Lots of big news for digital photographers coming up next month.

The Photokina "World of Imaging" Trade Show is a digital photography show that happens every two years in Germany. This big event is held at the Cologne Exhibition Center. The last show (in 2004) had over 160,000 visitors and had over 1,500 exhibitors. The 2006 Photokina will start September 26 and end October 1.

The Photokina is important partly because it is one of the year's mass unveiling of new photography products. Even though the event won't be until next month, the slow and steady build-up started this past July with the announcements of new products (like the snazzy Ergo-Tech bags from KATA). Here's a list of some of the products announced since July:

• Digicams
• Casio EXILIM EX-Z770
• Casio EXILIM EX-Z700
• Fujifilm FinePix S6500fd
• Fujifilm FinePix F20 Zoom
• Kodak EasyShare V705
• Kodak EasyShare C875
• Kodak EasyShare C743
• Kodak EasyShare C433
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX3
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX07
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX50
• Pentax Optio S7
• Pentax Optio W20
• Samsung NV10
• Samsung NV7 OPS
• Samsung NV3
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T10
• Digital SLR
• Nikon D80
• Lenses
• Nikon AF-S DX 18-135 mm
• Nikon AF-S DX 70-300 mm VR

Digital photography continues to advance, as does the general field of photography. Remember those "how did they do that?" shots that used to make our jaws drop when we saw them in National Geographic? Quite a lot of those are now common and within the reach of amateurs, so who knows what great things will be revealed at this Photokina?

So to our European readers who manage to get in, send us an email or two, will you?

DSC-T10	DSC-N1	DSC-T50

Photos of the supposed Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T50 has surfaced the web just recently. Along with the pictures are specs, claiming that this new camera from Sony will be a 7.2MP digital camera with 3x optical zoom, Super SteadyShot, high sensitivity with ISO 1000, a 3" touch panel at the back and slideshow with music feature. Nothing fancy really, especially when you realize that it's basically a combination of features of the DSC-T10 and the DSC-N1. It's like their offspring really. It mostly takes after DSC-T10. Just look at the overall design. while the 3' touch panel comes courtesy of DSC-N1. According to reports it will be due out this coming October and will come in silver, black and red.