MasteringPhoto.com is a new website offering free content developed from Focal Press’ award-winning books as well as original content from industry contributors. Featuring tips, advice, articles, video tutorials, interviews, and other resources for both hobbyists and professionals, MasteringPhoto.com covers topics ranging from people and landscape to post-production and business practices. Contributors include expert photographers and digital image makers from all areas of photography and graphic art. Focal Press also unveiled a sister site, MasteringFilm.com, which caters to the needs of videographers and cinematographers.

Photobucket has announced Snapbucket, the first of many upcoming additions to its mobile platform. Snapbucket, which complements Photobucket’s existing mobile app, enables users to “snap” photos from their mobile device, personalise those photos through unique filters, effects and frames, and then easily share with their social community. Both the original and personalised photos are automatically stored online in the user’s Photobucket account.

The Reflecta x6 TouchScan is a new device for digitising 135 and 110 format film. Equipped with a nine-megapixel area-array CMOS sensor, a 2.8” colour screen and an SD card slot, the Reflecta x6 TouchScan works without being connected to a computer. The scanner can run on a Lithium-ion battery but can also draw power from an AC outlet. The scope of delivery includes the device itself, a holder for three framed 35mm slides up to 3.2mm thick, another holder for loose film strips of up to six frames, a third holder for up to eight frames of 110 (pocket) format film, an USB cable, an AC adapter, a rechargeable battery and a TV-Out cable. The price of the Reflecta x6 TouchScan is €159 including 19% German VAT.

Website: Reflecta

The Art of Wedding Photography is a new webinar series organised by Calumet and SF Photo School. Presented by Uzair Kharawala, these webinars start on 9 May 2011 and each one is 60 minutes long. A wide variety of subjects will be covered including converting leads into bookings, marketing, promotions, managing your business, off-camera flash, how not to forget key shots, workflow tips & techniques for editing and post-processing, setting your website / blog the right way for higher indexing in search results, and more. Do note that these webinars are not free. There is a special price of £30+VAT for all six webinars, which is valid until 9 May 2011. After this date, the normal price will be £55+VAT. For more information visit the website below.

Starting 18th May, the Colmore Business District in Birmingham will play host to ‘take to the streets’, an outdoor exhibition of street photography showcasing over 100 images by seven of Magnum Photos’ most prolific documentary photographers. The project will culminate in a book and a small touring exhibition and the photographs will be added to Birmingham Library’s Collections within the brand new Library of Birmingham opening in 2013, creating an important new chapter in the history of street photography in the city. For more information, visit the website below.

ab2labs today announced that an update of their photography app, Effects 3.0, is now available for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch. The latest version adds filter layering, live preview of filters and frame effects, new actions and services to export and share images, and more. Effects 3.0 is available as a free download from iTunes.

A public Beta version of Filter Forge 3.0 is now available for download. The update adds support for multiple source images, enables faster image preview through the introduction of Progressive Previews, adds hexadecimal colour values in the Colour Picker, HDR and alpha channel support for filter controls, high-precision Colour Inspector, the ability to load recently-used images, a unified Bomber component and more. Filter Forge 3.0 Beta can be downloaded from the website below.

Website: Filter Forge

Insight Guides are inviting every UK-based adult “whose travel photographs are a snap above the rest” to enter their 2011 travel photo contest. You may submit three images that have been taken this year and capture the essence of a destination. Photographers have until Friday 16 September 2011 to submit their entries for judging by an expert panel made up of the picture editors of the Independent on Sunday and Insight Guides, a former Trustee of the Royal Photographic Society and high profile photographer Kevin Cummins. The winner will be presented with a photo commission worth £3000 and an Olympus PEN E-PL2 compact system camera. The second prize is an Olympus XZ-1, while the third is an Olympus SZ-30. There is a separate category for under-18s, with the young photographer winning an Olympus camera of his or her own. As always we suggest that you read the terms and conditions before submitting your photographs.

Decks by Cooliris is a new iPad app for Flickr users. This free app allows users to discover and follow their favourite public photos from Flickr all in a slick deck of cards that update continuously. With Decks for Flickr, you can create and follow album decks by user name, description or tag; flip any photo card to see photo description, location etc.; share photos as postcards through email, Facebook or Twitter; and share your entire Flickr deck with friends who have the Decks for Flickr app. The app is available for immediate download from iTunes.

The Samyang 35mm f/1.4 AS UMC manual-focus lens is now available for Canon and Nikon. The lens, whose final version was announced in March, uses a system of floating lens elements in order to preserve high image quality even at the lens’ close focus point of 30cm. The Canon version of the lens sells for €399, while the Nikon variant (pictured) costs €419 including taxes.

The Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Fish-eye CS VG10 lens, designed for the Sony NEX-VG10 large-sensor, interchangeable-lens camcorder, has officially been launched. Announced two months ago, the lens comes with a native Sony E bayonet mount and promises easy and smooth diaphragm control.  Due to the camcorder’s one-off construction, the bayonet mount was carefully adjusted to ensure the widest possible field of vision and to prevent vignetting, the company says. The manual-focus Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Fish-eye CS VG10 is available for €299.

The Photo Marketing Association International today announced a partnership agreement with the Consumer Electronics Association to move the September 2011 PMA Trade Show (also known as CliQ 2011) to colocate at the 2012 International CES, scheduled for January 10-13 in Las Vegas. PMA@CES will offer industry-specific content and display “products representing all aspects of digital imaging”. PMA will also offer its well-known educational seminars, complementing and enhancing CES programming, the Association said in a statement. Note that the PMA Australia 2011 and PMA Latin America 2011 shows have not been cancelled, and will be held from 24-26 June in Sydney and on 3-4 August in Lima, respectively.

Best Buy today announced the availability of several GoPro products. These include two activity cameras, the GoPro HD Helmet Hero ($299.99, pictured) and the GoPro HD Hero 960 ($179.99), and a number of accessories. Among these are the Ride HERO Handlebar Seatpost Mount ($19.99), the LCD BacPac ($69.99), the Battery BacPac ($39.99), the GoPro Chest Mount Harness ($39.99), Suction Cup Mount ($29.99) and rechargeable Lithium-ion battery ($19.99), as well as a tripod mount ($7.99).

Great British Landscapes is a a website featuring articles and other content related to landscape photography. Run on a Freemium model, the site currently offers 110 articles, out of which 65 can be read free and without registration, and a further 15 are accessible on a free subscription. The remaining 30 are reserved for paying subscribers - these tend to be longer articles, interviews, or videos discussing topics like post processing, composition or a photographer’s pictures. The magazine is published every two weeks and is currently on issue 14.

Website: Great British Landscapes

Ohanaware has updated its HDRtist Pro software to version 1.0.1. HDRtist Pro is an advanced HDR imaging tool that is able to wield and manipulate 128-bit floating-point images and can work with multiple exposures as well as single raw image files. The new version incorporates over fifty changes, including the addition of new features and the implementation of bug fixes. HDRtist Pro 1.0.1 is a free update for existing users. For new customers, HDRtist Pro 1.0.1 is $29.99 / £19.99, available now on the Ohanaware website.

Blurb today launched its ProLine range of premium print offerings for photobook aficionados. The new ProLine comprises a selection of two fine, new linen hardcovers in Oatmeal and Charcoal, plus a choice of five heavyweight end sheets in charcoal grey, dove grey, warm grey, black and white, plus the aforementioned new Mohawk papers. Each of the ProLine options is offered a la carte to allow the greatest number of combinations, resulting in a truly personalised book, the company says. The new ProLine books will be publicly available to view at HOST Gallery from 20th May 2011.

Olympus has mated a Full HD pocket camcorder to a high-end linear PCM recorder to produce a unique product called the Olympus LS-20M. Equipped with two condenser microphones, a fixed-focal-length auto-focus lens and two LCD panels, the Olympus LS-20M will record 1080p high-definition video with 24 bit/96 hHz linear PCM stereo sound. Also on board are four Magic Movie special effects filters borrowed from the manufacturer’s line-up of still cameras, including Rock, Sketch, Pinhole and Pop Art. Video and audio files are saved on SD and SDHC cards, while power is supplied by a proprietary Li-ion battery pack. The Olympus LS-20M will be available in June, at an estimated street price of $299.99.

Rollei has announced two new film and photo scanners. Featuring 9-megapixel area-array sensors, both models are extremely fast in use, requiring only one second to digitise a slide. Offering one-touch scanning and SD card compatibility, the Rollei DF-S 290 HD (€199.95) offers is supplied with a carriage for mounted slides and negatives, a slide magazine, a cleaning brush, HDMI, USB and AV cables as well as a power adapter. The scanner has an HDMI out port that allows users to view their freshly digitised images on an HDTV. The Rollei PDF-S 300 Pro (€249.00, pictured) additionally allows users to scan prints of up to 10x15cm, and comes with a dust- and scratch removal function (though it lacks the HDMI connectivity of the DF-S290 HD).