Canon Consumer Product Launch 2008

I arrived KL really early on Tuesday morning to attend this Canon Consumer Product Launch 2008 at Crowne Plaza Mutiara. I have this phobia of traffic jam and reaching late, so here I am beating the jam and reached the venue a over an hour ahead of schedule, the event was to start at 10:30AM.

So I parked my white metal horse, took a few pictures for of our concrete jungle against the blue gradient morning sky and made my way to Crowne Plaza Mutiara’s Nirvana Ballroom 1. I was so early, I get to witness the setting up of the booths.

The place was so quiet, you can hear the footsteps of a cockroaches ….. I didn’t see any though.

I had to kill time as the registration counter wasn’t ready and walking around aimlessly doesn’t make sense. Celcom’s 3G wasn’t even moving so my cyber-surfing ability was disabled. I was looking around for anything interesting to take a few pictures of and behold!….. I FOUND…. !!! LENSES !!!!! Unfortunately it wasn’t a case of “finders keepers” here.

How I wish someone mistakenly put this into my car. How I wish…. I wish…..

Lenses aside, soon the counter was open for registration.

I already have the black version. I wish mine was red. 🙁

Not long after the registration, I met Ken from Stuff magazine and Perk, his colleague. After that, I met Brad Soo of DPInterface, who is a photography enthusiast. Do check out his site for compact camera reviews.

A while later I met my buddy Justin from CHIP, and also met another friend of mine – renown photographer Glenn from The Star. Kelly of aNgeLic_keLz was there too (Eh Kelly, I have go ask Uncle Google to help me look for you la you know)!

The crowd was ready for the showcase by 10:30AM.

The place was so quiet, you can hear the footsteps of a cockroaches ….. I didn’t see any though.

A little after 10.30AM, the gates were opened and the crowd entered the hall like cows entering the slaughterhouse. 😛 Well, it looked like that. No offense intended!

Grand. (Cannot caption with 1 word ah?!)

Nice looking setup, right? I got front-row seats that gave me clear shot at the stage without having to lift my butt. After the crowd was settled, the show started with speech by 2 gentlemen – the Mr Liew Sip Chon, the President & CEO Canon Marketing (M) Sdn Bhd and Mr Donny Ling, the Head of CII Division, Assistant Director Canon Marketing (M) Sdn Bhd.

The speakers – President & CEO Canon Marketing (M) Sdn Bhd, Mr Liew Sip Chon (Left) and Head of CII Division, Assistant Director Canon Marketing (M) Sdn Bhd, Mr Donny Ling.

The speech was followed by the launch of Canon’s 38 consumer products, presented by beautiful people.

Sexeh? Yes? You can actually view more pictures of the event right here

And yes, there’s group photo – which product launch event doesn’t have a group photo eh?

Say PIXMA!!…. Wait, that’s not right….

After that, the Press Conference where the crowd throws difficult questions!

Say PIXMA!!…. Wait, that’s not right….

Anyway I’ll spare the boring details – I’m sure most of you have just 2 questions in mind ……

1) When is the EOS 5D Mark II arriving in Malaysia? – Around mid to end of November 2008.
2) What is the price for EOS 5D Mark II? – Canon refused to give us info on this. 😛 Too bad, just wait la.

I think there were less than 5 people who asked questions (myself included). Well, it was certainly not more than 10.

The Press Conference was pretty short, my guess it that either the crowd’s pretty shy or they just don’t know what to ask. No one asked about the printers or scanner! The questions seem to have been either about Canon’s financial status (according to what I remember) and the EOS Digital SLR range.

With the ending of the Press Conference comes the product demo session. I guess you guys would know by now where I’m heading….

EOS 5D Mark II with EF 24-70 f/2.8 L IS USM and EOS 50D EF-S 18-200 f/3.5 – 5.6 IS

The new EOS models! Nice eh? Wish you could hold one, right?

Thanks to Brad Soo of DP Interface for helping me take this photo.

The EOS 5D Mark II felt like the EOS 5D, just that it now comes with Live View and HD Video recording among many other new features. The LiveView activation was unlike the EOS 40D, 50D or 1D Mk III where you press the center button at the dial. The LiveView activation is activated with the PRINT button, left side of the viewfinder. 🙂

I was informed that the EOS 5D Mark II on display was not the production unit and we’re not suppose to use our CF on it – sorry guys, no ISO tests for you to see. The EOS 50D unit only display wasn’t a production unit as well, however they managed to acquire the production unit for me to do quick ISO test (It’s about 2.5MB. The images are at 100% crop. f/3.5, NR disabled, shot in RAW and saved as JPG maximum quality).

🙂 On the other hand, if you’re really interested to see the ISO tests for EOS 5D Mark II, Brad was one of the lucky guys managed to test to test the ISO performance on his CF card. Yes, quite a number of people managed to test it before the booth crew realized that it wasn’t supposed to be that way!

There’s Glenn! We were checking out the EOS 5D Mark II.

Our final stop was for a stomach-filling session on the 30th floor dining hall. 😀 Love the beef! Love the beef! Love the beef! Love the beef! Love the beef! Love the beef!

Filling station….. I smell BEEF!

End of story. *I’m still thinking of the beef served*

Next week I’ll be attending ASUS’s N-Series (Not related to Nokia!) launch! Be sure to read my long-winded report.

Remember to check out the gallery!