Canon have pulled out of the Focus on Imaging show with less than two weeks to go. A Canon UK spokesperson confirmed this morning that the company will not be exhibiting at the UK photography show due to a reassessment of its European marketing plans for 2011. They did confirm that retailers at the show will still have stock of Canon’s products for interested buyers to try out and purchase. Canon usually have the largest stand at Focus, so it will be interesting to see who takes their place. Photography Blog will be there as usual with a show report.

The World Photography Festival 2011 runs from the 26th of April to the 1st of May at Somerset House, London. The Festival is set to be an exciting week of workshops, seminars, photo shoots and talks led by the international photography industry such as Bruce Davidson, Francis Hodgson, Tom Stoddart, Yasima Reggad, Foto 8, Panos Pictures, Blurb and iStock. Somerset House will be a hub of photographers sharing their work, learning from the experts and being critiqued. In addition the Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony will take place at the Odeon cinema on Leicester Square in London on Wednesday 27th of April.

The World Photography Festival are offering Photography Blog readers a 10% discount on the price of the festival tickets. To benefit from the discount, please enter the following promotional code MAG10 in the box ‘Gift Voucher’ under the following link: http://bit.ly/h2gavQ

FORMAT 2011, the UK’s leading international festival of contemporary photography and related media, has announced its full programme for its 5th edition. Taking place at various venues in and around Derby, from 4th March until 3rd April, FORMAT 2011 is curated around the resurgence of street photography. The Festival is organised in two strands, FOCUS and EXPOSURE. FOCUS will show curated exhibitions and new commissions by leading international artists, whereas EXPOSURE will feature work by some 50 of the most exciting new photographers from around the world. You can read the programme announcement in its entirety below.

AKVIS has launched ArtWork 5.0, a program that transforms photos into paintings using various techniques. Version 5.0 introduces the Watercolour style, which allows you to convert any image in a watercolour painting.Also new to Version 5.0 are the Post Processing Tools (Smudge and Blur), which are available under the Business and Deluxe licenses. These tools help users improve the results obtained in the Oil and Watercolour styles. Additionally, photos are processed into oil paintings more quicky, and the resulting images are even closer to oil painting than in previous versions.

PSKiss has released a set of cross-camera colour DNG profiles that allows ACR and Lightroom users to apply a colour profile developed for one camera to raw files produced by a different one. For example, you can take a raw file from a Nikon D300 and apply a Leica M8 DNG profile to it for a ‘Leica look’. “Camera makers invest quite a lot of effort to produce pleasing colours for their cameras”, says Max Penson, Co-owner of PSKiss and chief of product development. “For instance, when you buy a Nikon camera you receive a number of colour ‘schemes’ (or colour profiles). Each colour profile is a result of their in interpretation for how colour should appear. With PSKiss Cross Camera Colour DNG Profiles, photographers can apply other camera brand ‘look’ to their RAW images”. Cross Camera Colour DNG Profiles are offered for 9.90$ per camera.

McRoy Digital has chosen Jarcom to distribute its MDRP360 programmable wireless remote pan/tilt 360° camera head to Europe, Middle East, Australia, Asia, & Africa. The MDRP360 is available now and has a number of unique features not found on any other motorised power panner: 433MHz radio controlled 300’ operational range using the remote wireless handset, 2.4GHz wireless monitor so users can see what the camera sees, full 360° rotation with tilt, focus lock and fire buttons, programmable (angle, bracket and time) tour mode for automatic interval shooting through a set number of degrees and McRoy Digital’s unique Express Pan, which allows simple set up to ensure the correct number of shots are automatically taken for panoramic scenes. Priced at £699.95 + VAT, the MDRP360 will be available from Jarcom’s website.

Website: Jarcom

The winners of our fantastic Manfrotto Tripod competition have been announced.

Steve James and Eric Lloyd have each won a Manfrotto 190XPROB Tripod worth £139.95.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who took part.
Stay tuned, as we’ll have another great contest starting on Monday…

Samsung are set to release 5 new lenses for the NX system in 2011. In a presentation attended by a Korean blogger, Samsung also revealed plans for three new NX bodies, a 700mm lens and a GPS module. The full lineup is as follows:

Bodies
NX Classic+ - new model
NX Classic - NX10, NX11, new model
NX Style - NX100, new model

Lenses
18-200mm f/3.5-6.3, designed for movies
16mm f/2.4 pancake
60mm f/2.8 macro
85mm f/1.4
16-80mm f/3.5-4.5, designed for movies

700mm prototype NX lens
GPS module

Website: cleanday82

Mark Wallace has released a new 2-DVD set, Studio Lighting Essentials for Portrait Photography. The DVDs feature more than two hours of step-by-step instructions and more than 20 specific lighting set-ups, all using different types of lights and light modifiers, with clear instruction on what each is and how to use it. Lighting set-ups are shown for simple headshots, fashion, beauty and glamour portraits as well as for high contrast black-and-white images, one-light set-ups for small spaces and even advanced set-ups for large studios. The DVD set is available now for $150 at the website below.

