Magnum Photos and youth arts charity IdeasTap have announced the second of five UK events which will provide photographers with practical industry information and access to key professionals. Magnum Professional Practice: London, taking place on 10-11th September, is aimed a wide range of photographers at different stages of their career: professional photographers working in a particular discourse but wanting to explore other avenues; emerging photographers who require practical, vocational training; or semi-professional photographers wishing to make the commitment to full time practice. The list of confirmed speakers includes Chris Barwick, Jessica Crombie, Lucy Davis, Peter Marlow, Steve Macleod, Fiona Rogers, Hannah Watson and John Wyatt-Clarke. The event will be held at IdeasTap Head Office in Bermondsey, London, with tickets available at £250+VAT including lunch and refreshments.

Rollei has launched three new Full HD camcorders that also take five-megapixel stills. The Rollei Movieline SD 800 P (€349.95, pictured) is probably Rollei’s most interesting digital video camera to date with 8x optical zoom, image stabilisation and… a built-in projector! Note though that the projector’s specifications are somewhat basic, with a resolution of only 320x280 pixels. Other highlights include a 3” touch-sensitive screen and a variety of scene modes. The Movieline SD 80 (€199.95) is a smaller, entry-level model that nevertheless offers a similar 8x zoom range and 3” touchscreen, plus time-lapse and slow-motion recording, face detection and electronic image stabilisation. Finally, the Movieline SD 230 (€249.95) boasts 23x optical zoom, a 3.5” widescreen touch panel, dual video recording function and image stabilisation. All of these models are equipped with 1/3.2 type CMOS sensors and SD/SDHC card slots, and each comes with an HDMI cable as standard.

Online backup experts MiMedia have teamed up with Digital Memories to offer customers a combined digitisation-backup service. Customers who enlist Digital Memories to scan photos will have the option to automatically pre-populate a MiMedia account. MiMedia offers 7GB of free storage space to any and all consumers, and Digital Memories customers with media collections larger than 7GB will still receive three months of MiMedia for free, with a discount on conversion.

Switronix has released the XP-DSLR-GH2, a power cable for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 compact system camera. Featuring a regulated 9.2v connector jack with an inline female P-Tap connector for 12V DC, housed in an enclosure, the XP-DSLR-GH2 also includes both red and green LED indication to display battery power status. The cable can be used in association with a Switronix accessory or used solo with a PRO-X series Lithium-ion battery product.

Website: Switronix

Symform has announced that for a limited time, it is giving 100GB of cloud storage for free to new and existing customers. Billed as “the industry’s first decentralised cloud storage solution”, Symform uses RAID-96 to geographically distribute, encrypt, and shred its data. Note that in order to take advantage of the free offer, you must contribute 150GB of excess local storage back to the storage cloud. For more information, visit the website below.

Website: Symform

Ricoh has posted a firmware upgrade for its GXR system. Version 1.37, which affects the Ricoh GXR camera body, GR LENS A12 28mm F2.5, GR LENS A12 50mm F2.5 MACRO, RICOH LENS S10 24-72 mm F2.5-4.4 VC and RICOH LENS P10 28-300 mm F3.5-5.6 VC, addresses the following issue: “The focus setting may not be reflected properly if the shooting mode is manually set to [S] mode (Shutter priority mode) in the [Edit My Settings] menu.” S10 owners get an additional bug fix related to the One-Press M Mode function. The firmware updates can be downloaded from the website below.

Website: Ricoh GXR Firmware

Blurb has released an update to its iOS app, Blurb Mobile. Designed to enable easy and fast story creation using rich media content, the app now boasts new features including, Story Stream, where friends can instantly share and comment on each other’s stories using their iPhones. Blurb also announced a new enhanced and optimised iPad version of Blurb Mobile that brings the features of the app to the iPad. Blurb Mobile is free to download from the iTunes App Store and each customer receives a story channel on Blurb.com/mobile to share their stories online.

Warsaw-based Macoscope has just introduced Slidelight, its new Instagram-supported photography app developed exclusively for the Apple iPad. “Slidelight is not just an ordinary Instagram photo frame,” the company says. “In Slidelight, users will find a huge amount of gorgeous pics, packed in thematic albums - bikes, commuting, puppies, cats, European capitals, shapes and sizes, music, macro photography, sports, fashion, design… You touch an album, swipe photos in it, pinch to get back to the main screen, tap twice to see details and like photos and then start all over again.” Slidelight is available on iTunes for $2.99.

ClickrChart is a new Web-based application aimed at identifying the most interesting photographers and their photos in the Flickr world. “ClickrChart extracts the top 100 most popular photos, using the secret interestingness recipe created by Flickr,” says ClickrChart owner Gianluca Merlo. “The website provides free daily, weekly and monthly charts as well as interviews with the most popular photographers in order to promote a photographic culture and encourage rookies to improve themselves.”

