The second London Photo Festival will be held from 16th - 19th May in The Crypt, Borough High St, London SE1 1JA. This year, organisers have developed ‘ImageInfo’ using QR codes to allow visitors access to the image information and biography of the photographer, and hope that this will help enable the sales of exhibited works. Entry is free for the public and the Festival will be open from 10am on all three days and will remain open late on Friday’s ‘Click ‘n Clique’ evening when the public are invited to come and meet the photographers behind the works. To tie in with the Jubilee and the Olympics the theme will be ‘Your London’. Organisers will be looking for creative, personal images as opposed to standard shots of the capital. Exhibitors do not need to live in London (or even the UK). Further details for visitors and exhibitors can be found at the website below.

Zwijndrecht-based Galarina has released GeoLogTag 4.0, a major update to their geotagging app for iOS devices. Featuring the ability to continuously track the user’s location just like a traditional GPS data logger, version 4.0 adds geotagging of iPad and Google+ photos. Locations recorded with an iPhone are seamlessly used by the iPad app via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Another new option is to import a GPX track file via Mail, Dropbox or any other file management app. GeoLogTag 4.0 is available on iTunes for $4.99.

FlarePresets.com is a new website offering a range of presets designed for users of the popular Mac app Flare. The company is currently offering its Retro Preset Collection for free, with other collections like Artist, City, Movie, Popstar and Romance being available for $10 each.

Website: FlarePresets.com

The Velbon V4 Boom Arm is a new mechanism combining a geared/slide elevator with a 180 degree tilt arm and a 360 degree horizontal pan. Manufactured from aluminium, the Velbon V4 Boom Arm fits almost any tripod, thanks to the included choice of 1/4” or 3/8” mounting threads. Uses include macro work, copying and any application where fine adjustment of the camera position is an advantage. The product carries a suggested retail price of £79.99.

Arthur Tress: San Francisco 1964 is a monograph by James A. Ganz, which presents for the first time a collection of newly discovered pictures Tress took in 1964 as a young man. The photographs reveal a theme familiar to Tress’s many fans: the intersection of the absurd and the mundane. Formally posed portraits on the streets of San Francisco as well as candid views of shop windows, signs and other idiosyncrasies of the local landscape capture the vibrant scene in the Bay Area at the dawn of a chaotic era. An introductory essay discusses the historical context of the works while an interview with Tress illuminates the making and rediscovery of these brilliant images. The 112-page hardback is going on sale on 12th March for £22.50.

Writer and videographer Wiley Davis has launched a Kickstarter project to raise funds for the commercialisation of his invention, the 50-dollar follow focus. “Just because you can’t drop a grand or more on a high-end follow focus, doesn’t mean you don’t need precise control,” says Davis, who has produced the prototypes in his own garage, using a home-made CNC mill that he calls The Robot. “Instead of using lens gears, we use an off-the-shelf industrial belt that will fit around most lenses (though we also have an adapter kit for larger lenses if necessary)... The money we raise [on Kickstarter] will help us purchase some production tooling and will allow us to buy material in the quantities needed to hit our $50 price point.” For more information, visit the website below.

Website: 50-Dollar Follow Focus by Wiley Davis

AFP has launched ‘Eye on a New Century,’ the first in a series of photography apps for the Apple iPad. The app features 130 photos from the past 12, alongside commentary from the photographers. Also released today is ‘Rugby 2011,’ another AFP app, which celebrates the best of last November’s Rugby World Cup through the lenses of Agence France-Presse’s award-winning photographers. Future “AFP Photo Books” applications will be devoted to highlights of current events and key personalities. AFP also plans a number of other photo apps on the environment, faith rituals and traditions.

The Vienna International Photographic Awards (VIPA) are now open for entries. Open to professionals, amateurs and photography students from any country, the VIPA 2012 competition is focussed on documentary photography. You may submit either a single entry or a series of photos with a social, cultural, political or environmental theme. The first prize is €4,000, the second is €2,000, while the recipient of the third prize will be awarded €1,000. Additionally, the short-listed winners will be published in the VIPA?s official catalogue. The works of the three finalists will be featured in a group exhibition held in November 2012 in Vienna. Entrants can register through the website below.

