Unlike
Secretary Pete Guy I only attended the Club`s Stall on the Sunday,
whereas Pete held the fort over the full three day event. On the
Friday he was assisted by Brian Savage and on the Saturday by ----
---- of Area 20. WE owe Pete a considerable dept of thanks, not only
for the long stint, but doing so at his own expense as regards
travelling and B&B expenses for which the agreed £10 expenses
comes nowhere near covering.
The
National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham is a vast complex with many
individual Halls each of a large size in themselves and Hall 19
where Photo Action was held was equally so. A hive of people milling
around the main dealer`s stalls with a wall of coloured lights and
sounds.
Every
major dealer in film and Digital was present. Jessop spread its
services over a number of stalls. One for actual sales, an extensive
secondhand equipment area and smaller stalls for the sale of films,
a Classic Camera display and another for the sale of photographic
books. Yet another stall concentrated mainly on Video and digital
equipment.
For
anyone interested joining Jessop by way of employment the Careers
stall offered every opportunity.
A
few stalls from ourselves was The Linwood Camera who are affiliated
to the Glasgow & District Photographic Union. And what a
friendly bunch of lads they were. I was introduced to Exhibition
Secretary Robert Mulholland who offered a nice nip of whisky, which
seemed to flow throughout the day to all who stopped for a chat.
Their transparency work was shown on a laptop projector and along
with a nice display of prints, did their club proud. The rest of the
team looked smart in their kilts.
At
the Paterson Group area I found Roger Perry doing his stuff giving a
demonstration on photographing and lighting lovely female models. A
terrible job, but someone has to do it, I suppose!
Hewlett
Packard, Lexmark, Epson and Canon demonstrated their range of colour
printers. Photographic magazines were represented by Which Camera
and Practical Photography.
Photographic
Filters were represented by Cokin and SRB. If you were unsure about
filters these were the stalls to visit.
Demonstrations
were on show throughout the day.
Two
very interesting areas were the Photographers Question Time and
Photo Answers. Also the Camera Check area. A chap came up to me and
asked if I could help with a camera problem. He showed me a strip of
film with many under exposed frames. I eventually considered the
problem was possibly a faulty shutter and Pete suggested he take it
to the Camera Check. He later returned to confirm my suspicions
about the shutter solenoid. He was rather reluctant at the suggested
£90 repair charge. However I suggested that as he had a very good
Olympic camera, to replace it would cost three times more and with a
new solenoid and check out I would expect the camera to be as good
as new. He immediately returned to Camera Check and I hope that he
was very successful.
Every
half hour or so there was a live show. This was in the form of a
fashion show with the usual mixture of gorgeous and completely
rediculous clothing designs, but a team of Indian (the country)
dancers added to the colour and spectacle and surely the star was a
tall west Indian chap who did a take off of the transexual character
in The Rocky Horror Show. If he isn`t in films he really aught to
be.
During
the moments when I was free to look around I visited a few stalls
where I was able to chat to some of the salesmen. I made a definite
point of searching out the Samsung and Konica areas.
At
Johnsons Photopia Clinton Newell (Service Technician) gave me a
demonstration of the RICOH RDC-4300 Megapixel Digital 3x Continuous
Optical Zoom Camera. It saves pictures in three different JPEG
compression. The higher level giving professional quality while the
middle level is fine for general use and the lower for samples and
HTML use. The macro mode can focus on objects as close as 8 cms
without using a close-up adaptor. I was very impressed with the
quality. The cost! £549.99.
I
have had a Kindermann projector since the late 70`s. This brand has
possibly the best optical system of most slide projectors, however
it is now showing its age and I looked around the Hama stall where
Kindermann is represented, to see what was new. There are some very
fine models ranging from the basic projector to computer controlled
A/V models. A desktop model with a built in back projection screen
is also available. I shall have my work cut out deciding
which model to go for when replacing my present projector.
Of
course we must`nt forget that our presence At Photo Action was to
represent and publicise the Club and indeed this appears to have
worked very well. Over the three days we handed out hundreds of
publicity leaflets and met and talked to dozens of people, many
never having heard of us, others only just but found it interesting
meeting us and learning more. We also met some ex CRC50 members.
We
won`t know how many new members we will have gained for some while
as many may leave reading our leaflets for a time. We know we have
at least four definite new members. We have at least expanded
knowledge of our existence and the one thing Photo Action has
proved, is how interest in `silver image` photography is still on a
massive scale and while Digital Imaging may be gaining ground its
not going to be an easy job to take photographers away from their
cameras and film. I`m sure I am right in feeling that both systems
will work together for some while yet and most digital users will
continue with film for their original pictures.
Jessop
have already given the date of next years Photo Action Exhibition
and feel that including Photographic clubs has been very successful
and hope to increase their numbers next time.
From
this experience Pete and I considered our attendance a reasonable
success and enjoyed meeting so many people. However WE really do
need more members to offer their assistance and not leave everything
to one or two keen members. We need to consider how much more we are
prepared to spend and require a stronger presentation of the Club`s
services. The total cost is equivallent to a little more than £1
per member. The £50 cost of having an electrical point fitted meant
we couldn`t set up a table-top projector to show the quality of work
members produce. A photographic exhibition would have caught more
people`s attention.
However
all this has to be brought to the exhibition, set-up and taken down
each evening and afterwards returned to the owners. As it was Pete
who dealt with all of the set-up and most of the attendance on his
own and only three others kindly offered assistance.
Your
E.C. will be discussing plans for next year but WE would like YOU to
give a thought on what you might be able to do to help. Surely, if
smaller camera Clubs from as far as Scotland can put on such a grand
show, a National club of our size can do as well or even better. If
you can commit yourself to the three day event please let us know
now.
Its
really up to yourselves.
I
would like to thank Pete for all his work and time and to Konica who
gave backed us by giving some decorations for the stall, not to
forget the thanks everyone owes to Jessop for setting the whole
event up in the first place. I look forward to next years event.