German Photo Products and Field Trips

by Bill Hall | More from this Blogger

07 Aug 2006 05:04 PM

In honor of my German foreign exchange student, I am writing today about German photography product manufacturers. The first one that comes to mind is Agfa. Agfa produces film, darkroom chemicals, minilab spare parts, and has a wholesale division. Or, should I say, they used to do all these things.

As of last year, the company is being liquidated. Imaging Solutions, AG is taking over the spare parts and chemicals division, A&O is taking over the wholesale division, and The Lupus Imaging & Media Ltd. & Co. KG, a newly founded internationally operating trading company has taken over the main stocks of Agfa branded films.

For those photographers that used Agfa film and liked it, this is a great loss. Apparently, there is no cash flow to keep Agfa in business. There were 372 million Euros that went missing, that had a lot (apparently) to do with the company's demise.

The Arri group, also German, produces cameras for the motion picture industry, mainly. They carry lenses and other accessories too, and manufacture products for medical imaging applications.

Since there weren't as many German companies involved in manufacturing photo equipment as I thought, I will need to fill this post with some extra info.

This is a good time to talk about the Friday field trips. Since the first one was just around the house, and the second one didn't fly (literally), I have decided to only do them every other week. This week is a field trip week.

There is a twist, though. Rather than having me come up with ideas for the field trips, I would like to invite my loyal readers (and even new readers) to email me with some photo field trip ideas.

What do you love to photograph? What is your passion? Let me know, and we will take a virtual photo trip to photograph whatever thing or place you suggest.

Learn more about Bill Hall

Bill is a professional freelance photographer and web designer, who lives with his wife of 17 years and their 12 year-old daughter in Arizona. He also lives with three dogs and two parakeets.

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