Lots of big news for digital photographers coming up next month.

The Photokina "World of Imaging" Trade Show is a digital photography show that happens every two years in Germany. This big event is held at the Cologne Exhibition Center. The last show (in 2004) had over 160,000 visitors and had over 1,500 exhibitors. The 2006 Photokina will start September 26 and end October 1.

The Photokina is important partly because it is one of the year's mass unveiling of new photography products. Even though the event won't be until next month, the slow and steady build-up started this past July with the announcements of new products (like the snazzy Ergo-Tech bags from KATA). Here's a list of some of the products announced since July:

• Digicams
• Casio EXILIM EX-Z770
• Casio EXILIM EX-Z700
• Fujifilm FinePix S6500fd
• Fujifilm FinePix F20 Zoom
• Kodak EasyShare V705
• Kodak EasyShare C875
• Kodak EasyShare C743
• Kodak EasyShare C433
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX3
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX07
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX50
• Pentax Optio S7
• Pentax Optio W20
• Samsung NV10
• Samsung NV7 OPS
• Samsung NV3
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T10
• Digital SLR
• Nikon D80
• Lenses
• Nikon AF-S DX 18-135 mm
• Nikon AF-S DX 70-300 mm VR

Digital photography continues to advance, as does the general field of photography. Remember those "how did they do that?" shots that used to make our jaws drop when we saw them in National Geographic? Quite a lot of those are now common and within the reach of amateurs, so who knows what great things will be revealed at this Photokina?

So to our European readers who manage to get in, send us an email or two, will you?

After its launch on February 2006, Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1 is poised to mark its place on the world of digital cameras. Although it is not "pocketable" compared to other cameras, TZ1 has its own charms to entice many customers. First, it is considerably less bulky than its 'SLR-like' siblings and their competitors, and although it offers little in the way of truly manual control, it is packed with features like its superb 5.0 million effective pixels, 10x (35-350mm equiv.) Leica DC Vario-Elmarit optical zoom, 2.5-inch(270,000) High Resolution LCD, MEGA OIS image stabilization, Venus III Engine processor,  Fast Linear autofocus system and 18 scene modes which ranges from Portrait, Soft Skin, Scenery, Sports;to Self-Portrait, Fireworks, Beach, Aerial Photo, Snow, High Sensitivity and Night Portrait.

It also available in two color options - silver or black - though this may not be the case for every country and/or every retailer. Its built-in flash has options like Auto with red-eye reduction, Slow synch with red-eye reduction, Forced on/off, and has a range of 0.3 - 3.7m (Auto ISO, wide) to a whopping 1.0 - 2.4m (Auto ISO, wide).

You can store data on its massive 13.4MB internal memory and it is SD / MMC compatible. It runs on a Li-on battery pack that is included in the package and has free optional AC adapter. It has dimensions pf 112 x 58.1 x 40.2 mm (4.41 x 2.29 x 1.58 in) and only weighs 234 g (7.3 oz).

News about Panasonic's Lumix DMC-L1 (not the DMX-L1 as our source site says), touted as their 'first real dSLR', has been around for a little while now, but only now has the company decided to formally launch the unit. (We presume that's because they wanted the hype to reach some sort of crescendo before they did so; we're not sure at this point whether or not that's the case.)

We also have some detailed info about the camera that we didn't have earlier. The 145x86.9x80 L1 is a 7.5-megapixel dSLR that's got ISO values between 100 and 1600. It features a Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50mm lens with an OIS (Optical Image Stabilizer), a Dust Free Sensor that Panasonic says makes the camera a snap to keep clean (interesting - wonder how that works?), a nice bright 2.5-inch control screen, RAW/JPEG support and compatibility with SD/SDHC cards of up to 4GB capacity.

Not bad, eh? We sure think so, too. All that goodness isn't going to come cheap, though. It's to retail for a little less than 1800 EUR in Japan and 1500 EUR in the States (no clue why), which we hear is an eye-popping 700 EUR more than Canon's renowned 350D. Wonder if it'll be worth it? We'll keep you all posted.

Have a look at some more nice pictures of the Lumix DMC-L1, courtesy of the good folks from Akihabara News.