Photography Show Birmingham
- Thread starter Paul11
- Start date
Caporegime
I should be there Sunday, 90% certain anyway.
Soldato
Yea im going
Associate
I am also going on the Saturday.
Soldato
Went today, not been for a few years. The standout from all talks I saw unlike previously from what I remember was that speakers were now referring to their work as 'images' and not 'photos'. This was at nikon, sony, adobe etc. Any that did reference the word 'photo' almost always used it to describe only the initial capture and not the final output shown, sold, presented etc. A good portion of what was shown represented a very good level of digital editing to the point that some of what you saw might as well of been from ai. A guy speaking at the nikon stand was showing an 'image' formed of blended photos including a background taken years before. Others included shopped mirrored symmetry, heavy tone and grading and luminosity masking gone mad. It was to the point of not knowing what was reality and if what you were looking at was even photographed at all. A couple of them even mentioned either not bothering with or leaving behind kit as it simply doesn't matter anymore as you can edit in post. Not far away from just not bothering at all as you can form the whole image in post, or what was post as there's no camera to even bother with - one of the 'analogue' speakers was doing exactly that 
The displayed work that was award winning (various) appeared to be a mixture of photos and digital art. It was difficult to tell with some as above.
The displayed work that was award winning (various) appeared to be a mixture of photos and digital art. It was difficult to tell with some as above.
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Soldato
I'm heading there tomorrow. Is there food and drinks and are u allowed to bring a bag /backpack etc?Went today, not been for a few years. The standout from all talks I saw unlike previously from what I remember was that speakers were now referring to their work as 'images' and not 'photos'. This was at nikon, sony, adobe etc. Any that did reference the word 'photo' almost always used it to describe only the initial capture and not the final output shown, sold, presented etc. A good portion of what was shown represented a very good level of digital editing to the point that some of what you saw might as well of been from ai. A guy speaking at the nikon stand was showing an 'image' formed of blended photos including a background taken years before. Others included shopped mirrored symmetry, heavy tone and grading and luminosity masking gone mad. It was to the point of not knowing what was reality and if what you were looking at was even photographed at all. A couple of them even mentioned either not bothering with or leaving behind kit as it simply doesn't matter anymore as you can edit in post. Not far away from just not bothering at all as you can form the whole image in post, or what was post as there's no camera to even bother with - one of the 'analogue' speakers was doing exactly that
The displayed work that was award winning (various) appeared to be a mixture of photos and digital art. It was difficult to tell with some as above.
Soldato
Yes to food and drinks (not cheap) and you can bring bags, your own kit including flash etc. There's models to photograph if that's your thing and virtually everywhere is happy to demo products it seemed. Saw a few testing lenses on their own bodies as you'd expect.
Soldato
OK cool I'll bring my own pack lunch and my camera and one small lens.
What was parking like? Did u had to take a shuttle to the venue? Or u parked walking distance to the hall?
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Soldato
Sorry, no idea on that one as we stopped driving there when the parking hit £16 out of principal. It's probably £20 now.
Should add, if your taking your camera you'll probably get a great shot of atleast one person or couple kicking off about the parking charges.
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Soldato
Parking is only 12 quid actually
Soldato
I'm not surprised they've reduced it, it's all you could hear about anywhere near the car park
Caporegime
I went there today, met up with Jonny for a bit. Didn’t get anything substantial, they didn’t have the new Godox trigger I wanted but I did find the perfect medium size backpack by Tenba Fulton v2 14L that can fit under the seat in an airplane.
Tried the A9III, dead impressed, the AF, the EVF, the FPS, and that write speed is insane. Just insane amount of tech in a body. The flip screen is rather chunky though, very thick.
X100VI was nice but didn’t used it much since it was set up weirdly, none of the buttons does the thing I would set up mine so it felt alien to use. The AF was quick enough.
Canon R3, eye auto focus tracking was strange. It’s a circle that moves. Around but it was way off for me as I wear classes. When I look dead center it is to the left of the screen by 20% of coverage. The AF was good though and the body still feel dead at home after so long since I had a 5D4. Interestingly, they had loads of 5D4 on display to try too.
