Lowepro’s new Inverse Beltpack provides photographers with two carrying alternatives in one stylish bag. The Inverse AW Beltpack can be worn around the waist by snapping on the contoured mesh lumbar belt or carried as a shoulder bag with the detachable 360° swivel padded shoulder harness. “Every photographer has been in a situation where they have missed the perfect shot because they couldn’t reach their camera or their accessories fast enough. We have created the new Inverse AW beltpack to provide a platform that keeps all of that equipment comfortably at arms reach and easily accessible to the photographer,” said Nicole Mummenhoff, senior vice president of global branding at Lowepro. The Lowepro Inverse 100 and 200 AW are available in black, arctic blue, and leaf green, in-store or online from early August, priced at £59 and £69 respectively.

Sitepoint are giving away The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques, completely free! Available to download as a PDF, the 278 page book normally worth $29.95 is billed as “the ultimate Photoshop compendium for web designers”. The offer runs until June 13th, 2008…

Website: The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques

Canon has launched the first of two new television commercials to support the Canon EOS Rebel and Canon PowerShot digital camera lines. “Journey,” uses a unique technology that blends individual digital still photographs shot with the Canon EOS-1D Mark III into a “picture-trail” motion commercial. “In this spot, the journey is the destination. Edited together, the shots made for a compelling story. But each single Canon photograph is also a piece of art in itself. You can freeze this ad at any given moment and find a photo that you’d probably like to blow up, frame and put on your wall.” said Grey New York’s chief creative officer Tor Myhren. The latest PowerShot commercial, set to air in early June, will continue to feature Maria Sharapova and her charismatic puppy, “Dolce.”

Olympus is sponsoring Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ second attempt to climb Mt Everest, which aims to raise £3 million for Marie Curie Cancer Care. In April, Sir Ranulph Fiennes started the journey along with his team, and they aim to return home in early June. Olympus are supplying the flagship camera of the Four Thirds standard, the Olympus E-3, plus the ultra compact E410 and the Mju Tough cameras.

Luminous Landscape have reviewed the Hasselblad H3D-II DSLR camera, which offers a choice of 22, 31 or 39 megapixel sensors up to 48x36 mm in size.

“My overall impression of this camera is one of smooth ease-of-use. I took to it right away and found very few niggles with the handling apart from those mentioned above. It’s logical, the menus are easy to navigate, and the camera controls are where they should be. Optically it is as excellent as you’d imagine from Hasselblad, and whilst the supplied software is dated, the replacement, Phocus, promises great things. It’s not a perfect landscape camera, but what is? As a general purpose camera of the highest possible image quality it is a winner and I’d have no hesitation in recommending it.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - Hasselblad H3D-II Review

Steves Digicams have reviewed the Pentax A40, a new compact digital camera offering 12 megapixels, 2.5 inch LCD monitor and 3x optical zoom lens.

“Pentax’s Optio A40 is an ultra-compact digicam that is full of features. It has a 12-megapixel imaging sensor, Triple Shake Reduction technology, Enhanced Face Detection, Dynamic Range Adjustment and a 2.5” LCD screen with bright mode and a wide field of view. The face detection will select the proper exposure and focus based on the faces detected, giving you a properly exposed image every time, while Dynamic Range Adjustment automatically adjusts highlights and shadows to properly expose the whole image.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Pentax A40 Review

DCViews have reviewed the Olympus SP-570 UZ camera, which features a 20x zoom equivalent to 26-520mm.

“Image quality at low ISO settings is excellent, with well balanced, realistic colours and lots of punch. Saturation, sharpness and contrast can be upped or toned down on the screen menu, or a quick fix could be to choose for vivid or natural colours. White balance and exposure are spot on most of the time and images rarely require any exposure compensation except for extreme contrast situations with the sun in the picture or very dark shadow areas. Shadow adjustment can be set at the touch of a dedicated button at the capture stage or fixed in camera in post processing and this works okay.”

Website: DCViews - Olympus SP-570 UZ Review

Website: Read our Olympus SP-570 UZ Review

Canon USA have just launched their Summer 2008 Instant Rebate scheme. Between May 18th and July 19th, 2008, Canon will be offering an instant rebate offer on selected EOS cameras and accessories, including $300 off the EOS 5D and $200 off the EOS 40D. The limit is one instant rebate per eligible product purchased during the promotion period.

The Fisheye-Hemi Plug-In for Aperture corrects hemispheric fisheye lens distortion, working seamlessly within Aperture’s photo editing and management environment. Fisheye-Hemi Plug-In uses almost all of the pixel data with no loss of image resolution, while displaying the intended composition and framing better than other un-warping programs. “The Fisheye-Hemi Plug-In offers quick and effortless correction of fisheye lens distortion directly within user’s Aperture image library,” said Dan Sullivan, president and CEO of Image Trends, Inc. The Fisheye-Hemi Plug-In is also available for Photoshop on Mac and Windows based machines. Each plug-in is priced at US$29.95.

PhotoAcute Studio promises to remove the noise from High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. PhotoAcute’s special method of dynamic range expansion automatically and almost completely removes the noise from the shadow areas of HDR images. PhotoAcute Studio also increases spatial resolution, extends the depth of field and corrects chromatic aberrations. It supports a variety of image formats, including RAW, DNG and TIFF, and can save the results in Adobe’s DNG format. PhotoAcute Studio Professional costs $119.

