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It's that time of year again, and for the first time since 2019, there'll be a CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan, starting February 23!
I'll be attending the show for IR, with my main focus being my usual in-depth interviews with industry executives and engineers.
Do you have any questions you'd like me to ask the...
After a nearly 2½ year absence due to COVID lockdowns, I finally got to return to Japan in late July of 2022. It was great to be back and reconnect with so many people I know in the photo business over there. One of the first meetings I had was with Fujifilm, at their Omiya headquarters north of Tokyo.
I had a...
I visited Olympus' corporate headquarters on my last trip to Japan, back in early March 2020. It's taken me until now to finally publish my interview with Masanori Sako (Senior Manager of Global Marketing Strategy for Olympus Imaging Division) that I recorded back then. The sale of the Imaging Resource business and...
Last week, Panasonic figuratively blew the doors off its competition in the pro video space with the introduction of the Lumix S1H. It offers truly high-end video capability for pro videographers and cinematographers at an unprecedented price point. (US$4,000 is still a chunk of change, but there isn't anything on...
As I usually do, I stayed on in Japan after this year's CP+ trade show, and while there had a chance to visit Olympus' research and development headquarters in Hachioji where I sat down with some of their engineers. My interview at CP+ itself with Shigemi Sugimoto-san, Head of Olympus' Imaging Business Unit, was...
Recently, I had the chance to speak with Sigma's CEO, Kazuto Yamaki, alongside the CP+ tradeshow in Tokyo. Yamaki-san is always a favorite interview subject of mine, because as the head of a family-owned company, its his hand on the tiller, and so his decisions that dictate the company's future products and...
We had a chance recently to speak with four top executives from Canon's Image Communication Business Operations group, the division responsible for all of Canon's photographic products. I probed into Canon's focus on photography in the face of its expansion into many related businesses. Does their significant...
I had a chance to sit down with a group of top Nikon executives and engineering managers last month, as part of my yearly pilgrimage to Yokohama, Japan for the annual CP+ trade show. We talked about lens design and how it's impacted by the new Z-mount -- we're frankly amazed by their new 14-30mm f/4 lens, both for...
I had a chance to sit down with Kenji Tanaka from Sony, as part of my usual round of interviews at this year's CP+ 2019 trade show in Yokohama. Tanaka-san is the Senior General Manager of Business Unit 1 of Sony Imaging Products and Solutions Inc's Digital Imaging Group. That's a typically Japanese-business-card...
I had a chance to sit down with two top Fujifilm execs (Toshihisa Iida and Makoto Oishi) at the recent CP+ 2019 show in Yokohama, Japan, to ask them about everything from the state of the industry to my usual tech-geeky questions about underlying technology. I've been wanting to write about some of the details of...
A lot of readers (and our own staff!) have been wondering what's up with Olympus' E-M5 line, given how long it's been since its last update. We got to talk with senior Olympus management at the CP+ 2019 show in Yokohama, Japan yesterday, and not only learned the likely reason for this, but also that the company is ...
At CP+ 2018, we had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Shigemi Sugimoto, Head of Olympus Corp.'s Imaging Business Unit. He was appointed to this position October 2017, so this was our first opportunity to discuss Olympus business position and general direction for their imaging division with him. It was encouraging to hear...
Our CP+ 2018 interview series continues this week with a visit to the booth of electronics and imaging giant Ricoh. The company recently launched its second full-frame digital camera, the Pentax K-1 Mark II, and also launched a upgrade program the likes of which we've never seen in the industry before, allowing K-1...
For a good few years now, we've had a team from IR on the ground at the CP+ tradeshow in Japan each spring, attending an annual event which represents something of a homecoming for many of the world's biggest camera makers. And each year, we make sure to schedule time around the show to meet with executives from each of...
With the seemingly never-ending procession of Sony full-frame body and lens releases lately, many of us have been wondering whether Sony was moving away from APS-C entirely. In an extended Q&A session just today, Sony's top executive for interchangeable-lens camera development said emphatically that Sony will never leave...
Rounding out our interview series from the CP+ 2017 tradeshow in Yokohama, Japan, Imaging Resource founder and publisher Dave Etchells recently met with Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki to discuss the company's impressive lens lineup.
Topics covered in our Sigma interview include the challenges the company faced in creating the...
Shortly after the conclusion of the annual CP+ tradeshow in Japan, Imaging Resource founder and publisher Dave Etchells headed to Bangkok, Thailand for a tour of Sony's nearby camera factory. As well as a very interesting tour of the factory during his visit to Sony Technology (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Dave was also fortunate to be able to sit down with...
Shortly after the completion of this year's installment of the annual CP+ tradeshow in Yokohama, Japan, IR founder and publisher Dave Etchells and Senior Editor William Brawley headed a couple of hours north to Utsunomiya, the capital of the Tochigi Prefecture, and home to Canon's primary lens factory. The reason: Both...
Continuing our interview series from the recent 2017 CP+ tradeshow in Japan, Imaging Resource founder and publisher Dave Etchells was fortunate to be able to meet with no less than eight executives at Panasonic for a wide-ranging discussion on the company's camera lineup and strategy.
For this particular interview,...
Photography giant Canon is always big news at the annual CP+ tradeshow in its native Japan. Our founder and publisher Dave Etchells is at the show, and had the opportunity to discuss a number of topics with Canon executives at CP+ 2017. Representing Canon were Go Tokura, Executive Officer and Chief Executive of the...