Thursday, January 29, 2009

The 20 winning images in National Geographic’s “Visions of Paradise” photography contest have been selected. Each winner receives a customized edition of the National Geographic book “Visions of Paradise,” with their winning photograph as the cover image.

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Popular UK online photo processor PhotoBox has just launched its new Pro Gallery service. Available to all Photobox users, PhotoBox Pro Gallery allows you to sell your photos online without any set up costs. As a gallery owner you get to choose the products and print sizes you want to sell and set the price you want to sell them at. PhotoBox then take care of all the printing, payment and delivery in exchange for a 10% commission fee on any sales.

Website: PhotoBox Pro Gallery

The 2009 Sony Campaign Award is a new football photography competition within the Sony World Photography Awards. Amateur photographers are invited to enter the Campaign Award with a single image that captures the beauty and spirit of football in unexpected places. The award is looking for originality amongst the thousands of typical images featured on the sport every year. The closing date for the Sony Campaign Award is 28th February 2009.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The new Olympus E-30 is the first mid-range DSLR camera from Olympus, positioned between the cheaper E-520 and more expensive E-3 models. Going head-to-head with the likes of the Canon EOS 50D and Nikon D90, Olympus have decided to try a different approach with the E30 by offering a number of creative possibilities built into the camera. The Olympus E30 offers six Art Filters (Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale & Light Colour, Light Tone, Grainy Film and Pin Hole), and there’s also a Multiple Exposure mode for combining images and nine separate aspect ratios, all of which can be previewed on the free-angle 2.7” LCD screen. Olympus certainly haven’t forgotten the more traditional features, with fast 11-point autofocus, 5fps sequential shooting, shutter speeds of up to 1/8000th sec, Supersonic Wave Filter dust reduction system and built-in image stabilisation all on offer. The Olympus E-30 retails at $1300 / £850 body only or £1200 with the new 14-54 Mark II kit lens. Mark Goldstein gets in touch with his artistic side in our latest in-depth review.

Website: Olympus E-30 Review

Sigma UK will increase its prices on all products from 1st February, blaming “currency fluctuations”. The devaluation of £ Sterling against the Yen by 40% since December 2007 is the specific reason. Also, Sigma’s press release doesn’t rule out future increases: “We hope that the UK pound makes a recovery against foreign currencies however it is not altogether impossible that further price increases may be forced upon us all.”

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The Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) has forecast falling camera sales in 2009. They predict that total sales will decrease by 0.7%, with point-and-shoot models suffering a 1.3% decline, while DSLR sales will actually increase by 6.8%. CIPA are blaming “the rapid economic slowdown since the autumn of 2008” for 2009’s tough outlook, with better news expected for 2010/11.

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Leica have launched a special Safari Edition of the M8.2 digital camera. Limited to 500 units worldwide, the M8.2 Safari Edition includes an olive green painted M8.2 camera, silver LEICA ELMARIT-M 28mm f/2.8 ASPH.lens, a Billingham camera case, and a carrying strap. The price for such exclusivity? The Leica M8.2 Safari Edition can be yours for just $10,000…

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The Kodak Easyshare C180 is a new entry-level 10 megapixel point-and-shoot compact camera. Featuring a 3x zoom lens (32–96 mm), Face detection and Blur reduction, the Kodak C180 also offers Kodak’s Perfect Touch technology, ISO speeds up to 1250, a 2.4 inch LCD screen and 16mb internal memory. The Kodak Easyshare C180 will be available in red, blue, pink and silver in August for $119.95.

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Photographic Multishot Techniques is a new book that shows how to use a bracketed series of exposures to increase resolution and extend depth of field.  Included are lessons on HDRI, super-resolution, focus stacking, and stitching images. You will learn how to effectively combine these various techniques to create amazing images. Photographic Multishot Techniques is published by Rocky Nook and costs $34.95 / £24.99.

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Analyses of the Panasonic Lumix G1 (pictured), Olympus E-420 and E-510 DSLR cameras is now available on dxomark.com. DxO Labs has added detailed RAW-based image quality data and DxOMark Sensor rankings for each camera. http://www.dxomark.com is a free online resource that delivers key objective sensor performance metrics measured directly on the RAW image.

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