The photokina STAR 2010 Awards sponsored by PHOTO PRESSE and digit! magazines and traditionally awarded at photokina, were presented to twelve winning companies on the 23rd of September 2010. The photokina STAR award honors products and concepts that stand out for their innovative nature and their trendsetting technologies.

During the festive awards ceremony at the World of Imaging, Oliver P. Kuhrt, Business Manager of Koelnmesse GmbH, stated: “We are pleased that now as before, photokina is the central platform for innovations in the photographic industry and we welcome the initiative of awarding special recognition to these innovations. This year it was particularly difficult for the two editorial offices to select the twelve highlights, because there many qualified candidates for the coveted prize.

This year’s winners are the following:

CEWE PHONEBOOK as an iPhone App
Mobile photography and photographic quality come together in a clever manner.

Fujifilm Finepix X100 camera
This premium-class compact camera combines first class design and finishing with selected technological components.

Samsung NX 100 camera
The ingenious i-function technology used by this camera, which is positioned between a compact camera and a DSLR camera, makes it possible to set most of the exposure parameters right at the lens.

Sony SLT-A55V camera
Its partially transparent mirror makes an especially compact form possible, along with very fast exposure sequences (10 or 7 images per second).

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH2 camera
Among the significant innovations featured by this camera is, among others, its intuitive touch-screen operation, with which the camera’s fast contrast autofocus can be controlled comfortably.

Canon EF 8 -15 f/4 L Fisheye USM Lens
The first fisheye lens for full-format DSLR cameras gives amateur- and professional photographers new options for composition and creative expression.

basICColor Discus
The basICColor color management expert introduced Discus, a high-end monitoring and measurement device for professional applications.

Pentax K-5 camera
The new top model in the Pentax line of DSLR cameras retains all the features of a high-grade DSLR camera. With an impressive 7 exposures per second, the K-5 satisfies the wishes of sport- and action photographers.

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 35 mm f/1.4 G lens
Nikon has upgraded the classic 35 mm wide-angle class with the best optical ingredients and the highest speed in this class.

Epson Stylus Pro 4900 Printer
Epson offers photo studios and photo service providers a compact and versatile printer in the successful Stylus Pro 4000 Series for prints up to the A2 format (59.4 x 43 cm or approx. 23 3/8 x 17 inches).

Olympus Point-and-Shoot camera prototype
The Olympus “Point-and-Shoot” formula uses the best ingredients from the Olympus world and tops it off with a Zuiko digital lens of the highest grade.

Schneider Kreuznach Tilt-Shift lens
Photographers benefit from an outstanding line of high-grade tilt-and-shift lenses for small- and medium-format digital cameras.

The Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.4G

This winning NIKKOR lens was developed with professional and advanced amateur photographers in mind, is a fast, fixed focal length (prime) lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.4 for superior image quality. It offers the superior rendering characteristics possible only with the latest fast, fixed focal length (prime) lenses with both excellent resolution and natural blur characteristics at the maximum aperture. Optical design that makes the most of superior rendering characteristics with Nano Crystal Coat and compensation for various types of aberration makes the lens perfectly suited to scenes such as landscapes, night landscapes and photos of the night sky in which distortion-free, sharp, natural rendering from infinity to close-up is a must. In addition, the new and improved manual focus drive mechanism reduces manual focus time lag for overwhelmingly improved manual focus operation in M/A mode.

The NIKKOR brand

Nikon (then Nippon Kogaku K.K.) released its first NIKKOR lenses for Nikon SLR cameras, among them the NIKKOR-S Auto 5cm f/2, in 1959 along with its first SLR camera, the Nikon F. In the half century since, NIKKOR lenses have become the favorite lenses of a wide variety of users, and have been extremely well received by a great number of photo enthusiasts and professional photographers. The current lineup of more than sixty NIKKOR lenses for Nikon SLR cameras offers a rich variety of lenses, including fisheye lenses, super wide-angle to super telephoto lenses, micro lenses and PC-E lenses.

In August 2009, total production of NIKKOR lenses reached the 50 million mark, and as of August 2010, NIKKOR lens production has reached 55 million.

View the NIKKOR lenses and NIKKOR promotion Video