Focus on Imaging 2012 – preview

Focus on Imaging 2012 started today.

This is the UK’s biggest Photography trade show/fair. It’s at Birmingham NEC and started today (Sunday 4th) and goes on until Wednesday (7th March). Practically all the main photography manufacturers have a stall there and also a lot of other interesting stalls also – retailers, magazines, smaller manufacturers, trade agencies, societies, Universities etc. If you’re a big photography fan then it’s a must at least once – especially if considering buying some equipment.

Here’s a list of exhibitors.

But as well as stalls trying to sell you stuff there are other things of interest – here’s the show’s What’s On page.

Talks, demo’s, workshops etc. Unlike other trade fair which have separate paid for seminars – these talks are fairly small, but also free. I’ve been to a few in the past e.g. on Nikon Speedlights and they certainly can still be interesting. Here’s a list of all the talks.

Here’s the Floorplan PDF.

With a quick preview picture:

Deals : usually there are some good deals to be had at the show and this is why I’m going this year – I’m hoping to buy a Full Frame lens cheaply before I hopefully upgrade to the Nikon D800. I will try to blog prices here – but as I’m only going on Tuesday – it may be a bit late for most I’m afraid. Should still be interesting though. Although – I have seen someone mention that they bought a Nikon 16-35 from the Jacobs stall for £850 – that’s their normal shop price! Although purchasing a lens is my main purpose for going it has been more than a year since I last went – so it should be an interesting day out anyway.

Other things I’m hoping to try/buy:

• Try a production D800 (already tried a demo one)
• Take some photos with my own card on both D800 and D700 to compare
• Look at Computer monitors – I’m thinking of buying a new 24″ monitor
• Try some Wacom tablets
• Maybe buy some 1.72m wide Colorama backdrop paper.
• And generally just geek out 😉