Even though I knew that I would probably just get tired and not be able to bring back any great results, I still went to CP+ 2025 in Pacifico Yokohama this year, with a half-hearted motivation that it was an annual festival and I should at least go along for the experience.
I took a walk around the venue with the lightweight and compact LUMIX GF10, and the Leica DG 15mm F1.8 lens attached, expecting to take a lot of wide-angle shots indoors.
With the business structure being downsized, PENTAX/Ricoh has withdrawn from this event, so my direct interest is mainly in LUMIX/Panasonic and SIGMA. I happened to enter the venue and the LUMIX booth was right by the entrance.
I thought I’d try out the newly announced LUMIX S1R II, but it seems that everyone had the same idea, and I gave up when I heard that the touch and try sessions were fully booked for the next two hours. I’ll just post some photos of the exhibits.
I’ll have to think about what I think of the S1R II a bit more.
This year, too, LUMIX was all about “color”. This is an exhibition of colorful flowers, accessories and models.
You can see them in the bottom left corner, but there are various LUMIX cameras lined up in the foreground, and the idea is that you can freely take photos of the equipment that interests you and enjoy it with various color settings. I also secretly joined in from behind with my GF10. (The S1RII was not yet lined up in this corner, as you might expect.)
Based on the reputation that LUMIX is strong in video, there was a video introduction seminar for still photographers.
I was right in the middle of the target audience segment, so I stopped and listened for a while. I made a note on my smartphone.
・For beginners, they recommend MP4 & 4K/8bit/100M/30p for now
・You can take photos in the same way as stills. However, be careful with the shutter speed (see photo above)
・At first, take photos without moving the camera.
・When you do move it, move your whole body, not just your hands. Don’t pan, but move horizontally or move around.
・The LUMIX image stabilization is very powerful, so you can get away with not using a gimbal.
・It’s important to do daily exercises to move one’s whole body.
・The minimum shooting unit is 5 seconds per scene + 3 seconds before and after. If it’s shorter than this, you’re likely to regret it later.
At the SIGMA booth, in addition to the display of lenses in a huge circular booth and the open display of rare photography-related books, which continued from last year, the SIGMA BF was attracting a lot of attention this time.
The photo above shows the library of books in the foreground, the exhibition of lenses in the huge circular booth surrounded by white curtains, and a long queue of people waiting to try out BF.
I could see that SIGMA was continuing to attract the interest of enthusiasts, but if I were to limit it to my own personal experience, I don’t think I got much out of it in terms of gathering information.
There are also some other photos I took of the event venue, and I even managed to get my hands on a rare item as a surprise, but I think I’ll save that for next post.
