A Day with Nikon India Team & blogger friends at 'Nikon #ThroughTheLens Blogger Meet, Delhi'

Few weeks back I saw a special email in my mail-box, which was an invite for a blogger meet by Nikon. I can't express how excited I was when I saw that email. I have been using Nikon equipments for a long time and a fan of classic Nikon shutter sound. Since it was Nikon and event was scheduled on a weekend, decision was easy - let's go and make best use of this opportunity to meet like minded folks from the industry.

 

So on  19th October, I headed towards B-Bar which is located in Select City Walk mall at Saket, Delhi. It was easy to locate and event was planned to start at 1pm. As usual, the 'Delhi' blogger meet started at around 2pm as many of the blogger friends were wearing Delhi-Watch. But in the meantime, I got a chance to make  meet Rohan & Subir and also made few new blogger friends. During some of our conversation Mr Raghu Rai walked towards the lobby and we all were more excited to listen to him.

Seeing Raghu Rai at the event made my day. It was great to learn from master Photographer of India. I have interacted with him in past as well but it was definitely a different experience where he had come to meet some of the selected set of bloggers from north India. After Raghu Rai's talk on photography, he also addressed some of the questions asked by audience in the hall. Raghu Rai has been using Nikon equipments, ever since he started photography and he mentioned about the mount of Nikon, which was new to me. It seems Nikon has been using same quality mount in their cameras, which was used in some of their initial SLRs (about 50 years ago). It sounded awesome. Imagine the quality level which Nikon achieved in old days and that still holds good till date. Raghu Rai shared some candid moments from his initial days into photography, when finding right cameras & lenses in India was not easy and he had to convince someone who is supposed to come to India from other countries where Nikon had good presence with wide variety of options. I can keep writing about this special talk by Raghu Rai, but would stop here to continue with other activities form the evening.

Hiroshi Takashina, MD Nikon India, was also there. He talked about Nikon India and the overall plan about the event. He introduced us to Nikon India Technical team which is comprised of some of the brilliant photographers from different genres. Mr Hiroshi Takashina has visited 92 cities of India to exactly understand the way their customers are using their technology and what else can be offered to Indian Market. This really shows the amount of dedication put by a company to care about their users.

 

Raghav Mandava was there on stage to do anchoring and he made this event a fun. He was superb with his subtle jokes and amazing expressions. To know more about him, check out - His Facebook Page.

 
When we entered at 1:00 pm at B-Bar, the environment was something like this :) - A punctual blogger sitting alone in the foreground ; Nikon folks are busy with Mr Raghu Rai, in the background ; and PR folks enjoying the moments in the middle. But the ambiance didn't allow anyone to get bored there. B-Bar is no doubt a great place to spend time with your friends.

After ordering our drinks and snacks, we all moved towards the main hall where the Nikon India Team was all set to share Photography gyan with us. More than the photography gyan I was more inspired by the photographs shown by each presenter there. All of them were photographers at one point of time and then joined Nikon as Technology experts. I loved their job as they keep travelling to different places to try out their products and understanding the areas of improvements themselves. What an ideal job for a photographer. Many times during the presentation, I was about to ask that how can I fit into Nikon India :). In fact, I was about to ask if they have Software division in India as well.

All of those presentations were full of useful knowledge and helped in understanding some of the myths from Digital SLR industry. Team started with introduction to FX & DX cameras, basic differences and target users for both. During these talks, team introduced us to smallest & lightest full frame camera - Nikon D610 . During the launch Nikon D610 Mr. Hiroshi Takashina, Managing Director, Nikon India said, 'With our latest offering, we strive to showcase Nikon’s commitment to set new benchmarks in the world of photography. There is a constant demand of new and enhanced product in the market today, and to cater this demand we are all geared to provide exceptional choices to our valuable consumers making photography a wonderful experience. We believe that with the latest Nikon D610, the consumers will now have an access to a remarkable camera that is capable of providing advanced imaging capabilities that only the FX-format can offer, without having to compromise on the form factor.'

At the same time, we were exposed to one of the brilliant announcement of Nikon D5300. This would my personal pick for hobbyists & amateur photographers, unless a competitive model comes in this price range and similar set of technical configuration.

With a deep dive into the camera series, we got to know about the range of lenses offered by Nikon and technologies involved. At the same time the team showed real power of 18-55 kit-lens which usually comes with most of the cameras. Somehow, this is one of the disregarded lens. I could personally connect to it as I have used this lens for early 4 years of my photography. And I have got some brilliant shots which were published in magazines & newspapers. At the same time, I am a strong believer of more investment in lenses as they give real power which can be reused even if we change the camera body. After checking this out, if you are wondering that which lens is appropriate for you, just check out this article.

It was really great to meet Mr. Raghu Rai, Hiroshi Takashina, Photographer friend Vishal Sabharwal & Blogger friends Mr Arvind Passey, Sangita Passey, Subir, Rohan Singh, Sambit, Rohan Mavrick & Pallav... And how can I miss to mention that Nikon India also organized a photo contest which was judged by Mr Raghu Rai. And the winning photograph was clicked by Mr. Arvind Passey. It was a street shot he clicked in Khan Market, Delhi.

At B-bar, there were some stalls setup for bloggers to get clicked with different kinds of accessories and an ares where we could try different lenses.

Ashish came up in the end and told briefly about Nikon School and concluded the event. 

I love Nikon Lenses and it was fun to meet other folks who shared my interest along with the people behind the scenes at Nikon India.