PhotoWorld Asia 2014: From cameras to USBs with 100-year storage longevity

If you are an avid fan of the PhotoWorld Asia fair held every year around this time at Glorietta Mall in Makati City, you know you’ll discover fab finds not normally sold in many stores.

PhotoWorld Asia is the longest running photography convention in the Philippines. The convention has been held since 1987 under the aegis of the Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation (FPFF). This year, it ran from January 30 to February 4.

PhotoWorld Asia features not just compact cameras or digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) or camera bags, studio lights, backgrounds, and other equipment used by professional photographers.

For this year’s PhotoWorld Asia series of seminars, the featured speakers and their topics included:

• Carlos Celdran on photography and tourism
• John “Papa Jack” Gemperle on joys and troubles of photography
• Raymond Red on visual arts from photography to cinema
• Ven Rojas, Alain Pascua, and Rey Sta. Ana on Philippine Wild Bird photography
• Mark Nicdao on fashion photography

Gadgets and gizmos aplenty

The trade show and convention also showcases storage devices, printers, and projectors.

One of the products featured in the PhotoWorld Asia trade show this year is the SanDisk memory vault, costing upwards of P1,200.

Other file storage devices like USBs last only around five years. Digital photos can thus be lost if the USB malfunctions.

Saving photos in one’s laptop or desktop is also not entirely safe as hard drives have moving parts that could malfunction. DVDs, on the other hand, may scratch. Thankfully, there is a so-called “Memory Vault” where the digital pictures you store will be safe for 100 years. The Memory Vault uses new technology for long-term preservation of photos and videos.

Another good find at this year’s PhotoWorld is Western Digital’s “My Cloud,” a personal cloud storage device ranging from around P7,500 (two terrabytes) to P11,500 (four terrabytes).

“My Cloud” can save photos, videos, and music. This external hard drive is connected to a wireless router via an Ethernet cable. Then any Wi-Fi-enabled mobile device—can read and write to “My Cloud.”

To free up space from mobile devices, users can save photos and videos directly to “My Cloud” instead of their smartphones or tablets. A “My Cloud” owner can also access stored files from anywhere in the world.

Another interesting find at PhotoWorld Asia is Western Digital’s TV Live Hub. By connecting this to a TV, anyone can turn ordinary LED or LCD TVs into a Smart TV, meaning one can access Facebook and other sites using the TV Live Hub, which costs between P3,000 to P4,000.

For entrepreneurs, there’s a great business idea from the PhotoWorld Asia trade show: a customized print shop.

One featured product is the Mimaki Curing Flatbed Inkjet Printer costing P2.5 million. It can print on anything—paper, metal, leather, glass, plastic, wood, anything at all except mirrors.

It’s just like a home or office desktop printer, but much bigger. It can also print on any material smaller than the size of an A4.

Hello Kitty to Blackmagic


Photography hobbyists and professionals will be pleased to know that a wide array of cameras was featured at PhotoWorld: from Fujifilm Hello Kitty compact cameras (P6,000 and up) to Nikon DSLRs costing over P100,000.

There are also Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras, costing from around P50,000 to P100,000. These can produce high-quality feature films and music videos or document weddings, corporate gatherings, sporting events, and others.

One can also find a huge collection of accessories—from customized camera straps to tripods, shoulder support, camera stabilizer, carrying cases, or dry dehumidification cabinets that can help prevent cameras from becoming moldy.

A professional portrait photographer, who asked not to be identified, told GMA News Online that he laments the seemingly fewer number of exhibitors at this year’s PhotoWorld Asia.

Having been to almost every PhotoWorld event over the years, the photographer said he wished there were more studio lights and cameras on display.

Most professional photographers, he said, change their studio equipment—from cameras to studio lights, and backgrounds—from time to time to keep up with the times.

“If you don’t do this, you’ll get left behind,” he said. — VC, GMA News