Follow Me To: The Photography Show

This week I went to the long awaited Photography Show. If you're a photographer then you should know about this and have probably been at least once. For the benefit of those who haven't, I shall explain. Basically, think of it as Heaven for photographers- full of cameras with amazing discounts and world famous photographers giving talks.

This year I didn't go on my own for a change, and took Adam with me. He had never even been to Birmingham before so we went for a wander around central before getting the train to the NEC. It was a pleasant surprise as before now the show has been in a hall miles from the train station. This time it was in hall 5 which was a five minute walk (if you've been to the NEC you know that's basically nothing).

When you go in, we had trade passes so just walked straight through, but there's a ticket office on the right if you're buying on the day. Tickets for non-trade visitors are £18 but if you look at everything at the show that's incredibly reasonable.

The thing I love about the show is the variety of stallholders there. You can always expect the huge brands to have a central stand, like Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Fuji and Panasonic (and this year Leica and Ricoh were a nice addition to the big brand lineup) among much smaller independent traders.

The great thing about having the bigger traders there are the amazing show discounts. If I'm going to buy camera equipment then I normally wait until the Photography Show to do so - this year they had a Canon 5d mk III (normally £2199) reduced to £1599 which is an amazing deal, especially considering that a second hand 5D mk III is normally around £1300. You do have to pay £2099 on the day, but there is £500 cashback available which I received confirmation of receiving from Canon a few days after I applied for it.

The great thing about the stands being at such a big trade show is the effort they normally make to stand out from the crowd - this means a lot of opportunities to take part in activities and a lot of freebies.

For example - here's a video of Adam making a complete ass of himself in a Manfrotto challenge in which you had to fold up the three reflectors (again, you need to be a photographer to understand this but folding reflectors up is a form of torture) as quickly as possible.

Now before some bright spark mentions that we were BOTH beaten by a 10 year old, I would like to take a second to be smug and mention that I beat Adam, even though I have an injured wrist (we'll ignore the several years of experience/suffering I've had).

Now one thing that isn't necessarily important but always a nice extra are the freebies. Last year I ended up with keyrings, bags and all sorts. But this year I can honestly say I have never had my photo taken so many times as a photographer in one day! I also got a mug from The Photographer Academy that says " I heart photography". The mug speaks truth.

*Cue more embarrassing images of us*

There was also this stand that printed Instagram photographs. The stand, an art project, looks for #selfie on Instagram public profiles and prints the images. It is meant to demonstrate the availability of images posted online, and this really resonated with me because as a blogger I kind of have to have a public profile. Adam and I tested this, and sure enough we soon saw our faces being printed. Super creepy; super awesome.

So there we are, our trip to the Photography Show is done with for another year. It's the Gadget Show next weekend, then the countdown begins until next March. Honestly, they need to start holding the show twice a year because by the time May hits I will be having serious photographic withdrawal symptoms.

What's one highlight of your social calendar? Let me know in the comments below. 

Love and Feathers, 

 The Owlet 💜 

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