Tickets to this season’s FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium will be up for grabs for those who upload a photo of themselves supporting their club to the Football Association’s website. “Your photo might be at an FA Cup match, down the pub with some friends or even in the armchair at home - the choice is yours,” the association says. The uploaded photos will be displayed on the “Fan Photos” section of the newly redesigned FA Cup website, and the best ones will also be showcased on the big screens at Wembley during the Final. The photo with the most votes from each round will win two tickets

HannsG is launching a new series of affordable LED monitors.The HL9 series will initially include widescreen models between 18.5” and 24”. Each HL9 monitor boasts a high quality minimalist look with a slim profile that is complimented by a glossy black finish. The design incorporates built in speakers as standard, and includes DVI with HDCP support on all models excluding the HL190APB, along with the more traditional VGA port.  Prices range from £69 for the HL190APB to £119 for the HL249DPB model. The entire range will be available from February.

At the end of last year, Photography Blog launched a search to find the best budding action snapper in the inaugural Autosport International Amateur Photographer Competition.

Following an enthusiastic response, five finalists were selected to attend Autosport International, the world’s greatest motorsport show, at the Birmingham NEC on Saturday 14 January 2012 for the winning announcement.

The panel, which included representatives from Photography Blog and LAT Photographic, the largest motoring and motorsport collection in the world, unanimously voted Paul Thomas from Danescourt as the winning entrant. His early morning image from the FIA World Rally Championship Race of Great Britain, taken with a Nikon D90, perfectly captured the magic of motorsport.

Smile2Shoot is an iPhone app that offers face and smile detection technologies. The program’s developers claim that Smile2Shoot Camera provides better self-portraits than the on-board camera app. Once a picture is taken, the software applies any necessary improvements such as redeye reduction, exposure and skin tone corrections. The photo can then be shared with friends and family via Facebook and Twitter. Version 1.1. promises improved image quality and adds iPhone 4S support. Smile2Shoot is available as a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Ilford has announced that it is rebranding its popular ILFORD GALERIE range as ILFORD GALERIE Prestige (5*). “The evolution to GALERIE Prestige (5*) paves the way for a series of new product additions to be introduced in 2012 that combines state-of-the-art inkjet technology with in-demand artistic styles,” the company says. “The additions will complement the already robust line of best-in-class media developed for professional photographers and creative professionals. In addition, the GALERIE range is now categorised in a star rating system, enabling professionals and consumers to quickly recognise the media that best suits their printing needs.”

Photodex has released Version 5 of ProShow Producer and ProShow Gold. The new version includes more than 300 updates including a redesigned user interface as well as some major new features. These include 3D tilt effects, GPU acceleration, SmugMug integration, an updated wizard, new slide styles and transitions, and more. ProShow 5 is available now for $69.95 (ProShow Gold) and $249.95 (ProShow Producer) from the website below.

Kodak announced today that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The move is “intended to bolster liquidity in the US and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable the company to focus on its most valuable business lines,” Kodak said in a statement .The company expects to pay employee wages and benefits and continue customer programmes. Non-US subsidiaries are not subject to proceedings, and “will honour all obligations to suppliers”.

The Lomokino Smartphone Holder allows users to attach their smartphone to the LomoKinoScope to digitise their LomoMovies. “Simply attach the Lomokino Smartphone Holder to your LomoKinoScope, connect it with your smartphone and start recording while you are turning the crank,” Lomography says. “This way you can share your LomoMovies super easily and also carry them with you on your phone wherever you go.” The Lomokino Smartphone Holder is available in the Lomography Store for €19.90.

Adva Soft has released AntiCrop for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. Now available on iTunes, AntiCrop uses intelligent content-aware filling algorithms and innovative image straightening techniques that promise no apparent loss of resolution or quality when rotating or expanding a photo. Created by the developers of TouchRetouch, AntiCrop sells for $0.99. According to Adva Soft, an Android version is also in the making.

