The judges over at the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) have spoken, awarding a number of deserving cameras with the important EISA Photo Awards for 2012-2013.

 

The accolade of European Camera of the year went to Nikon’sD800 with its massive 36.3 megapixel full-frame sensor. This adds to this spectacular camera’s ‘Best Digital SLR Expert’ award at the TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) awards held earlier this year. Commenting on the sensor, the judges noted that it offers “exceptionally high resolution capture,” while “no compromises have been made to the extent of the camera’s dynamic range or noise levels at high ISO settings.” 

 

Canon’s competitor, the EOS 5DMarkIIIdid not leave empty handed though, picking up the European Advanced SLR Camera nod. The camera, whichleftusveryimpressed, was hailed for being extremely versatile, while offering “a substantial improvement in real life photography as well as in performance” compared to its predecessor, the highly acclaimed EOS 5D Mark II.

 

Nikon’sD4 was another big winner, trumping the CanonEOS 1DX for the European Advanced SLR Camera gong. The 16 megapixel full-frame camera was lauded for not only its very high build quality but also “wide dynamic range, very low noise levels even at ISO 12800, super-fast autofocus, short response time and high frame rates that can be maintained for very long sequences.”

 

A camera that certainly lived up to the hype surrounding its release is the Fujifilm X-Pro1 (read our article about it here), which walked away with the European Professional Compact System Camera award. This adds to the camera’s TIPA award for Best CSC Professional, with the judges noting the combination of exceptional lens quality, great build and excellent sensor.

 

Sony might be struggling under the might of the two giants of the camera market, Nikon and Canon, but this did not prevent the Sony α SLT-A57 from truimphing as European SLR Camera for 2012-2013. The judges claimed that the impressive translucent mirror technology sported by the SLT-A57 was responsible for “allowing high speed AF in movie mode, 12-frames-per-second shooting rates as well as Sony’s powerful combination of high quality imaging sensor and processor.”

 

Samsung’s history in the mirrorless standard proved beneficial, trumping Nikon’s new 1 range to capture the European Advanced Compact System Camera. The NX20 received accolades for not only its eight frames per second shooting rate, but more importantly for its built-in Wi-Fi that allows photographers to post images directly to email or social media sites.

 

It looks like that on the compact camera side, Canon’s G-series still reigns supreme, with the PowerShot G1 X grabbing the European Compact Camera award. In our quickreview we noted the G1 X’s excellent larger sensor and this also impressed the judges, claiming that the camera’s image quality is able to compete against many DSLRs.  There has been lots of good talk surrounding Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 aimed at advance amateurs, and now this camera can boast the award for Advanced Compact Camera 2012-2013. This while Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V flew home as winner of the European Travel Camera.

 

Here is the complete list of winners at this year’s EISA Photo Awards:

 

European Camera: Nikon D800

European SLR Camera: Sony α SLT-A57

European Advanced SLR Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

European Professional Camera: Nikon D4

European Compact System Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5

European Advanced Compact System Camera: Samsung NX20

European Professional Compact System Camera: Fujifilm X-Pro1

European Compact Camera: Canon PowerShot G1 X

European Advanced Compact Camera: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100

European Travel Camera: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V

European All Weather Camera: Olympus TOUGH TG-1

European Lens: Tamron SP 24-70mm F2.8 Di VC USD

European Macro Lens: Sigma APO Macro 150mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM

European Compact System Lens: Panasonic LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm F2.8 ASPH

European Photo Printer: Canon PIXMA PRO-1

European Photo Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4