The biggest trade fair for boats, diving (and underwater photography) in Germany traditionally takes place in January every year, BOOT in Düsseldorf.
I can report on Nauticam (who shared the stand with PanOcean), Seafrogs, Seacam and GoPro, but of course only individual impressions.
There were 3 Nauticam employees on site. One of the three FCPs currently available outside the factory was on display, along with the WACP-1, WACP-C and WWL-1b. I was particularly taken with this comparison.
Next to WWL-1b
The FCP is noticeably smaller than the WACP-1, but a little bit bigger than the WACP-C. I hardly noticed the difference in weight. What is particularly striking is that the front glass is very curved. Inside you can see what Nauticam claims are highly coated lenses.
The FCP comes with an interchangeable port connection (120 and 100) so that no adapters need to be used.
The pictures shown at the trade fair by Alex Mustard are, as always, beautiful, and I'm looking forward to seeing the practical experiences of normal people.
It was interesting to see the EMWL again in its various configurations. If you want to save yourself the relay, you either need a camera where you can turn the viewfinder image upside down or an inverting viewfinder.
Unfortunately, the FCP feels so good that I'm thinking more and more about putting my WACP-C in the "classified" and switching to the FCP.
Opposite is the SeaFrogs stand. In addition to the plastic enclosures from the Salted Line series, the new all-aluminium enclosures are also on display here. I may be wrong, but to me they look like a cheeky (but worse) copy of the Nauticam enclosures - and are nevertheless in the same price range. I'd rather stick with Nauticam.
Seacam is probably more focussed on cold-water divers and the stand staff were not very interested in walk-in customers. Lots of large dome ports, the Seacam flashes and the familiar housings. After 5 minutes without getting attention, I moved on.
The GoPro representative was amusing for me: a small stand, nothing diving-specific. They didn't make any effort.
I still found AOI interesting because we also had the discussion here:
The UWL-03 looks very high quality, and the bracket still required for the diving housing also makes a stable impression. However, it is also quite small in nature, so I can't imagine that spilt shots would be possible with it. On the other hand, the edge sharpness increases considerably and you can get closer to the objects - according to the stand personnel up to 8cm, whereas without water contact optics at least 50-60cm are necessary.
Finally, Divevolk cases for iPhones: It's easy to imagine that the mobile phone is very safe from water ingress and can be taken diving. But I have also been told that a protective glass significantly restricts usability and that you should use a removable protective glass cover for use above water, which can be removed from the Divevolk case for use.
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