Photokina, the world’s biggest photography equipment show is coming up, so there have been tons of announcements of new products in the lead-up to it…

  • Leica has finally announced the long-awaited M8 digital rangefinder. I really like the idea of a (relatively) small, quiet digital camera with interchangeable lenses, but unfortunately since it’s Leica the costs are sky-high. It looks like you could run up $10K pretty quickly for an M8 and a couple of lenses. No thanks.
  • In more down-to-earth news, Pentax has announced their new K10D, a 10MPix DSLR that looks to be roughly a match for my D200 except for the plastic body, but priced significantly lower. If I was buying into a camera system for the first time right now I’d be taking a long hard look at Pentax; the anti-shake built into their camera bodies coupled with their new digital oriented “pancake” prime lenses makes them look pretty appealing.
  • When people start asking me what lens they should buy, I’m going to start recommending this one.