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On the higher end, she said she was interested in seeing Nikon’s new moderately-priced digital SLR, the D70, which is designed to compete with Canon’s popular Digital Rebel.

“We’ll be looking at it because Canon didn’t do too good a job shipping their Digital Rebel to smaller dealers,” she said. “We ordered 40 which is a large amount for us but only received 17. It was a big disappointment for us when a lot of those cameras were sent to Best Buy. And we’re the ones who are supposed to be on the cutting edge.”

Mark Mohler, vice president of Sales and Operations at Click Camera & Video in Dayton, Ohio, has digital processing on his mind for this year’s show.
“We’ve already got a good number of [Fuji] Frontiers but we’re looking to see what else is out there,” Mohler said. “We want to see what’s out there that has a smaller footprint, whether it’s a dry processing lab or something else entirely.”

The front entrance of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. (Photo by Lorraine
A. DarConte)

Mohler said he was also interested in what was last year’s hot ticket item—the Digital SLR.

“We want to see what Nikon has coming out and we want to see what Pentax and Minolta have in response,” he noted. “But I also want to see what representation of photo phones will be out there though there probably won’t be a lot because the phone companies don’t traditionally come to the show.”

Like most of the dealers interviewed for this article, Mohler said the networking opportunities were as important as the new products. “I want to see what my colleagues are talking about when it comes to things like photo phones and the latest technologies.”

He added that Click, which currently uses Fuji PrintPix and Lucidiom kiosks in its stores, is considering adding more of these devices. “We’re keeping an open mind,” Mohler said. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Polaroid kiosk, but we want to see what’s out there before we make any decision.”

Henry Posner, director of Corporate Communications for B&H Photo-Video in Manhattan, said he was also going to the show with “an open mind.”
“Last year I recall not knowing beforehand what I’d see and being struck by the fact that there were not only several new 35mm film cameras, but several new 35mm films as well,” Posner said.

As far as trends at the show, Posner said he’d “love to see scanners doing more for less money and inkjet printers outputting dye-sub quality” prints.

Carl Abissi of Coopersimaging in Norwich, Connecticut was the only dealer interviewed by PTN who said he wasn’t going to be at the show, due to the fact that his store is in the midst of a big move. Abissi noted though that he intended to meet with reps outside of the show.

Some of the products he’s hoping to purchase for Coopersimaging include a “new large format laminator” and “a very large flatbed scanner.”