Calling all photography fans! Have you heard about the Samsung Wave II?  It’s a sleek new smartphone with an AMAZING camera. And we have 3 to give away to you lucky people!*

The Samsung Wave II camera comes with a cool creative editing suite so you can turn any standard snap into a masterpiece, or make your photos even brighter by using its colour boost function.

To celebrate the launch of the Wave II, Samsung is inviting you to share a photo of your ‘now’ by visiting its Now Project Facebook page. You can try the editing suite out for yourself to beautify a pic of a moment that signifies your present, and upload it to an online gallery hosted on the site. The likes of [influencer] have already uploaded their favourite snaps and we want to see yours up there too!

If it’s really good, there’s a chance it might even be one of the best 50 photos displayed at an exclusive exhibition Samsung is hosting at the London Design Museum on 24th March. You need to be quick though - entries must be submitted by 28th February.

To be in with a chance of winning a Samsung Wave II phone, all you need to do is answer this simple question.
Click here to get some help with the answer.
You must also enter your name and email address.

For more details visit www.facebook.com/SamsungUK

The contest closes at 12 midday GMT on Monday 28th February 2011 - good luck!

*This contest is only open to UK residents.

Stealth Gear is launching a range of gloves for professional outdoor photographers in the UK. “During our market research we found that very few outlets both online and on the high-street offered photographers gloves which have been designed by the professionals,” says Craig Derbyshire, managing director of Stealth Gear. “We have worked closely with a range of photographers and we have taken on board their feedback, so we are expecting them to be extremely popular.” Priced at £39.95, the Stealth Gear photographers’ gloves are claimed to give photographers the right balance between warmth and camera control.

Pixolution GmbH has released visolu 1.2.1 for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The app offers unique photo searching, sorting and finding technology that gives users an easy way to very quickly locate specific photos in their albums. Users are, with the mere tap of a button, able to view thousands of photos simultaneously in a wrapped map, grid or columned list view. Visolu 1.2.1 costs $0.99 and is available now on the App Store.

Building on the Ten Golden Rules of Lomography, the Lomographic Society has announced its Ten Prophecies for the Analogue Future. In line with the Society’s slogan, “The Future is Analogue”, the ten “prophecies” - some of which sound more like light-hearted advices to new and old Lomography fans - form the basis of a new Lomography competition / promotion.

Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) have announced a new five-year partnership. Under the agreement, the Society will host major annual exhibitions of the awards’ travel photography supported by an ongoing programme of workshops and events. The first free exhibition will run from May 6th to June 10th, 2011. Held in the Society’s modern glassfronted Pavilion at the heart of London’s cultural quarter in Kensington, it will feature winning shots from the 2010 International Travel Photographer of the Year awards.

At an annual convention held in Zaragoza, Spain, Sony unveiled its plans to put semitransparent mirrors in all future Sony Alpha camera models. In our understanding this means that there will be no more conventional SLR cameras to feature the Sony badge, and every Sony Alpha model - be it entry level, mid-range or high end - will be an “SLT” like the current A33 and A55.

Source: Quesabesde

Review: Read our in-depth review of the Sony Alpha A33 SLT camera
Review: Read our in-depth review of the Sony Alpha A55 SLT camera

Nikon has posted an update to its View NX software. Version 2.1.1 fixes a bug that prevented display of images scanned in NEF format with the Nikon Coolscan V film scanner (pictured), and resolves a couple of further issues with the Windows and Mac versions of the software. View NX 2.1.1 can be downloaded from the website below.

Website: Nikon View NX

MacPhun has released a free update to its FX Photo Studio HD iPad app. The update adds 53 new photo processing effects and a completely customisable interface that allows users to label their most often used effects as favourites, save combinations of effects into presets, and share images and presets via social networking sites and e-mail.  Individual effects themselves can also be adjusted for deeper customisation. The update is free to existing users, while the app itself is $2.99 on the App Store.

Canon UK has issued a notice to Canon users regarding AF operation with certain camera-lens combinations. Specifically, those using the Canon EOS 7D, 40D, 50D or 60D camera with one of the lenses below may find that the peripheral AF points work as line sensors rather than cross sensors, and are therefore sensitive to vertical OR horizontal detail only, but not both at the same time. Normally, if you use any EF or EF-S lens with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or faster, all AF points on these cameras should work as cross-type AF points, but this does not apply to the lenses listed below. These are quite old lenses - all of them were released between 1990 and 1995.

