Channel 4’s ‘Picture This’ photo contest aims to discover the UK’s most talented up and coming photographers. Six photographers picked from thousands of applicants are competing against each other to win an exhibition at the Baltic gallery in Newcastle and a publishing deal worth thousands of pounds. The first episode of ‘Picture This’ aired on 6th January at 7pm, with the next two episodes on on Sunday 13 January and Sunday 20 January.

The Epson Print Academy is a training day specifically designed for users who want to get the best out of their Epson printer. Held at Epson UK’s headquarters in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, instructor Jonathan Briggs provides expert guidance on the fundamentals of image capture, processing and print workflow. The Epson Print Academy course costs £56.40 including VAT.

The FOZI Tripod is a credit card size plastic (polypropylene) folding tripod you can always carry in a wallet, purse or handbag. It snaps from 2 dimensions to 3 to hold the camera in 4 different positions. The FOZI tripod works for both centre and offset lens compact cameras and mobile phone cameras, by changing the position in the tripod. Travellers will now be able to take “anywhere, anytime” shots which are not possible without a tripod. The FOZI Tripod comes in 6 colours, and a 5-pack of different colours. It costs AUD$5.95 posted within Australia or AUD$8.95 sent AIRMAIL to USA, UK, Canada or NZ.

The new LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra is an amazingly fast mobile hard drive designed for digital content creation, high-volume data exchange, and video editing. A quadruple interface allows universal connectivity for true cross-platform compatibility. “Offering as much as 50 percent more capacity than “standard” mobile drives and with blazing speed, the Little Big Disk Quadra, with its quadruple interface and clever design, continues to solidify LaCie’s position as the perennial technology leader for professional storage devices.” said Olivier Mirloup, LaCie Hard Disk Business Unit Manager.  The Little Big Disk Quadra will be available in 400GB and 500GB versions with either 7200 or 5400 RPM drives, respectively, starting at $475.

The LaCie LaCinema Premier is a new multimedia hard drive that creates a home entertainment centre for movies, photos and music. Simply plug the LaCie LaCinema Premier directly into a television for instant playback. Available in capacities of 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB, the LaCinema Premier supports a wide range of video, audio and photo formats. “The LaCie LaCinema Premier is an easy to use multimedia hard drive for customers wanting to enjoy their large digital libraries on their television,” said Salem Tirane, LaCie Multimedia Product Manager. “Offering high capacity and simplicity, it is a vast improvement over standard DVD players as it directly plays digital music, movies and pictures, without having to first burn a CD or DVD for playback.” The LaCie LaCinema Premier 500GB is available for $229.

The Shogo touch-screen digital picture frame from RealEase is the world’s first touch-screen WiFi-integrated digital picture frame. The integrated battery means no more wires and makes it easy to use your Shogo as a portable digital photo album. With its Shogo Friend capability, you can share your favorite shots from your Shogo, instantly and with one or multiple friends without a PC. “To date, the digital picture frame has been a decorative gift with limited functionality that is soon stored away in the family closet,” said Schneersohn. “We believe Shogo is well placed to do for digital picture frames what the iPod did for the pervasiveness of the mp3 world.” Shogo will be available in spring 2008 at $299 for a touch-screen, WiFi version.

Lexar has increased the capacity of its entire SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) family of memory cards to 8GB. The Professional 8GB cards are speed-rated at 133x, delivering a minimum sustained write speed of 20MB per second. The Lexar Platinum II cards are speed-rated at 60x and deliver a minimum sustained write speed of 9MB per second. Standard Lexar SDHC cards are designed for a wide range of popular uses, including storing images, video, and music. “The capacity and performance of these new products allow photographers and videographers to confidently shoot without needing to change their memory cards, and allow mobile consumers to maximize the features and functionality of their cell phones and PDAs,” said John Santoro, senior product marketing manager, Lexar.  The new cards from the Professional, Platinum II, and standard lines will be available later this month.

NTI Shadow 3, an award-winning backup software application, maintains real-time, continuous backup of all changed files. The new version of NTI Shadow adds support for optical media though NTI’s new Dragon Disc technology, which includes backup to any optical media including Blu-ray. NTI Shadow v3 now includes custom file filtering for specific file types (audio, picture, video, and document) as well as custom file type filtering. NTI Shadow 3 is available now for $29.99.

Olympus have released a new firmware update for the 12-60mm Supersonic Wave Drive lens. Version 1.1 improves the focusing precision on distant subjects when using the C-AF (continuous AF) mode.

Website: Download Olympus 12-60mm Firmware 1.1

Tim Graham has photographed the British Royal Family gathered together for the first time in 35 years. Graham was invited to photograph the Royal Family in celebration of the Diamond Wedding Anniversary of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. The image, featuring twenty-five Royal Family members, will form part of Tim Graham’s Royal Archive that from the end of this month will be exclusively available at the Getty Images Hulton Archive.

