. I mean that if and when the marketing dept. wants a new camera or lens, designers can do that. Probably, the only field in which film camera technology still differs from one manufacturer to another is about autofocus, in spite of almost twenty years passed since the original Pentax ME-F of 1981.
With digital cameras things are completely different. To have a new product ready you have to look for the best possible image sensor and processing electronics (or develop your own ones), then you have to work a lot with acquisition, processing and storage software. Then, when you believe you are on the right track, you have to look at what other manufacturers have already announced. At this point there is serious risk you have to get rid of most of your work and start over because you are well behind your competitors.
OK, let's stop with philosophy and get back to earth. What was there at Photokina 2000? Of course there was a lot of new stuff, but I cannot report about everything here, also because I really didn't see enough to do that. I'll stick to what looks most important to me.
Speaking of available products, I was mainly impressed by the Fuji S1 Pro. At Fuji Demo Center you could shot with the S1, have your image processed on a computer (only in case you need that) and then have it printed with true photographic quality by a Pictrostat printer. You can achieve top quality prints up to A3 format! Of course, also Canon and Nikon pro digital SLR's are very good, but maybe not as good as the Fuji. New, advanced digital compacts are the Fuji Finepix 40i, the Sony Cybershot and the Nikon Coolpix 880.
Also, Nikon introduced the F65, a film SLR that looks just like a Pentax MZ-something, five years later then the original MZ-5.
And what about above mentioned prototypes? The most interesting prototypes are from Contax and Pentax (at long last!) Even though very different in size (the Contax being bulky like a medium format camera!) both Contax N Digital and Pentax "No name" share their main specifications, like full frame format. That means they have 24x36mm CCD, so that the viewfinder is the same of conventional SLR's and the wide-angle lenses remains wide-angles. Competitor "half-frame" digital SLR cameras cannot do that. Also, both the Pentax and the Contax have 6 Megapixel sensor and IEEE1394 (FireWire) interface for data transmitting, far quicker than the already fast USB.
Both Pentax and Contax announce very interesting film cameras based on the same new body of the digital ones, with the same shooting features (shutter, AF, meter, controls, and so on). The Contax film SLR is called the N1, while the Pentax is called the MZ-S. Both these "analogue" SLR's will be available sooner than the digital versions.
The Contax features a new lens mount and two unbelievable lenses, a 50/1.4 and a 24-85/3.5-4.5 zoom, even bulkier then their medium format counterparts! Bad news for Contax users.
On the contrary, the Pentax is still a very compact SLR and retains the KAF2 mount. Good news for Pentax users.
The Contax N1/N Digital feature a new five-segment autofocus, with AF sensors arranged like the "five" in playing cards, while both the Pentaxes feature a new six-segment AF system, whose layout is more or less like a double SAFOX IV (II=II). More details in next October issue of Spotmatic magazine. In the mean time, look at this Pentax patent for a new autofocus system.
OK, this is my brief overview about Photokina. For more details about the Pentax stuff, click on the following links.

• Pentax prototype cameras

• Pentax accessories

• Pentax lenses

Thanks to Bojidar Dimitrov, Ralf Engelmann, Alexander Grigolia, Paal Jensen, Dennis Klimovich, Lawrence Kwan, Yoshihiko Takinami and all those who contributed to collect and share early info about these new products from Pentax.