If anyone still does not know Photokina is a photo exhibition, in Cologne. It takes place every 2 years. The exhibition starts on 23 September and ends on 28 September.
Many would perhaps think that this exhibition is only for professional photographers and is not interesting for ordinary people. It is not true. This exhibition is designed for broad audiences and offers many interesting things. Because I already visited this exhibition, I can tell here about some interesting exhibits. For example, I was very pleased by a new compact cameras with facial recognition. It recognizes not only the face of a man, but is able to detect and analyze a smile. You can setup, how big the smile should be, so that the camera is triggered automatically. Very important, I think the fact that almost all manufacturers give the possibility to try out almost all cameras and save the photos on your own memory card. When I wanted to save photos from Leica M8 and noted that I don’t have a SD memory card, the nice lady, who brought me this camera, was so nice to borrow me such card, so I was able to use this card and make a few photos, which I copied on my Netbook via a built-card reader. Furthermore, I was fascinated of the new SLRs from Pentax, as I saw them in the sand or in an artificial tropical environment. They were unprotected, and apparently resistant to these environments.
It was also very interesting, to hold the new top models from Leica, Hasselblad, Seitz, Alpha and Mamiya with own hands. A normal person has such possibility not every day, to hold those camera, which costs several thousand euros, in the hands. I could try most of them with my memory card and keep my test images.