The Tamron SP AF70-200mm F/2.8 Di LD (IF) MACRO now has a built-in AF motor, making it compatible with Nikon’s APS-C DSLR cameras. The Tamron 70-200mm lens provides a field of view equivalent to 105-300mm when used with the Nikon D60, D40x and D40. Tamron have revealed that the new lens will be launched in Japan on May 30th 2008.

FotoAlbum 6 adds GeoTagging, support for XMP metadata and an integrated SQLite database. “We think that FotoAlbum 6 is the perfect tool for users wanting to organize their growing photo and video library,” said Jeff Kelling, FotoTime co founder and Chief Technology Officer. “As hard drive sizes continue to grow, and cameras commonly exceed 10 megapixels, we see FotoAlbum’s move to an integrated relational database not only important for performance, but also key to assuring that user’s data is stored safely, and can easily be used by other applications.” FotoAlbum 6 is available now. FotoTime offers $19.95 upgrade pricing for customers upgrading from FotoAlbum Pro 5, and $39.95 for new customers.

Printer calibration with ICC profiling is now available for SilverFast Ai Studio. Printer calibration ensures a fully calibrated workflow from input to output, and supports a wide range of media, paper types, and inks. “The new SilverFast Printer Calibration with ICC-Profiler will help our customers to create high quality prints, without requiring to purchase new hardware. We know that demanding users not only need superb quality from their scans and prints, they also need a reliable and easy to manage workflow. We feel that our new printer calibration technology will make that possible.” commented Karl-Heinz Zahorsky, President & CEO of LaserSoft Imaging AG. Printer Calibration with ICC-Profiling is available now for Mac and Windows platforms as an optional SilverFast Ai Studio feature at € 99.

The OWC Mercury On-The-Go portable hard drive is now available in a capacity of 500Gb for just $329. OWC Mercury On-The-Go portable drives are compatible with virtually all computers with an available FireWire or USB port, including all Macs and PCs. Fully bus powered with no additional external power required, each Mercury On-The-Go Drive features backup software - Prosoft DataRescue III for OS X and NovaStor NovaBackup for Windows. OWC Mercury On-The-Go Drives are immediately available and priced starting at $95.99.

Ricoh have released a new firmware update, version 2.03, for the GR Digital II compact digital camera. Version 2.03 fixes the following bug:

Modified the following phenomenon. A camera will not recognize the recommended flash from Sigma below.
EF-530 DG ST (SA-STTL)
EF-530 DG SUPER (SA-STTL)
EF-500 DG ST (SA-STTL)
EF-500 DG SUPER (SA-STTL)

Website: Ricoh GR Digital II Firmware Update 2.03

Imaging Resource have reviewed the Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS ELPH, a new 8 megapixel compact digital camera.

“The Canon SD1100 IS is a full-featured point-and-shoot digicam that really impresses. It offers all the best feature sets of 8MP resolution, Image Stabilization, Face Detection, Widescreen/Panorama Stitch, Movie Mode, Macro mode, and much more, all in the size of a pack of playing cards. If you crave compactness without sacrificing too much, the Canon SD1100 really delivers. Probably the only real compromise is the “mere” 3x zoom, while some of Canon’s more expensive models offer 3.8 and 4x zooms.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Review

Website: Read our Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Review

Fine Art Printing for Photographers provides the necessary foundation for fine art printing, covering color management, profiling, paper, and inks. The 2nd Edition of this top-selling book has been newly edited, and includes expanded coverage of the newest printers and papers. “If you want to get better prints without having to ship your images off to a lab, this is the book you must get. Eat beans for a week if need be, but get this book.” commented David Huss. Fine Art Printing for Photographers is available now for $44.95 USD.

The latest version of Phase One’s RAW processing software, Capture One 4.1, is now available. Version 4.1 adds support for the following cameras: Canon 450D/Rebel XSi, Mamiya ZD, ZD Back, Nikon D60, Pentax K20D, K200D, K110D, K100D Super, Sony DSLR-A350, DSLR-A300, DSLR-A200. Two lens correction features, tethered shooting and a Hot Folder feature have also been added. Capture One 4.1 is a free upgrade for licensed users of 4.x. Price for new users is 129 USD / 99 EUR. Capture One 4 PRO is expected later this year.

The Tamron SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO now has a built-in AF motor, making it compatible with Nikon’s APS-C DSLR cameras. The Tamron 28-75mm lens provides a field of view equivalent to 42-112.5mm when used with the Nikon D60, D40x and D40. Tamron have revealed that the new lens will be launched in Japan on May 30th 2008.

The Travel Photographer of the Year 2008 competition is now open for entries. There are three portfolio categories - Life, Call of the Wild and Joy of Travel - a One Shot category, Destination Anywhere, and Young TPOTY. New this year are the First Shot: Wish You Were Here category for less experienced photographers, and three special £1,000 awards for the Best Single Image in a Portfolio. Prizes include a place on the 2009 High & Wild Everest Skydive Expedition and Intrepid Travel trips to India and Cuba and to see the mountain gorillas of Uganda. The competition closes on September 9th. Entry costs £10 for a single image category and £15 for a portfolio category, and entry to Young TPOTY is free.