PhotoShelter has just released a new free educational guide, The Photographer’s Social Media Handbook. This two-part document helps photographers understand their desired target audience and build a thriving following, optimise and integrate social media platforms into a daily workflow, develop and implement key content-posting strategies, take advantage of the newest social media features and track their progress. This handbook also includes first-hand interviews with seasoned photographers who have mastered Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter and established significant online followings. You can download your copy of The Photographer’s Social Media Handbook from the website below.

Akvis has released version 1.5 of Refocus, an application that improves the sharpness of out-of-focus images. Version 1.5 adds support for raw files, new ready-to-use presets, a list of Recent Files, a new colour scheme for the Hints panel, and the possibility to use the OS file dialog to load/save files. The Mac version additionally improves compatiblity with OS X Lion. This is a free upgrade to registered users of Akvis Refocus.

Print Express has announced a photography competition. This is not a themed contest - entrants are invited to submit their best photo regardless of subject matter. The organisers are giving away £150 in Amazon vouchers to the winner(s). The submission deadline is 29 February 2012 and each entrant may submit one image only. To enter, either email your photo to [email protected] or post the photo on your blog and email the link to Print Express.

Website: Print Express

Panasonic has announced upcoming firmware updates for the Lumix GX1 and G VARIO 100-300mm / F4.0-5.6 / MEGA O.I.S. lens. The GX1 firmware update shall improve AWB performance, enhance the performance of the AF-F and AF-C focus modes, improve operational stability with UHS-I compliant memory cards, add Step Zoom and Zoom Speed to the options selectable via the Fn button and the Q menu, and more. The firmware update for the lens will improve the performance of the optical image stabiliser. The firmware updates will be available in the end of January at Panasonic’s Customer Support Site.

Conurus and Metabones have released a so-called Smart Adapter that allows Canon EF mount lenses to be mounted on Sony NEX camera bodies. Described as the first fruit of a strategic partnership between the two companies, the new Canon EF-to-NEX adapter allows electronic aperture control via the camera body - but no AF. This adapter is marketed under the Metabones brand name and may be ordered directly from conurus.com or from a Metabones distributor in Japan, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong or China for US$399.

Hamburg, Germany-based codeSTREAM has just released Timelapse Video Recorder, an iOS app that enables users to create time-lapse videos at up to 1080p resolution. Offering a clean, non-cluttered interface to simply adjust settings like video length and speed up factor, Timelapse Video Recorder is available on iTunes for $0.99.

The new Micro Vault MACH is the first family of flash memory drives from Sony with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 technology.. Available in capacities from 8GB up to 64GB, Micro Vault MACH offers data speeds up to 120 MB/s (read) and 90 MB/s (write). Backward-compatible with USB 2.0, the Sony Micro Vault MACH series of USB 3.0 SuperSpeed flash memory drives is available now.

Corel has released version 12.1 of Corel Painter. The update offers new brush sharing and management options, workspace management, and Photoshop plug-in support, along with the enhanced Live Brush Stroke Preview that now enables artists to quickly view and select brush attributes on the fly. Version 12.1 is a free upgrade for owners of Corel Painter 12, and can be downloaded from Corel’s website.

Olympus are running a teaser advert in the UK magazine Amateur Photographer which hints at a new OM branded camera. Taking up the entire back page of AP, the letters O and M in the opening and closing lines “Oh! My Goodness! are in bold, suggesting to us that a digital OM model is on the way, especially as 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the Olympus OM system.

Furthermore Photo Rumors have pointed out that Olympus registered the trademark, OM-D, at the start of January, perhaps strongly hinting at the full “Olympus OM-D” name of the new camera.

With the Japanese photography show CP+ just around the corner (it opens on February 9th), we’d expect to see the official announcement sooner rather than later. In the meantime you can pre-register for updates and exlcusive pre-launch events by texting “Olympus” to 88802 or going to http://bit.ly/olympusOMG. All very mysterious…

Click through to see the full advert.