The new “Little Big Disk” from LaCie is the first in a range of storage and peripherals solutions from LaCie that feature the all-new Thunderbolt technology, developed by Intel and brought to market in collaboration with Apple. Promising ultra-fast data transfer speeds and “workstation-class” power and functionality in compact devices, Thunderbolt technology allows faster content editing than ever before, and facilitates complete system backups in minutes. Available by summer 2011 from the LaCie Online Store, the LaCie Little Big Disk takes advantage of this technology to store and back up large video files and entire photo galleries.

Tickets are now on sale for the Chasing the Light road show, which will be hitting the stage on 28 June at the Exeter Phoenix theatre. The show takes guests on an inspirational ‘round the world’ trip using the latest full HD projection, satellite imaging, music and film sequences. It includes David Noton’s latest unpublished photographs, video clips from shoots around the world, the stories behind some of his most iconic images, delivered with David’s unique sense of humour. Tickets are priced at just £15 and can be booked through the website below.

Appsmaker has just released DataRescuePro. The program scans through the file system of all Windows-readable storage media to allow users ton restore accidently deleted or lost files. The comprehensive search function directly accesses the storage medium and searches for entries that are marked as deleted, whilst the sophisticated analysis functions ensure that these entries are scanned completely as possible and found. Memory areas that have been used by the deleted files are indentified, extracted and saved in a new file. DataRescuePro is available at RRP £39.99 from Amazon UK.

Nik Software today begun to ship Silver Efex Pro 2, a major upgrade to its black-and-white Silver Efex Pro software. Announced last month, Silver Efex Pro 2 includes new features such as the History Browser, Dynamic Brightness, Amplify Blacks, Amplify Whites, Soft Contrast, Fine Structure, Image Borders, and selective colourisation, as well as a variety of speed and quality improvements. Nik Software has worked closely with NVIDIA Corporation and has incorporated GPU-based image rendering to offer the fastest, most efficient processing on systems equipped with dedicated GPU processors, the company says. The suggested retail price of Silver Efex Pro 2 is €199.95. Note that Silver Efex Pro 2 installs as a 32-bit and 64-bit plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS4, Lightroom 2.6 or Apple Aperture 2.1.4 or later.

Leading lifestyle and casual clothing brand, Barbour in partnership with Great in Britain, is launching a major photographic study of the British countryside. To contribute to this historic archive, Barbour is calling on amateur photographers, photo enthusiasts or anyone out and about in their local rural community to send in their images. Entrants must be 18 or over, or have permission from parent / guardian. Photos can be submitted using the website below. As usual, we suggest that you read the rules before entring your work (click ‘Terms and Conditions’ at the bottom of the site’s home page).

Money Shots: The Insider’s Guide to Nude & Erotic Photography is a new e-book by photographer Michael Charles. Drawing from more than a decade’s worth of experience in erotic photography, the book is written in an easy-to-read style and is filled with behind-the-scenes anecdotes. In addition to the book, the “Money Shots” package includes a Quick Start Guide, a 20-minute instructional video titled “Pics That Click”, a set of ten audio lessons and a printable model release form. The 165-page e-book is available now for $29 from the webiste below.

Nikon UK will be unveiling a brand new exhibition stand at the annual Focus-on-Imaging photography show. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Canon’s decision to skip the show due to a “reassessment of its European marketing plans” for 2011. The new Nikon stand - D40, Halls 9 and 10 - has been especially designed to give visitors an opportunity to try out the entire Nikon range, including the Nikon D7000 digital SLR camera (pictured) and recently announced Coolpix line-up, as well as get advice from the company’s team of experts. Visitors to the Nikon stand will also have the chance to win a D7000 kit as well as other prizes by entering a prize draw, with all proceeds going to Nikon’s corporate charity, Born Too Soon.

Guardian Masterclasses have just announced a new course on street photography that will be lead by photographers Matt Stuart and Stephen McLaren. The course will take place over 6 weeks starting on the 4 June in Kings Place, London and costs £1,500 (inclusive of VAT). Click here for more information on the course.

The FEP 2nd European Congress of Professional Photographers was recently held in Lyon, France. Over five hundred delegates from France, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, as well as the USA and Canada took part in the event, which also provided an opportunity to highlight Europe’s skilled photographers and international award winners, and to publicise the results of the FEP’s contests. The FEP European Fine Art Photograph of the Year Award went to Portuguese fine art photographer Diamantino Jesus, while the new FEP European Photo Book of the Year Award was given to Austrian photographer Helge Kirchberger for his book, Fashion Food.

To mark the launch of its UK branch, Brilliant Prints is offering a 40% discount on all canvas prints. No up-front payment is required, and if you are not satisfied with the print you can return it for a full refund, including return freight. This is a limited-time offer open to UK residents only - click through the link below to take advantage of the 40% discount. The promotion starts tomorrow and ends on 3rd March.