Eye-Fi and Lexar are introducing a Lexar-branded wireless memory card based on Eye-Fi’s patent-pending technology. The Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card allows users to send photos directly from their digital camera to their computer or their favorite online photo sharing site. “Our customers are always looking for easier, faster and more reliable ways to store and share their memories, and we want to keep pace with their busy lifestyles,” said Brad Anderson, Director of Product Marketing at Lexar Media. “We believe our customers will enjoy the benefits of being able to tap into the benefits of Eye-Fi’s service—including direct uploads of photos to many different online destinations and users’ home computers.” The new Lexar wireless memory card will be demonstrated this week at the CES show in Las Vegas. Price and availability are to be confirmed.

New Kodak Professional Grade CD-Rs and DVD-Rs will safely store images, videos and data for up to 100 years. The discs combine superior recording quality with durability that will protect images, sound and data for 100 years. Only archival Kodak 24K Gold Preservation CDs last longer. “We are introducing these new, professional grade discs for those who can’t take a chance on short-lived silver CD-Rs.,” said Steve Mizelle, President of KMP Media. Also announced is a new Kodak Archival Jewel Case, specifically designed for storing important CDs and DVDs. Price and availability for the Kodak Professional Grade discs to be announced.

New Kodak AutoMagic Self-Burning CD-Rs make it easy even for computer novices to burn sound, images and data onto a CD-R. The unique, built-in software on each Kodak AutoMagic CD copies photos, backs up key documents and creates portable storage for music. “This is great news for all the people who want to store images, music or data on a CD but lack the computer skills,” said Jim Gordon, Sr., Vice President of Marketing for KMP Media. “Now they can avoid the hassle of downloading, installing and learning how to use a more complex software package.” The Kodak AutoMagic CD-R is available now and is expected to retail for about $4.99 for a 2-pack.

The new SimpleTech Signature Mini portable hard drive has been designed by and is available in 7 exciting colours. They are also the first portable drives in the world to offer both local backup software and online backup. “Our bold new direction for the Signature Mini Drive family, using fashion-forward colors and stimulating design, provides users a full palette of options to match their style and personality. Coupled with our advanced software and online services, Fabrik has differentiated itself from the traditional storage players and built the best solution for consumers who want to take their content with them.” said Matt McRae, vice president of marketing at Fabrik. Available in a range of capacities from 120GB to 320GB, the price ranges from $119.99 (120GB) to $229.99 (320GB).

The new DXG-565V is an all-in-one digital camcorder/camera/MP3 player/voice recorder/webcam, priced at just $99. The DXG-565V features a 5 megapixel sensor, 2.4” TFT LCD screen and 32MB of built-in storage. The DXG-565V is available in 5 colours, Metallic Pink (pictured), Ruby Red, Deep-Sea Blue, Gun Metal, and Midnight Black. It has a retail price of $99 and is available Q1 2008.

Nikon UK has announced its cashback promotion on D40X digital SLR camera kits has been extended until 29th February 2008. Customers purchasing a D40X body with any AF Nikkor lens will be entitled to claim up to £40 in the UK and €60 in the Republic of Ireland on purchases made between 7th Jan – 29th Feb 2008 inclusive. All claims must be received by 31st March 2008.

For more information about the cashback promotion and how to claim please visit: www.nikon.co.uk/cashback

VideoSpin from Pinnacle Systems is a new, free video editing application aimed at users who don’t want to spend much time creating movies. With VideoSpin, users can create entertaining movies in minutes simply by dragging and dropping their videos, pictures and music from their PC’s hard drive. “In developing VideoSpin, we focused on putting the fun in video editing for consumers with all levels of experience by making it faster and easier than any other product on the market,” said Tanguy Leborgne, Pinnacle Systems Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. The VideoSpin application will be available for free download by the end of January 2008.

ILFORD is sponsoring a photo exhibition by photographer Paula Barr at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. USA Route 90 Highway, Gulf Coast Echo is a photographic journal that tells the story of the devastating effects hurricanes can have on displaced persons and survivors. “I am very honored to be a part of this forum and to have the opportunity to showcase my work. As an artist, it is important to use high quality and archival material to ensure the best possible results. With the support of ILFORD and the use of ILFORD color products, I have been able to produce superior quality prints from my digital files and color negatives.” commented Paula Barr.

Kubota Image Tools has announced its 4th creative photography workshop for professional and advanced amateur photographers in Italy. This 7-day photography workshop (October 5-11, 2008) includes several exciting photo excursions, classroom instruction, photography critiquing and more. “My wife Clare and I are so thrilled to return for our fourth creative photography workshop in Italy – one of the most beautiful countries on Earth,” said Kevin Kubota, Idea Man of Kubota Image Tools. “There’s nothing like a trip to Italy to inspire you—and your photography. It really is a life changing experience.” The cost of the 7-day trip is $2,995 for class attendees and $2,550 for non-class participants.

The new LaCie 324 is a 24 inch LCD monitor which offers superb colors thanks to its wide 92 percent NTSC gamut. The LaCie 324 also embeds a 10-bit gamma correction mechanism that minimizes banding and has a 16:10 wide-screen format. It also supports high definition video up to, and including, 1080p sources. “The LaCie 324’s feature set broadly addresses the needs of creative pros dealing both with fixed-images, as in graphic design, photography and publishing as well as with motion pictures, as in post-production and game development”, said Daniel Mayer, LaCie’s Color Business Unit Manager. The LaCie 324 monitor will be available at the end of January for $1050.