Booth Report: Pentax

17:08 EST - The Pentax booth at PMA is packed with products, though all but one of these were announced before the show.

The company's only new announcement for PMA is the development of an smc Pentax DA 50 - 200mm F4 - 5.6 ED lens, shown under glass as a prototype on the booth. Pricing and availability for that lens have not been announced at this time. Other recent products shown in our report include the *ist DS consumer digital SLR, which began shipping at the end of last year, as well as the Optio WP waterproof... (More)

Booth Report: Panasonic

15:44 EST - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., better known by its Panasonic brandname, has numerous digital cameras and camcorders on its booth at PMA as usual.

The company announced several interesting new models in the runup to PMA, all with either a four or five megapixel imager, and all featuring the company's image stabilisation technology. The long-zoom DMC-FZ4 and DMC-FZ5 offer a 12x optical zoom, while the DMC-LZ1 and DMC-LZ2 include a 6x optical zoom, and the DMC-LS1 includes a 3x type. Of the five cameras, the FZ models are the only ones to offer... (More)

Booth Report: Epson

14:57 EST - Seiko Epson Corp. is showcasing a range of the company's products including printers, digital cameras and its PhotoFine LCD display technology at PMA.

Products on the Epson booth range from low-cost existing digital camera models such as the entry-level Epson L500V digital camera announced last year, to impressive wide-format printers that offer a combination of speed and high resolution at pricetags nearer $5000. A few of the interesting products on the booth follow below. The Epson Stylus Photo R1800 printer stands out as a particularly exciting... (More)

Booth Report: Samsung

12:37 EST - Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung has a fairly large booth at this year's PMA, on which it is demonstrating quite a range of digital cameras.

In recent years, Samsung has gained a reputation as one of the companies that unveils the largest digicam lineups at PMA, with many models sharing a similar foundation (but with slight tweaks such to things such as sensor resolution, firmware or camera styling to differentiate the models). This year, we've heard that Samsung is attempting to pare down its offerings as it tries to rationalise the lineup,... (More)

Gepe Card Safe: Takes all cards and takes a beating

01:00 EST - HP Marketing Corporation, not to be confused with that other HP, Hewlett Packard, was showing off their Gepe Card Safe at both Sneak Peek and the tradeshow.

It's an innovative card holder that's compatible with nearly all memory card shapes without having to change a thing. Just orient the card the right way and it's held securely in a very hard enclosure. The dramatic moment comes when the man showing you the product puts a small light bulb in the enclosure, grabs a rubber mallet, and gives the case a good whack. A little car-salemanish, but heads do... (More)