PhotoPlus Friday

I went to PhotoPlus Expo this afternoon. Strobes, softboxes, stands; backgrounds, bare bulbs, batteries; cases, cards and cameras.

Touched some Nikons, some Canons, the new Sony Alpha.

The Sony booth had one or two models posing at all times, and when two worked together, a crowd formed of a dozen men, surging forward. The cameras had huge zooms mounted on them, thick and long. (You need two hands to handle them properly, really.) The men would sometimes look at each other, comparing, then point them at the models and blast away.

I walked around the corner and tried out a Sony 28mm F2.8. When I asked to see it, the salesman put a big zoom lens on the camera instead and smiled. "No, the 28mm prime," I said. "Oh," he said. "No one has asked to see that before." It's a very unsexy lens. Not fast, not expensive. Snubnose and light. Invisible.