Prokit's Blog

Last week the Prokit team were on hand for advice and product demonstrations at the Prokit stand at the BVE Expo exhibition at Earls Court 2…

The BVE Expo exhibition takes in all aspects of video production: from cameras to lighting, from vision mixers to post production software and everything in between. It’s a great opportunity for you guys to get your hands on kit that you wouldn’t ordinarily have easy access to, and speak to a range of manufacturers and dealers about the latest equipment.

Our exhibition stand is always busy, and this year was no different. We had a comprehensive cross section of cameras and lighting on display…here are the highlights:

Our Canon C300 was the star camera of the show and gathered the most attention of anything on our stand. We had it set up with the popular 70-200mm L series Canon lens and the whole package sat proudly on the sturdy and lightweight Miller Compass 25 tripod. Next to that was the least-expensive BBC-approved handheld camcorder, the Panasonic HPX-250, which uses the popular P2 cards system and has a cracking 22x optical zoom. You currently get a Kata bag, long life battery and a book on the camcorder when buying a new Panasonic HPX-250 from Prokit.

We had a seriously pimped Sony FS100 on show (complete with mattebox, follow-focus, Sound Devices PIX 220 recorder etc), which was great as Sony were doing a cashback deal on new FS100’s for show attendees who registered on the Sony exhibition stand. Sony are currently running two pretty cool promotions on the FS100, whereby you can get £340 towards accessories until the 31^st of march, and 24 month interest free finance on new FS100 camcorders until the 14^st March.

Not to be overshadowed by the larger camcorders, the diminutive Sony NX70 also attracted attention, and in no small part because it sat on the super smooth and well-built SmartSlider 800 system. We have the SmartSlider system on demo here in our Chiswick showroom as well as in stock, so if you missed the opportunity to move it back and forth at the show then feel free to pop down to our offices and have a go.

At Prokit we are big on lighting, and at BVE we had a good selection of LED technology on display, including the Lowel lighting’s large LED debut, the Lowel Prime. We had the 400 and 200 tungsten models, and visitors were impressed by their rugged construction and high output. On our Litepanel 1×1 head, we had Chimera’s dedicated softbox, which diffuses the hard output of LED heads into a beautiful soft light. On top of all this we had some Shape rigs, Petrol Bags and Ikan lighting as well as much more on demo for anyone to come and play with.

Away from the cut and thrust of the Prokit stand, our dedication to top quality advice and guidance found a focused and amplified voice in the shape of our seminar “Fathoming The Fundamentals Of Formats”. Held in the Production Theatre on the Tuesday of the exhibition, the session focused on making sense of the large number of camera formats and indeed the camcorders themselves. The session was well attended and everyone walked back into the exhibition with a firm knowledge of the current camcorder line up from the major manufacturers. We’ll be doing something similar next year so look out for details on our website and the BVE Expo website in just under a year.

Further out into the exhibition a couple of things caught our eye. We particularly liked the graffiti art design of rental house Promotion’s exhibition stand as it was such a change from the usual stand designs you see at big exhibitions, the massive Technocrane at the back of the hall was pretty hard to miss, and spotted yet again was the upcoming LED Dedo head – this time dressed in Dedo black-and-yellow colours.

This year’s BVE Expo marked the end of the road for the exhibition at Earls Court 2 Exhibition Centre. Next year the exhibition is moving east to the Excel Exhibition Centre in the docklands, which although further away for some does promise to be a bigger and better venue for an exhibition that seems to grow larger each year.

The Prokit team always enjoys these exhibition and we hope you did too. Thanks for seeing us and remember to register for next year’s as well. For more info on any of the products you saw at our stand, give us a call or pop into our showroom.

Today’s blog by Stuart Dennis

Posted by Prokit at 4:28pm.
Tags: 2012, Broadcast cameras, BVE, C300, Camcorder, Canon C300, Crane, Dedo, Earls Court 2, Excel, External Recorder, Follow Focus, Formats, FS100, Genus, HD broadcast cameras, Helmet Camera, LED, Lowel, Open Day, Prime, professional video cameras, Recorders, Rigs, Seminar, Shape, Slider, SmartSlider, Sony, Sound Devices | Category: Uncategorised | No Comments »