TIPA WORLD AWARDS 2021

Travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic again prevented TIPA member magazines from meeting in person to vote on this year’s imaging product design awards, so the process was conducted online... but the outcome was still 40 very worthy winners.

The annual product awards judged by the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) global group of photo magazines comprises 40 categories, but we’ve whittled it down here to the pro-level and higher-end products. The winners have had to convince 27 hard-nosed magazine editors that they’re worthy of an award.

In my role as editor of Australian Camera (my ‘other job’), I was invited to join TIPA’s Technical Committee in 2019 so, over the last two years, I’ve become much more intimately involved in the Awards. As it happens, of course, for the last two years the Technical Committee has had to conduct all of its discussions and debates via emails and Zoom meetings. Likewise, the final judging has also had to be via ‘remote control’ rather than at a face-to-face gathering that had been the case annually up to 2020.

Because of the logistics of online voting, it again fell to the TIPA Technical Committee to come up with a more refined list of categories and eligible candidates than would usually be the case. Essentially we look at everything that launched within the period of eligibility, come up with a long list – and it is a long list – which then gets whittled down to a shortlist, and finally to an even shorter list. Not surprisingly, there’s quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing as this list is revised and refined to arrive at a selection of worthy potential winners.

In the end, however, every TIPA member gets to have their say, which is why winning a TIPA World Award is quite an achievement… you need to impress a lot of hard-nosed photo magazine editors who’ve seen it all.

Despite the ongoing issues with the Covid-19 pandemic around the world, there were still plenty of new and eligible imaging products to consider, and quite a number of categories were very hotly contested. Not surprisingly, this includes all those for mirrorless system lenses and the higher-end mirrorless cameras, but also photo/video monitors that have become a very important market sector of late.

Given the steady decline in new DSLRs, the TIPA World Awards no longer differentiates between reflex and mirrorless designs and instead concentrates on sensor size – a key consideration for new camera buyers today.

What was also evident is how much clever stuff is still being thought up to help us take better photos or make better videos. The area of lens design is a standout – now that the mirrorless configuration gives optical designers more freedom – but also accessories, software and support hardware like laptops (a new TIPA World Awards category for this year). In all, it’s very encouraging... just what we need right now.

The full list of the 40 category winners in the 2021 Awards is below, and we’ve added the judges’ citations for all pro-level products, along with the ones we feel are relevant to ProPhoto readers.