360 degr. look to Mumbai fair and PCP first impressions

Thanks again Vivek Dev Burman - he has sent me a little present, a 360 degr. panorama of our booth on Mumbai Photofair 2008. you can take a look here : http://www.hartblei.eu/photos/hartblei_3c1.mov
By the way my Girlfriend was pleased Vivek, no not what you think about, for the Indian dress.....;-)))

I´m writing this in Hamburg evening after the first PCP event in a nice location called "Edelfettwerk" which is a club, event center and disco, kind of stylish, just right for Photographers. Hamburg was rainy outside but inside the People were curious and asking a lot of questions, about our lenses and about aperture. I have a nice 30" Cinema display to showcase my pics with a superfast MacPro with 6 Gigs and quadcores - whew... Again people look to the Hartblei demo pics and are blown away. The new 2.1 Aperture does it´s own to support this, actually I think this is the best demo software available for Photographers to impress a customer.

Tomorrow I will go to Berlin and get close to were the friday show will be. I can walk to there , a little comfort after all this travelling. But one thing about the hotel booking engine - why oh why do they also start to change prices now if you book longer which actually should be cheaper for the Hotel ? This kind of pricing is a result of analysis of the customer who is driven as far as possible and squeezing every single euro out of them, similar to what the gas stations do now , rotating the prices sometimes several changes a day, or flight companies who have minutewise changes for their booking machines on the internet, to prevent customers to get a clear sight on price comparison. My comment: may be this gets you some extra buck for the moment, but this makes me angry and I´ll look elsewhere at the next chance I can, no happinesss factor for the customer, my comment for Hotel.de and Ibishotels : I will not book this again if I have the chance to change !

Greetings from Hamburg

Stefan

Mumbai-India Photofair 2008 + PCP TOUR 2008

It has taken some days for me to settle with all these new impressions. I have seen a country in movement, enthusiasm for photography like 30 years ago in germany on my first photokinas. There are real Pro´s in India and they seem to like our lenses. Most of all they listened very carefully on the cost savings you could expect when using hartblei Lenses compared to a viewcamera/Medium format back setup. For the show I had done a new poster which made a lot of people look closer, shot with a 5D and the 120mm makro, a full Din A1 with real nice sharpness and depth of field.
I had the most warm welcome from Jaswant Vaghela and his Partner Saikat Adhikari, thank you both for your hospitality, this was more than business I think I found some friends there. And special greetings go to Kolkata Photographer and 360 degree specialist Vivek Dev Burman (http://kolkata.360cities.net/) . Thanks for all the cold beers and your company I really enjoyed these days in Bombay. There are schools like the Shari Academy, who do a nice work and give birth to a new generation of Indian Photographers. I met so many interesting people, I´m sorry if I do not list all of them here.
Ochin Priadna India - this will not be my last visit - I promise.

PCP Tour 2008 is a big thing in Germany. Many of the largest and most competent Pro Photo dealers arrange for a 7 largest city tour through germany, showcasing the latest and greatest of actual Phototechnology. Hartblei has joined the tour by a cooperation with Apple Germany I will demo our lenses on the newest Apple equipment with Aperture 2.0 - I happen to be Apple ADP for Aperture, so this was an easy match after the idea rose to join our two efforts. I will do the demos in close cooperation with Apple who made it possible for us to get into the show on a very late date with full appearance in advertising and coverage. Thanks to Jeso Olgar and Rebecca Strauss from Apple Germany for this. from 2nd to 17th of April we will tour all over Germany and everybody who wants to see what a Macbook Pro , aperture 2.0 and a Hartblei-Zeiss Superrotator are able to produce is invited to take a look and visit us there.
more infos´s here: http://www.probis.de/web/pcp-online/news/tour2008.html

To morrow I will go to Kiev again for a week, our new office has to be equipped, telephone, fax, internet and a serviceline to be set up. thanks for showing in and reading my blog

See ya folks

Stefan

Freelens, India and Aperture 2.0

Yesterday evening I was attending a meeting of german photographers association Freelens in Munich. Besides meeting some interesting guys who told a lot of stories on todays job of a photographer, I had the chance to showcase my lenses and get some reactions. Most were I´d say very positive, only the price of our products is making the people stop buying them immediately. Well - that´s were our dealers come in. You can now rent our lenses at several places in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (more to come soon). So it´s fairly easy to find out if it´s worth owning them or if you only need them once in a while.
Besides that pro talk, it was a nice evening and we discussed a lot of things, about motocycles (did I mention I ride an old BMW ? ;-)))) and funny stories which happen in this crazy job that we all love.
For Photographers interested www.freelens.com

Tuesday afternoon 4.00pm was an important date for Aperture users worldwide. Version 2 popped up on Apples website (store first....:-))) and after some quirks with sent out 1.5 activation numbers.... I finally managed to run the new prog.
Huuh - There must be pain now in Kopenhagen, Göteborg, Rochester and Jena. Aperture 2 features the coolest built in tethered shooting mode available for any usual DSLRs. It´s fast, it delivers full control on your camera- the features do match a leaf-capture, capture one or sinar software,if not surpass them (database wise) and the package goes for 199 €......... autsch/gotcha.

