Getting Ready For CES

World’s Largest Full HD Plasma Hosted on Zooomr

Last year 103 inches was the largest HD Plasma display at CES. I wonder what it will be this year?

So I’m all excited about CES which is coming next week. I’ve got my airline ticket, my hotel room booked (I’ll be at the Bellagio) and I’m ready to shoot that 5D of mine like mad. I went to CES last year and my biggest disappointment was not being able to take more photos. I’ve set a goal for myself of 1,000 photos minimum this year, so we’ll see how it goes. Kristopher Tate is joining me this year which will also be a lot of fun.

Scoble and PodTech are hosting a Bloghaus (thanks guys) at the Bellagio where I’m staying so I’m sure I’ll spend a bit of time there as well.

During the day I plan to shoot as much as I can of new products on the floor of the show. I’m going to spend less time blogging about any one product this year and more time just shooting as many products as I can and then writing short little writeups where appropriate. I’ve made contact with TiVo and hope to spend a little time with them. I want to try out the new Comcast TiVo service. I’ll also definitely be spending time checking out Canon’s stuff. I’m hoping they will have one of the new 50mm f/1.2 L series lenses that I can check out.

My equipment is much better this year. My camera is pretty much the same, but I’ve now got a Mac and a EVDO card, so getting photos up and online faster should be easier.

At night I want to shoot as much of Las Vegas as I can. I really love shooting Vegas at night. There is so much neon and lights and glamor. A truly interesting interpretation of some of the extreme excess of Americana.

Last year I was able to get an invite to the Microsoft party (thanks Matt!) and shot the Killers and the Pussycat Dolls there. Now, that was a lot of fun. By the way, if you are hosting a party at CES and have a spare ticket for a blogger/photographer let me know. I’d love to shoot some of the parties there and could put together a pretty good online set of photos of your party for you while at CES.

So who else is going? I know that in addition to Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang and the team at PodTech that a whole host of other bloggers will be there, Zatzman Dave Zatz, Ed Bott, Mike K from Hacking Netflix, Kevin Tofel, Josh Bancroft, Ian Dixon (he had a great Media Center meet up last year with Orb), Geek News Central’s Todd Cochrane, Jeremy Toeman, Gabe Rivera, and many others that I’m sure I haven’t noticed yet (whew!).

Are you headed to CES? It’s going to be a whirlwind for sure but I’m not planning on sleeping much and hope to be as productive as I can. I’ll be the guy with the 5D permanently strapped to my face.

Here is a set of images that I took of CES from last year, and here is a set of images from Las Vegas that I took earlier this year in September. Also for another quick look back at last year’s CES (in less than 2 minutes) check out Rocketboom’s great“Dueling Banjos” video of the show.