PC Watch has reported on the Japan Photo Exposition 99 which was held at Ikebukuro Sunshine City Convention center in Tokyo from March 5th to 7th.

They comment that interestingly this year the amount of digital equipment on show has dramatically increased, some manufacturers dedicating half of their booth space to digital cameras. Also that many manufacturers were not only showing but giving hands on experience of their new 2 megapixel cameras.

Nikon

Nikon generated the most interest with the new Coolpix 950, and that the types (and age groups) of people showing an interest in the 950 was much broader than previously experienced. Also their was the prototype of Nikon's to-be-named Pro SLR bathed in light box lit glory but still behind glass, looking as tempting as ever, pictures: here and here.

Olympus

Olympus were of course demonstrating the C2000Z of which they seemed to have quite a few hands-on items there, the attraction according to the reporter with the C2000Z is the large diameter of the lens and thus the supposed improvement in image quality this (may) produce.

They also noted that the Olympus and Nikon booths were strategically positioned near to each other and that passers by could be heard commenting that their were much more compact models than the C2000Z available (ie. Coolpix 950).

Fuji

Fuji had already put the FinePix 2700 on the market before the show and therefore had the advantage on Nikon and Olympus, however they still managed to demonstrate the camera (but the crowds were not as large as at Nikon and Olympus).

Ricoh

Ricoh were touting their RDC-5000 2 megapixel digicam, the writer complains that this is a large camera than other 2 megapixel cameras to be released at the same time.

Kodak

Kodak were exhibiting the DSC 315 and DCS 560 (six million pixels).

Minolta

Minolta were exhibiting the 2 CCD Dimage RD-2000 which features exchangeable lenses (and a rather HUGE cubic body design). They were also showing the Dimage EX 1500 and not confirming (or denying) rumours of an upcoming 2 megapixel Dimage EX...

Mamiya

Mamiya were showing their HUGE 6 million pixel back for their 645 format which is based around a Philips CCD array (can you believe the size of that CCD?? if you look closely it looks like six 1 megapixel CCD's arranged together).

(Apologies for any minor mistakes in the Japanese translation)

All images are (c)1999 PC Watch (which is why they're not thumbnailed here)