I will do a post later about The Photokina in general, but I wanted to do an Olympus dedicated post as their stand at this years Photokina was so impressive.

The Olympus stand was huge, and was one of the most impressive stand in the show. It was laid out over a massive area, and split into different sections.

The central area had the Olympus splash graphic in metal, and a selection of cameras to try around the edges.

Around the central Olympus stand there were some really funky displays, featuring the cameras and accessories. There has been some serious styling and planning gone into the Olympus stand.

One of the thing that impresses me with Olympus, is that they encourage people to get hands on with the cameras, and go to great lengths to give people the opportunity to handle the cameras.

The staff on the stand were excellent also, great product knowledge and friendly. A good balance of enough people around if you needed to talk to them, but they also allowed people to enjoy looking at the cameras and the stand without intrusion.

Olympus offered a camera clean and check service. Simple and no fuss, turn up and hand your camera and lenses in at reception, then collect an hour later, I even had my firmware updated as well, all free of charge and I have to say, the clean they did was immaculate. My EM-1 has travelled through the middle east and also visited Australia, and the clean has brought it back to new.

So no camera for an hour so, what to do, well I went over to the free loan camera desk, and signed an EM-10 out with the kit lens. Olympus had a range of cameras on offer as part of the loan service, and even gave fee SD memory cards away so people could keep the photographs they had taken. The loan service was available to anybody attending Photokina.

I took this picture with an Olympus EM-10 loan camera with a standard kit lens, on the Broncolor stage.

Olympus had live demonstrations running through the day, this was the stage area. Live demonstrations featuring the Olympus range of cameras.

Plenty of areas for getting hold of an Olympus camera and to find information out from the Olympus staff.

The Olympus catwalk where people could try out shooting some fashion pictures with models supplied by Olympus.

Olympus had arranged a "Photography Playground" which was located a short drive away from the main Photokina exhibition. There was a free chauffeur service provided by Olympus so after heading over to the meeting point, we were met by a suited and booted driver who took us to a site on an industrial area that and been set up.

We arrived at the "Olympus Photography Playground" and this was the main converted warehouse which housed some great facilities inside.

Once again there was an Olympus free loan camera service for people wanting to try the brand, and a free memory card for people wanting to keep their pictures.

The warehouse mural made a great background for a quick portrait picture of my very good friend Roberto, who is also an Olympus shooter.

These folks too advantage of the free camera loan service and were really happy with the cameras they were trying out.

They found the cameras easy and fun to shoot.

Inside the warehouse, there were plenty of things to do. The Olympus splash logo was there and made for making interesting pictures with the reflections.

This was a macro test area, with purpose built sets for people to shoot. There was also an Olympus person there offering the use of the Olympus macro lens to try on the cameras.

This was another area, which had led lights hanging from the ceiling and making strange shapes around the person standing in the matrix. A strange but enjoyable experience.

In the basement Olympus had built a black stage, with a movement activated light and sound display. When a person walk across the stage, or moved the graphics would react to them, the sound effects were great as well, a really great stage to see.

There were exhibits outside the warehouse also, but rain stopped play, it seems there are some things Olympus didn't cover!

So after a short ride back to Photokina in the chauffeur car service, it was back to The Olympus Stand.

Back in Photokina and on the Olympus stand, around the walls there were galleries of pictures taken with Olympus cameras, and it was great to see my friend Adrian Sommeling having some of his work featured and admired.

The Olympus stand at Photokina was like a show all in its own right. I am really impressed with Olympus and their camera products, this is a forward thinking customer focussed company, that is pushing a lot of boundaries and setting standards for others to follow.

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Olympus @ Photokina 2014

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