PMA 2009 show report preview and predictions

Feb 16, 2009 at 15:41:17 GMT

Pre-PMA 2009: In two weeks the Photo Marketing Association tradeshow will open its doors. The flow of new product announcements began at CES last month and promises to pick up its pace this week and next. Despite the global economic situation we are still expecting a number of announcements from all manufacturers, just perhaps with a balance toward the more affordable models. So that you can keep up to date with his growing list of new products we have enabled our show report and new product index which will also provide direct access to our live 'from the show floor' reports as they happen. We've also added a little preview / predictions list. Bookmark our show report page or subscribe to our PMA 2009 RSS feeds.

Click here for our PMA 2009 Show Report
(including preview / predictions / hopes)

PMA 2009 RSS feeds

• New Product Index(updated after each new announcement)
   
• Live Show Report (updated during show hours)

PMA 2009 preview / predictions / hopes

• Few new digital SLRs - Ironically we start our show preview with a fairly stark prediction; while there may be one or two, we're not expecting many DSLR announcements at this PMA. There were no less than seven new Digital SLRs at Photokina and the financial climate won't favor expensive models. We think it's a bit too early to see any further developments in the Micro Four Thirds camp (or any competing non-reflex system cameras) beyond what we saw at Photokina.
   
• Lens market growth - With the surge in DSLR sales it's clear that demand and sales of lenses will continue to climb, we're likely to see this reflected in the number of lens announcements this year.
   
• HD video, zoom, bridge models - We mentioned this in our 2008 preview but it's still likely to continue to be a trend this year, more compact models with HD video support, big zoom and even more models which aim to be both things, a decent camcorder and competent stills camera.
   
• Rugged compacts - We've not seen that many rugged compact cameras, in fact some manufacturers have none in their line-up. We're expecting to see that corrected this year with almost every major manufacturer having at least one rugged / waterproof compact model.
  
  
• Innovation? - Often, when we mentioned the lack of innovation in camera design and technology during our meetings at the last PMA (2008) and later in the year at Photokina, we got mysterious responses involving much touching of noses, winking and whispers of 'wait until next year'. Whether these hints of things to come turn into anything more concrete during PMA 2009 remains to be seen, though with most of the major camera manufacturers facing tough times and desperately cutting costs we're not holding our collective breath for any big surprises. Which will, of course, make them doubly welcome should there actually be any.