PMA 2005: CNET covers the show

The most common adjectives used to describe this year's PMA show include low key, low energy, and, well, boring. The theories range from trade-show burnout--with Photokina last fall and CES laundry barely out of the dryer, what could possibly be new--to Cassandras blaming it on flattening digital camera sales. The guy sitting next to me talking on his cell phone says that PMA and CES should be combined into a one-week show, with PMA the first three days and CES the latter three. My pet theory: Who the heck wants to be in Orlando during one of the busiest vacation weeks of the year? After walking the show floor from one end to the other, I can tell you they're all true.

In part, the crap factor was high. The high point of a photo show is not rows and rows of scrapbooking paraphernalia (no slur to that wildly popular hobby) or your-picture-here bobble-head dolls. Plus, most of the new camera announcements came out before the show, making the show itself a bit anticlimactic. But if you look beneath the surface, there are some really interesting and useful developments taking place that will actively shape your digital-imaging-related activities.

Few surprises 
Generally, we saw all the stuff that we predicted from CES, predominantly rollouts of cameras with bigger LCDs, more megazooms, and the typical trend toward cheaper and faster products.

As if in preparation for the next generation of camera phones, 3-megapixel digital cameras have rolled over and died. The proof: Out of the more than 60 new cameras coming from the top manufacturers this spring, only about 4 have 3-megapixel resolution. Though there remain significant differences among low-resolution models and camera phone implementations, clearly the products have become commoditized. With prices starting as low as US$150 (S$299), 4- and 5-megapixel models have become the new entry level. There were a handful of notable products, which you can read about here.

NuCore Technology, who provides the processing innards for a variety of camera manufacturers (it's the silicon behind Kyocera's RTune engine and JVC's Megabrid architecture, among others), announced software that allows manufacturers who use NuCore's chips to create some really advanced slide shows with internal transitions and special effects, as opposed to between frames. Plus, the chipset supports component output to HDTVs. However, if you're not into all that flash, stay tuned--we think the chipset has great potential for fostering innovation within PCs, DVD players, camera phones, and tons of other noncamera consumer electronics.

Standard time 
Kodak opened its ImageLink architecture to the industry in an effort to simplify PC-free printing--and perhaps encourage non-Kodak shooters to buy its printer docks, of course. The architecture specifies a 26-pin connector and a data-stream protocol for one-touch printing. In practice, it means any camera that uses the connector will be able to dock and print on a compliant output device. ImageLink isn't terribly sophisticated; it literally prints everything at the press of a button, and that's about it. You'll still need PictBridge to make more sophisticated selections, add frames, and so on. Several camera manufacturers, notably those without significant printer divisions, have joined the club. Kodak even showed a prototype for an ImageLink-enabled printer dock for a camera phone.

In fact, camera phone printing is getting to be pretty big, not only for standalone printers but at kiosks. You couldn't walk two feet without tripping over a kiosk, and many of them support printing from phones. Since I kept tripping over kiosks, I decided to get prints from all of them. These in-store kiosks generally come in two flavors: one type has a dye-sub printer built in to deliver instant prints (where instant means about 1.5 minutes per print), while the other uploads your images to a central location, where a photofinisher creates standard silver-halide photos (C prints) that you pick up in about an hour. My advice: Before you use one of the instant print kiosks, find out whose printer is inside. All the prints were nearly identical and pretty good except for those from Fuji's Aladdin-based kiosks. They were simply awful.

HP trotted out Henry Wilhelm at its PMA dog-and-pony show to announce Wilhelm Imaging Research's new "official" print permanence ratings, complete with logo to stick on the packaging. Unfortunately, his rant about third-party inks and papers sounded a little too much like HP's party line for my comfort. Combined with the questions about his independence that have been floating around for a while (which we also take with a grain of salt), I'll be scrutinizing his ratings a bit more closely from now on and looking at the work being done by the Rochester Institute of Technology's Image Permanence Institute.

However, I hope the industry responds to Wilhelm's call to arms about the lack of standards. Every time someone asks the "how many megapixels?" question, what they're really asking--and we need to be able to answer--is, "How good are this camera's photos?" We sorely need industry-wide metrics for image quality and speed for digital cameras, as well as low-light performance for camcorders and cost per page for inkjet printers. Sure, it might put me out of a job, but I'm willing to take one for the team.

PMA 2005: what to expect at the show