Nikon Zf, don’t like the button layout, no joystick, only a d-pad. Also notice all the Zf on display had a smallrig grip attached some reason. Is it too uneconomical without it and they know this?
Some excellent deals, Fuji XT5 is £1299. A74 for £1699, A73 for £1299. LCE has the best deals, £300 off the A9III that nobody has any discounts on.
Also by chance was walking past Canon stand when a woman was giving a talk about shooting pregnancy and she was so impressive that after 5 mins outside lingering I went and sat down and listened to the rest of it. She charges £10k for a 6hr shoot and she only has been doing it for 6 years.
Tried the A9III, dead impressed, the AF, the EVF, the FPS, and that write speed is insane. Just insane amount of tech in a body. The flip screen is rather chunky though, very thick.
X100VI was nice but didn’t used it much since it was set up weirdly, none of the buttons does the thing I would set up mine so it felt alien to use. The AF was quick enough.
Canon R3, eye auto focus tracking was strange. It’s a circle that moves. Around but it was way off for me as I wear classes. When I look dead center it is to the left of the screen by 20% of coverage. The AF was good though and the body still feel dead at home after so long since I had a 5D4. Interestingly, they had loads of 5D4 on display to try too.
Nikon Zf, don’t like the button layout, no joystick, only a d-pad. Also notice all the Zf on display had a smallrig grip attached some reason. Is it too uneconomical without it and they know this?
Some excellent deals, Fuji XT5 is £1299. A74 for £1699, A73 for £1299. LCE has the best deals, £300 off the A9III that nobody has any discounts on.
Also by chance was walking past Canon stand when a woman was giving a talk about shooting pregnancy and she was so impressive that after 5 mins outside lingering I went and sat down and listened to the rest of it. She charges £10k for a 6hr shoot and she only has been doing it for 6 years.
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Went today, not been for a few years. The standout from all talks I saw unlike previously from what I remember was that speakers were now referring to their work as 'images' and not 'photos'. This was at nikon, sony, adobe etc. Any that did reference the word 'photo' almost always used it to describe only the initial capture and not the final output shown, sold, presented etc. A good portion of what was shown represented a very good level of digital editing to the point that some of what you saw might as well of been from ai. A guy speaking at the nikon stand was showing an 'image' formed of blended photos including a background taken years before. Others included shopped mirrored symmetry, heavy tone and grading and luminosity masking gone mad. It was to the point of not knowing what was reality and if what you were looking at was even photographed at all. A couple of them even mentioned either not bothering with or leaving behind kit as it simply doesn't matter anymore as you can edit in post. Not far away from just not bothering at all as you can form the whole image in post, or what was post as there's no camera to even bother with - one of the 'analogue' speakers was doing exactly that
The displayed work that was award winning (various) appeared to be a mixture of photos and digital art. It was difficult to tell with some as above.
What a sad future we are heading into
Soldato
I for one go through the photos that I take and the ones I like and keep, I'll edit to be as close to the real thing as possible. Overblown "HDR" and massive contrasts or just changing the image entirely (why include stuff from years previous?!) surely defeats the whole purpose of photography. At that point it's just an image that has been manipulated and is no longer a photo...
Sad to hear that sort of stuff going on at a photography event tbh!
Sad to hear that sort of stuff going on at a photography event tbh!
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Soldato
I'm not sure it's sad, but it seems to be getting more divided. Atleast they were labelling their work an image from a photo.
It seems a hugely complicated subject in itself and also depends on what someone perceives as a photo. You can take a photo now on a modern digital camera and lens, not adjust anything, and it still won't look like a photo. Make it less sharp, don't correct it, add the noise back in and it then looks more like a photo. Then again, I'm not sure at this point that it's any better than going the other way and making the photo more a digital image as you're still manipulating things, just in the opposite way.
Soldato
Went there yesterday and had a good trapse around.
Don't get me wrong I'm not against post processing i.e cropping, curves, dodge and burn and some clone removal to tidy something up a little etc and people can do whatever they like however personally I'm not interested in the over processed styles and blended images that were mentioned. It's just like all the ai tools that allow you to do sky replacements and generative editing, people seem to be doing less and less in camera which to me removes the point of photography.
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