Last week, BJP received a dozen press releases from Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, Panasonic, Sony, Epson, and others within minutes. As with each year, it was TIPA time. The TIPA Awards are given by the Technical Image Press Association, which is formed of diverse photographic magazines across the world (see a full list of participants here). BJP usually doesn't not publish any of these releases - not because our magazine isn't part of TIPA, but simply because we tend not to publish any product reward release be it TIPA, EISA or any other "product of the year" type of contest.

This year, I must applaud "Amateur Photographer's editor comment on the 2010 TIPA awards. Published on Friday 23 April, the comment takes on irregularities with a couple of this year's winners: Panasonic's G2 and Adobe's Photoshop CS5. Editor Damien Demolder writes:

Announcing that a particular product is the best of its type before it could have been used or tested properly does not help. I really wonder how well TIPA members have tested anything that has been awarded this year, when it is clear that two of those products could not possibly have been examined to any decent extent. The first finished model of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2 available in the UK only arrived in the AP office at the end of last week, with the firmware only just updated, and Adobe's Photoshop CS5, while pre-disclosed to us some time ago, the final version is still not available for testing. In both cases each product appears great on paper, but one can hardly say either is the best in its class unless it is tested thoroughly. Even if a good solid model of the G2 were available when the awards were decided, that could demonstrate exactly what consumers will buy themselves, I wonder how many of the 29 TIPA members got to use it.

He's right. While it looks as if the Panasonic G2, which was unveiled in late February, might be the best Micro FourThirds camera released so far (Panasonic has released the G1, GF1 and GH1, and announced the G2 and G10. Olympus released the E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1). However, the G2 has not been officially released yet. In fact, it will only be available to the public in June, and as Demolder writes, review samples have yet to be made available to all publications. Are we to believe that 29 magazines around the world were able to get and thoroughly test it ahead of last week's announcement? I doubt it. But despite the fact that the G2 might be the best of its class so far, which I believe it is, it shouldn't receive such award until it has been put to the test.

I have nothing against product awards. In some cases, you can clearly tell that the winning products were actually chosen for their qualities after weeks, if not months, of tests. However, in other cases, like this year's TIPA Awards, a couple of inconsistencies cast a shadow on the entire line-up of winning products (which you can find here).

As Demolder writes in his editorial:

Maybe I am wrong, and the majority of TIPA members have tested finished versions of all these products so they can testify to their readers, and to the European camera-buying public, that they fully understand exactly how these products perform. If they haven't, they are damaging the trust of consumers in any awards programme, and they are failing in their duty as magazines to direct their readers with honestly and integrity.