Online video creation service Animoto announced today the “Are you Animoto’s Next Top Photographer?” promotion. On Monday, February 21st – the first day of the Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) 2011 trade show -, the first 100 WPPI attendees to visit the Animoto booth (#1504) and get behind the video camera to talk about what Animoto Pro has meant for their business and for their customers will get a free T-shirt, and one lucky winner will be featured in their own full-page Animoto ad in Rangefinder Magazine. Photographers need not attend WPPI 2011 in order to participate. The first 50 people to send a video discussing the success they’ve had with Animoto Pro will also be in the running for the magazine ad prize. Videos must be uploaded by February 28th to: [email protected].

On 14th March at Kings Place, London, Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins will talk about his experience as a photographer whose career has moved between journalism, reportage and the pursuit of personal projects. Chris will touch on issues of truth, responsibility and the role of photojournalism today and share his diverse portfolio of images taken from all corners of the world from Brixton to Afghanistan to Japan. The lecture starts at 7pm, tickets are available online for £9.50.

Getty Images today announced that entries are now open for the 2011 Grants for Good programme. Created in 2009, the Getty Images Grants for Good were introduced to help nonprofits use the power of imagery to promote positive change in the world. The programme will provide two grants of US$15,000 each to cover the costs of creating compelling new imagery that will further a nonprofit’s mission. Participants will be judged on their technical, organisational and storytelling skills, as well as the strength and vision of their plans to use the imagery effectively. Winners will be announced in June at the 2011 Cannes Advertising Festival.

Website: Getty Images Grants

ZangZing is a new online photo sharing service. Currently open to Beta sign-ups, ZangZing will allow groups of people who took photos at an event - be it an excursion, a party or a wedding - to create and contribute to shared online photo albums in an easy and straightforward way. Those interested in registering for the service can do so at the website below.

Website: ZangZing

Photogenic Professional Lighting has launched two new monolights called PowerLine PL625DR and PowerLine PL625DRC. The PL625DR has a 6 f-stop flash output range from 7.8 to 250Ws, a built-in optical photo slave cell with infra-red triggering capability, a 250W modelling light and a quick, 1.25-second recycle time at full power. The PL625DRC has the same features as the PL625DR and also includes a UV Coated Flash Tube. Photogenic will feature these new products in the Promark booth (#630) at WPPI.

The Sony MRW-F3 is a compact memory card reader, which can be used to transfer photos and videos from a Memory Stick or SD memory card to a PC or play them back on a Sony Bravia TV. The F3 features a simple, single card slot that can accept a wide range of Memory Stick, SD and MMC media formats, including higher-capacity SDXC cards or high-speed UHS-I SD cards. This memory card reader is joined by the MRW-EA7, MRW-S2 and MRW-T2 that connect to any spare USB port via a short cable connection. The new range of memory card readers by Sony is available now.

Reallusion has released Colour Fashion, a new photography app for the Apple iPhone. Colour Fashion is a touch-optimised colouring tool that helps you easily re-colour your photos by using a smart colour masking technology. The app can deal with subtle regions such as fluffy hair or complicated shapes, while giving users the flexibility to quickly switch colour over the masked area. Colour Fashion is available now onthe App Store for $0.99.

Canon U.S.A. has announced two new large-format printers. The 44-inch imagePROGRAF iPF8300S and 24-inch imagePROGRAF iPF6300S will be showcased at the Wedding & Portrait Photographer International (WPPI) Convention at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, February 21-23, 2011 in the Canon booth, number 401. The Canon imagePROGRAF iPF8300S will have a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $4,995 while the imagePROGRAF iPF6300S will have an MSRP of $2,995. Both models are expected to begin shipping in April.

Pic Transfer is an app that allows users to transfer multiple pictures and videos between their iOS / MacOS devices. The application works over Wi-fi and Bluetooth and does not require an internet connection. Version 3.2 now supports photo albums and very large photo libraries. Pic Transfer sells for $0.99 in the App Store.