An announcement on new Hartblei activities: we will attend the Mumbai 2008 Photofair 13-16.02.08 in India which is the largest Indian show for this fast develloping market. So anybody in asia interested to see us - come there to the booth of Even systems http://www.evensystems.in , all info requests about the show and hartblei in India send to Jaswant Vaghela jaswantvaghela@evensystems.in Telefon/Phone +91 22 67103383 Mobile +919867181921.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

PMA and confidence for the USA

Well - in my last blog I was quite shocked about the devellopment in the USA regarding the subprime crisis. In the meantime there are also banks concerned about this with losses of billions and billions.

I think this is a chance. We need to remember that value will not appear from out of nowhere, it´s always a result of hard work and spirit. I think there are a lot of photographers in the USA who are among the best in the world, they are working hard and they are demanding to get the best tools they can get to do their daily jobs.

As we think this absolutely right, Hartblei will showcase their lenses on the PMA 2008 in Las Vegas from 31.01. until 02.02.2008. Visit us on the Carl Zeiss Stand in the German Pavillion, LVCC Level 2 , Section 16/S2.

There will be Richard Schleuning from Zeiss USA who will show you the lenses,I say thanks for this and that Zeiss made this possible in such a short time.
I know that they will do a good job and Zeiss has taken a new way of direct customer contact with their own sales channel which I think will be of great value for them.
Stick to your customers wishes and listen, listen a lot......;-)

Hopefully you will like what you see there, if there are any questions left, please contact me by email s.steib@hartblei.eu

Thanks for reading this
and greetings from Munich


Stefan

Dollar low and exchange rates

Well, I hope you are not personally concerned of the actual subprime US crisis. Today American Express has reported 300 mil $ losses, 2 swiss banks have been hit recently and also today Rolls Royce states, they will lay off workers, because the actual low dollar. We had this before with Airbus industries and german car makers, stating they either need to lay off personal or switch production to happen more in the US.

I understand that large multinational companies have other intentions, also competition and price wars. But to go bankrupt just to deliver to that US market ?

Now also my Ukrainian partners have finally changed their money transfers from $ to €.
We produce and buy parts in Kiev/Ukraine and Munich/Germany. Hartblei will not support the mistakes of the american banks as well as the Bush war policy that sent the dollar down. So this means our prices are in € and due to the actual exchange rates may vary in Dollars.
I know some Americans may not like to read that, but we will not lay off staff although we have enough work, just to keep our products cheaper in the US.
I pay our Zeiss Glass and the elox work in Oberkochen with Euros.
I know that this is a difficult situation also for our potential dealers in the US.
But I think in Your and Our interest, we want to build these lenses with no compromise, as good and as valuable as we can.

Greetings from a winterly and cold Kiev

Stefan

Core work and leopards

As some may have mentioned, I am also spending my time with Apples, especially running Aperture and recently Leopard 10.5. I do some presentations in Germany for Apple on certain events and in this connection I have found some interesting thoughts and I also have learned from this.

First - always take your chance with the first glance. Maybe 10-15 seconds. this is what you get if a total stranger of your portfolio looks at your products. Either you win right now or the fight is already nearly over.
Second: make your products sexy. definitely- the new 20" imac is probably the most sexy computer in a long time. Women love it ! While their men are still searching for "the rest of the computer" the women already make a plan how to arrange the rest of their desk with the gained space....;-)

Now what does this teach to hartblei ?

First I think there need to be even more pictures made with our lenses and people need to talk about it. The technical aspects are important, but we will recruit some more professionals and core customers using our lenses and showing their results.
I will invest as many efforts as I can for this.
Second: we will introduce a portfolio of things that will make our lenses even better. There will be special bags, cases and additional gadgets, especially a so called stitching clamp. Be shure to watch our website regularly.

But most of all we will refine the haptics even more, AND as we delivered a lot of lenses to dealer recently, these will give you the chance to take our lenses into your hands. Full metal - no plastic -just bare black eloxated technology and craftsmanship. Better than any words and advertisements.

Try it. Visit our dealers. Touch it. The lenses are there to be lended and tested.
No words , just results.


I am waiting for pictures. Either post them to Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/hartblei/

or send them to me, we will feature them on our website. Promised !
We also invite all users of older Hartblei lenses with russian glass.
Because creativity is not limited to technology- right ?

Greetings from Munich

Stefan

Kiev is humming on activity

It´s cold outside, at least here in Kiev. But this does not keep people off from walking down the Chreschatik on saturday evening. You see the most beautiful women in the world, laughing and arguing,a lot of young people. Tomorrow I will go to a jazzkonzert, today we had some sushi and tomorrow I go shopping for some nice steaks on sunday as the shops are open, just normally. Nobody would discuss about this here. People work a lot and Kiev had a 15,3 % growth of economy last year. This year I guess it will be higher. Wages rise, the old russian cars have nearly disappeared and new korean cars dominate the streets. Apartment prices have reached NewYork city level with up to 10000$ per square meter. Kievs economy has entered the western world. The west may not know it yet, but they sell more Bentleys here as in Munich or Berlin.
I think Hartblei is just right on spot. We express something the world will understand when looking a little more closer to the former GUS countries.
Expect a lot to come from here. It may take a while until the rest of Ukraine may follow but cities like Odessa and Lvov also start up.
Not all are winners, retired and veterans have a hard time.
There is still a lot of work to do, but I´m shure this country will make it.

I´m glad I´m here, we are discussing the strategies for next year and as you all know there is another photokina...........;-)

This will be very interesting.


Greetings from Kiev

Stefan