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Coverage Of The Boot Dive Show In Germany

By Matt J. Weiss, February 1, 2010 @ 07:14 PM (EST)

Our friend, Peter Symes of X-Ray Magazine, was at the BOOT boat show in Germany and provided us with this coverage of the show, including some interesting new underwater photo and video products. Thanks, Peter!

By Peter Symes

BOOT, German for boat, is the largest watersports expo in the world and includes almost anything to do with having fun in the blue realm. The fairgrounds cover some 17 expo halls that take up the area of a small airport. There are exhibits of boats of all shapes and sizes, from dingys and waterskis to massive multi-deck yachts with helipads, to angling, outdoor wear and gear and, of course, a diving section which in itself constitutes the largest dive expo in Europe.

The event lasts a whopping nine days, spanning over two weekends, a duration which

makes a lot of sense if you have to put a yacht the size of a small Navy frigate on display, but less so if you run an dive operation and have to take more than ten work days out of your busy schedule to exhibit. For exhibitors it is more about endurance than speed which puts a mark on the ambience. The show is more sedate than others and there tends to be more casual small talk in the aisles.

It is a public show aimed at the German audience and a bit of a market place with bright neon-colored signs announcing ‘sales’ and ‘Sonder angebote’ (special offers) or ‘BOOT specials’ from fiercely competing booth-holders.

The recession is clearly being felt, as many exhibitors seem to push merchandise across the counter at near their own cost price in order to keep at least the turnover going. It didn’t feel healthy, but at least consumers were walking away with some pretty bargains

As with so many dive expos there is a preponderance of operators, resorts and other dive travel related businesses with various equipment manufacturers as the secondary category of exhibitors. Not surprisingly it is dominated by Mediterranean and Red Sea operators, areas which are as close to Europe as the Caribbean is to the US. Malta, Spain (and the Canary Islands), Italy, Greece and of course the Red Sea are well represented, but also France and Turkey. The Maldives and Thailand also had a big island each whereas Philippines Tourism, a BOOT regular, pulled out in the last moment.

On the equipment side most major manufacturers were present; Aqualung (hosting Suunto), Mares, Scubapro, Cressi, SeacSub and AP Valves as well as DUI, Santi, Bare, Waterproof and Ursuk who all displayed impressive range of suits. And, of course, there were the usual underbrush of smaller brands and manufacturers. Since DEMA was held only 3 months ago the show was pretty scarce with additional news.

As regards to photo and video equipment on the other hand, you can often spot some interesting novelties here much sooner than they are presented in the English speaking world. Germany and central Europe is home to an array of big and small enterprises, some of which are the most renowned brands in underwater photo and video, such as Subal, Seacam and Subtronic and light manufacturers such as Kowalski, Hartenberger and MB Sub.  

In the news department we were able to grab a couple of shots of Subal’s new housing for the Canon EOS 7D which was fresh on display. Subal’s Peter Stagl explained that one of the main challenges in developing this housing was to design the switch between still photos and video mode since the contact on the camera is somewhat tucked away. The housing appears to be a quite tight fit around the camera and, as always, the finish and the build came across as top-notch and rock-solid.

We also had a talk with the father and son team behind Werner LED, who this year presented upgraded versions of their LED video and photo lights. One that really stood out was the ring-light fixture which now has three rings of LEDs (rather than two) and seemed quite powerful.

We also got a good close look at Subtronic’s new innovations, one of which was an impressive compact and lightweight macro strobe. Herr Moll demonstrated the 0.1 sec recycle time of their Pro160 flash unit. It fired like a disco stroboscope. We were also told that the accumulator which was hidden inside a strobe arm held enough power for 5000 discharges.

I was more even more impressed with their new ring flash. I have never been a great fan of ring flashes because in my humble opinion they often flatten the image and remove shape with their uniform light. Not this one. The ring flash’s units can be individually controlled to create asymmetrical lighting which brings out the shapes and renders three dimensional structures beautifully. The control unit sits on top of camera and gives the user exceptional control over highlights and shadows. The control unit also allows the photographer to plug in a traditionally mounted set of strobes and switch to them instead. This way you are not tied to using one configuration or the other, just mount them both and have the freedom of choice. Pretty nifty it was. “So einer ding muss I auch haben” (I want one of those too.)

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