TIPA Awards announced – lots of them!

April 27, 2011: The ever-expanding TIPA Awards this year saw 40 trophies handed out to photo equipment manufacturers at an awards ceremony in London, April 21 (shifted from Tokyo due to the eathquake.)

The awards are invariably followed by a small stream of press releases from the more publicity-savvy distributors expressing delight, pride and vindication for their faith in said TIPA-winning product.

At the receiving end, one or at most two of these might get a run depending on how lean a news period it’s been. The trick seems to be to get in first before the editors realise there’s a pattern developing.

What TIPA (‘Technical Image Press Association’) neglects to do is issue it’s own release and provide a comprehensive list of award winners. At least not in Australia anyway.

This year on receiving our first news of a TIPA award winner – congratulations to Maxwell International for being first off the mark announcing the 60th Anniversary Tamron 70 – 300mm as Best Entry Level lens – we’ve gone straight to the source for the full list of winners from TIPA, which, by the way, is a coalition of some 29 photo magazine and website editors (who seem to take themselves awfully seriously).

There’s a similar group of editor-judged awards made each year by EISA (European Sound and Imaging Association), but they are announced in June. (Perhaps someone should suggest these two august bodies amalgamate!)

Among the awards which might have most resonance with Photo Counter readers are:

– Best Entry-Level DSLR – Canon 600D;
– Best Entry Level Lens – Tamron SP 70 – 300mm;
– Best General Compact Camera – Nikon Coolpix P300;
– Best Rugged Compact Camera – Panasonic Lumix FT3;
– Best Retail Finishing System – Fujifilm Frontier DL600;

Nik beat Photoshop and others as best photo software, Epson took the award for best scanner (Perfection V330) as well as best large printers (Stylus Pro 4900) and (Stylus Photo R3000).

Pentax was top Professional DSLR with its medium format 645D.

But the categories go on and on. And on. They’ve even sliced and diced mirrorless interchangeables (which TIPA calls ‘Compact System Cameras’) into an ‘Expert’ and ‘Entry Level’ category!

Click here to view the full listing of award winners.