I've posted this around the web in other forums, but some of you may not have seen it and it may have some interest for you....
Only a few things to report, as frankly, most of what there is to see there has been revealed and discussed already.
Not too crowded today, but registration was amusing - a dozen self-registration terminals quickly moved people through, then behind the curtain it broke down, as 5 harried people tried to distribute name tags from 3 printers with about 60 people in a disorganized mob waiting for their name to be shouted out so they could elbow their way to the table and get their tag....
Canon carried on with the Superbowl football theme on the larger of 2 stages. Phil's shot on his PMA report shows the cheer team working out of costume, they wore red and white uniforms and did stunts as they worked thru their presentation of Canon products. On the smaller stage, surrounded by overhead lcd's, prominent photographers (I guess) gave talks about the 1DMkII. This small stage and the talks were dedicated to the new camera. Opposite the stages were the DSLR's and lenses, with about 6 reps allowing people to handle them. The cameras were tethered, and there were usually people crowding in, so you were a bit limited on what you could aim at. I had the camera in hand and was talking to the rep - after a minute, I pulled a CF card out and asked if I could grab a couple shots, but the rep was reaching for the camera before I finished the sentence! Oh well, I hadn't expected it to fly.
First rep said 6-7,000 cameras/month production, with a release of 6,000 in March and 7,000 in April...Others quoted the 4,000/month figure, so who really knows....
Everybody said MAP is going to stay at $4,500
I use a 10D, the new 1D focus just snaps into place, I tried it with several lenses, including the 2 new ones. The DO lens is, of course, very light - I took it off the camera - maybe a third the weight of a 70-200 IS? I spotted a new tripod ring on the other non-DO zoom (sorry, I forget it's range), I think it's new for this lens - tripod ring C (of course) - it has a quick release buckle that allows you to remove the ring from the lens while it remains on camera (similar to a Sigma).
Canon was definitely the big show at PMA, a constant crowd around the MKII stage, the DSLR counters were full but only 1 or 2 people deep so you could get to a camera fairly easily. Lots of black leather jackets and business suits in attendance.
Nikon was not as busy, but still respectable. Some mad Austrailan in full bush outfit with largish DSLR's/flash units, one off each shoulder, was chatting up quite a few people and shooting the Nikon displays - I don't think he was part of the exibit but he was certainly most of the show! Mostly very casually dressed people looking at items.
Leica was...calm. Couple of older, goateed gentlemen perusing the wares - one beret in attendence. Sandals.
And so on...smaller than I had expected, really. I am used to woodworking conventions, over 500,000 square feet of exibits and machines. I had walked through pretty much everything in 3 hours today and went back to look closer at Canon and Epson.
Lots of Japanese, and the Hassidim were perhaps the most stylish, those guys wore some way cool hats! Saw a couple Adorama badges, but not any B&H.
Epson printers - the 4000 still not gonna ship until late march, the reps said preorders are heavy and not to expect stock in stores anytime soon. Getting on a preorder list was said the best way to go.
No gloss optimizer on the 4000 - I'd been told at MacWorld Expo that the gloss optimizer was developed by a different division - today I was told that it was deemed unecessary for the 4000, as it's prints were expected to be framed, matted and behind glass - the optimizer is for more casual prints, especially 4X6's, 5X7's and the like.
A more interesting point related to me was that the different ink sets used between the 4000 and the R800 were geared toward nozzle size. The smaller format R800 has 1.5 picoliter nozzles, with ink and gloss optimizer formatted for that nozzle. The large format 4000 has 3.5 picoliter (right?) nozzles - the reason for different nozzle size has to do with the print head speed moving over the paper - you obviously need a faster head travel on larger media, to produce a decent print speed/time. But there is actually air turbulence generated at higher print head speeds which defeat attempts at smaller nozzle sized - I was told that the 10000 printer was forced to use a larger nozzle than originally desired because of displacement of the ink before it could hit the paper due to turbulence. The same applies to the 4000, it couldn't use smaller droplets of ink without drastically slowing the printhead.
Kodak has quite large areas under display, but I really didn't care to look at anything - but they must still consider themselves a player.
(Edit)
I made this post elsewhere Thursday night, I was not aware until Friday that Kodak had refreshed the 14N - needless to say, I would have looked at it if I had known.
Actually, it seems I missed a lot of things that I should have checked out, but I was thinking more about the drive home (300+ miles) after several hours at the show, and really only looked at specific things I wanted to see. Oh well, next year I'll be better prepared....
(Edit)
Polaroid was showing 2 minute digital to print keiosks, and they had a whole fantasy castle theme you could walk into where I think they were showing a new film.....seems an appropiate theme for polaroid film 
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you can upgrade the 14N CMOS to the newer one.