Website: ClickrChart

Ilford America has partnered with Canon U.S.A. on the new “Try My Photo” campaign, a limited-time offer exclusive to US residents which will allow them to see one of their favorite images printed on Ilford Galerie media using the select Canon Pixma Pro series printers. To take advantage of this opportunity, photographers can upload a JPEG file via the website below. The free prints will be mailed to the recipient, with a limit of one print per household.

CrashPlan PRO is a new cloud backup service for small and medium-sized businesses including photography studios. “As a professional photographer, forgetting to backup puts your images at risk and could be fiscally disastrous,” the company says. CrashPlan PRO works unobtrusively, delivering automatic continuous backup, both online and to attached drives. The program features cross-platform support forWindows, Mac, Linux and Solaris (both client and server) and multiple destination support. There are two pricing plans available - unlimited storage per computer ($7.49 per month), or an unlimited number of computers for a chosen amount of storage (from 50GB to 4TB). CrashPlan PRO is available immediately to customers in the United States and Canada. Worldwide availability expected is in Q4.

Leica has teamed up with fashion designer Paul Smith to offer two exclusive, limited edition leather cases for the Leica D-Lux 5 digital compact camera. Available from October 2011, just 300 of the premium quality cases will be available – 150 in a smooth chocolate brown calf leather with the famous Paul Smith vintage multi-stripe on the sides, and 150 in a light grey, croc-style embossed leather with a luxurious purple lining. The cases are hand-crafted in England and embossed with Paul Smith for Leica on the back. Both designs also feature an elegant matching shoulder strap.  The cases will retail at £200 including VAT.

In conjunction with Grand Marnier’s Sunset Hour Facebook campaign, the company has released an iPhone app called Sunset Taker. The app lets users to take an ordinary photo and turn it into a “magic hour” shot by manipulating colour saturation and hue and/or adding one of a number of filter effects. Sunset Taker for iPhone is available as a free download from iTunes.

Lomography is set to launch a Pop Up Store at Selfridges from 1st August. Resembling a “retro ship”, the store will take inspiration from one of Lomography’s newest cameras, La Sardina, .which is based on a humble but beautiful sardine can. Open troughout August, the Lomography Pop Up Store at Selfridges will offer camera workshops where you can borrow a camera and shoot a roll of film for £1, ship’s bell discounts, books,  films, and the full range of analogue cameras in Lomography’s line-up. The store will be located on the ground floor of Selfridges, 40 Duke Street, London W1U 1AT.

The Inside Windows Live blog reports that a new Microsoft Camera Codec Pack allows Windows 7 and Vista users to view digital camera raw files as thumbnails natively in Windows Explorer, and edit copies of them with Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011. The author, Brad Weed, notes that “dealing with raw images on Windows hasn’t always been easy” but says that the update will likely make raw shooters’ lives “a little easier”. Unfortunately, the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack supports only an - apparently - arbitrary selection of some 108 raw-capable cameras, excluding a whole range of recent (and not-so recent) models. This may of course change in the future, albeit there is no information on when or if the list of supported models will.be expanded. By clicking through / scrolling down, you can view a short video detailing the benefits of the update.

In addition to the SP-810UZ, Olympus announced two more compacts, the pocketable SZ-11 with 20x optical zoom, and the entry-level VG-145. These models will only be available via select distributors in a few markets. The Olympus SZ-11 has a similar feature set to the existing SZ-10 but comes with a 20x, rather than 18x, zoom lens. The shape of the handgrip and the layout of the controls are more reminiscent of the SZ-30MR, though, albeit without the latter’s mode dial. The VG-145 is a simple compact camera with a 26-130mm equivalent zoom lens and HD movie recording capability. Both new cameras come with 14-megapixel imagers inside.

Source: Olympus Japan

Akvis has updated its ArtWork software, which transforms photos into paintings using various techniques. Version 6.0 introduces the Pastel style. Photos can now be converted into an image with soft, velvety strokes similar to those created by pastel crayons. Also new to Version 6.0 is the addition of batch processing mode for the standalone version. (This was previously only available for the plugin version via a Photoshop action.) Users who own previous versions of ArtWork can upgrade to Version 6.0 for free.

JP Distribution has announced that it has been appointed as the UK distributor of Micromuff, an HDSLR accessory developed to eliminate the wind noise associated with built in camera microphones. Conceived by filmmaker and designer Will Hutchinson, Micromuff attaches directly to the camera body using die-cut Velcro rings. Made using high quality acoustic fur and a unique cutting process, Micromuff sells for £12.95+PP.

Olympus America has also announced availability and pricing for the Olympus E-PL3. Also called the Olympus PEN Lite, the 12-megapixel E-PL3 is the latest Micro Four Thirds model, offering speedy auto-focus, a tiltable rear screen, flash hot-shoe, accessory port, in-body image stabilisation and a selection of Art Filters. The camera will be available from September in two different configurations; a zoom kit including the M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm lens and a prime kit including the 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens (read review). The estimated street price for each kit is $699.99. The news comes after similar pricing announcements by Olympus UK and Olympus Europe.