Kyodo News International is reporting that the new Olympus OM-D compact system camera - which has not yet been officially announced - “will be offered in the United States, Europe and some Asian countries as the top model of the company’s digital mirrorless interchangeable lens camera series”. Citing “industry sources”, the news agency says that the OM-D will sell for “above 100,000 yen [£830/$1300] in Japan”. Offering the company’s in-camera image stabilisation and high-speed auto-focus technologies, the Olympus OM-D will allegedly feature a 16-megapixel sensor and be available sometime this spring.

Source: Kyodo via Wells Fargo via dpreview

The Trafalgar Sun is a new public art installation in central London. The Trafalgar Sun, which took six months to create, is 30,000 times bigger than a football, has a surface area of 200m2 and weighs over 2,500kgs. Its internal light source produces 4-million lumens of light, the equivalent of 60,000 light bulbs, making the artwork visible from space. Photography Blog was there to witness this impressive spectacle - Londoners can see it for themselves until 7.33pm this evening.

Website developer Idan Shechter has announced an update to CameraSize.com. Designed to help users visually compare different cameras in terms of size, CameraSize.com allows them to view each camera from different angles and directions, alongside its competitors. The new “Compact Camera Meter” widget lets you sort cameras by height, width, depth or weight, change the orientation of all cameras in a single click, change the size of the images so you can view more cameras onscreen etc. Click through / scroll down for a video demonstrating the capabilities of the Web app.

The CEO of Eye-Fi, a long-time member of the SD Association, has posted a blog entry in which he criticises the Association for issuing a press release on the adoption of a draft Wireless LAN specification as a new standard. “There is a process for the establishment of this kind of specification, and that process wasn’t respected,” said Eye-Fi CEO Yuval Koren. “Eye-Fi patented technology would be violated by anyone implementing this draft specification.”

Source: Eye-Fi Blog

Lodz-based Lucky Clan has released Top Camera 3.5 for iOS, which adds a number of new features. Top Camera supports operation in both portrait and landscape orientations, includes iTunes File Sharing, and saves images to its internal Gallery, the iOS Photo Library, or both. Novelties in Version 3.5 includes focus and exposure lock and a new “send feedback” button, as well as a few bug fixes. The app is available on iTunes for $2.99.

‘An Age of Confidence: Photographs by Bedford Lemere & Co’ is a new exhibition hosted by Wirral’s Lady Lever Art Gallery, showcasing the work of a leading English firm of architectural photographers between 1870 and 1930. Opening on 27th January and running until 7th May, the exhibition features 43 fascinating framed images giving a deep insight into a vanished world. The Lady Lever Art Gallery is located in Port Sunlight Village, Wirral, England.

The Beginner’s Guide to Landscape Photography is a new e-book by Dimitri Vasileiou and Mike Bell. Primarily designed as an aid to newcomers to the genre, this sixty-page book covers a range of subjects from white balance to focusing to post-processing. According to the authors, it could even provide inspiration to experienced landscape photographers. The book is available for £14.95 from the website below.

Rocky Nook has re-published Torsten Andreas Hoffmann’s book, The Art of Black and White Photography. Highlighting the creative aspects of B&W photography, the author introduces the reader to the basic rules of composition through his own images, and discusses the elements of a “photographic language,” which distinguishes creative photography from random shooting. He also covers digital post-processing techniques in great detail. The second edition has been updated to include Photoshop CS5, and features brand new images, new content, and a revised layout. The Art of Black and White Photography is available for $44.95.

SF Photo School has announced an “informal and exciting” webinar on the new Nikon D4 digital SLR. Presented by Uzair Kharawala and Mark Higgins from Nikon UK, the webinar allows attendees to discover the cool features of the camera. “Mark will be showcasing the Nikon D4 in detail and would be happy to answer any questions you may have,” Uzair Kharawala says. The webinar will be taking place on 25 January 2012 at 2pm GMT. Interested readers can register at the website below.

Website: Introducing the Nikon D4