Talenthouse has launched a new project with Grammy Award winning band, Maroon 5. Photographers worldwide are asked to submit a photograph that embodies the theme of ‘Love’ to the Talenthouse website by 31 January 2011. After an eight-day voting stage, Maroon 5 will review the 50 highest-voted submissions and pick the 5 winners who will each receive the opportunity to photograph Maroon 5, meet the band and attend an after show party on their 2011 world tour at a location determined by Maroon 5 and Talenthouse. Travel and accommodation will be provided. The 5 winning photographs will be featured on the band’s official website and social media pages. The winners will be announced on Valentine’s Day.

Webstie: Talenthouse

Light & Land has announced a number of photography workshops in some brand new locations next year. These include classes in Jordan and Puglia, led by Charlie Waite, a workshop in Libya with Giles Stokoe and aurora hunting in Lapland with David Ward and aurora photographer Andy Keen. Full details including locations, dates and prices can be found at the website below.

White Knight Press has just released a new title, the Photographer’s Guide to the Leica D-Lux 5: Getting the Most from Leica’s Compact Digital Camera . This book is a follow-up to the author’s earlier guides to the Leica D-Lux 4, Panasonic Lumix LX3, and Panasonic Lumix LX5 digital cameras. The new book, like the earlier ones, explains all operations, features, menus, and controls of the camera in clear language, providing guidance not only about how to accomplish things with the camera, but when and why to use certain features. In addition, the book goes beyond the realm of everyday photography, and provides introductions to more advanced topics such as infrared photography, street photography, digiscoping, astrophotography, and creating 3D images that can be viewed with conventional red and blue 3D glasses. The book is available now in PDF format for download through the website below at a price of $9.95.

Verbatim’s portable USB 3.0 hard drives with 1TB capacity are now available in six neon colours. These include Caribbean Blue, Hot Pink, Violet, Sunkissed Yellow, Eucalyptus Green and Volcanic Orange. Backwards compatible with USB 2.0 host devices, the new USB 3.0 Portable Store ‘n’ Go Hard Drives from Verbatim come bundled with two software packages, Nero BackItUp and Burn Essentials, and Nero RescueAgent.  The Verbatim USB 3.0 Portable Store ‘n’ Go Hard Drive is available in stores now and costs £99.99.

Atlantic Light Works and Reindeer Graphics have released PercepTool 2.0.2, a Photoshop add-on suite that performs HDR, Tone Mapping and Perceptual Effect operations on digital photos. Completely revised and updated, PercepTool 2.0.2 includes a new interface for the Perceptual Effect routine that now includes Exposure and Contrast adjustments instead of using Photoshop tools. The Perceptual Effect adjustment has been redesigned to operate faster and to protect the highlights. In addition, PercepTool 2.0.2 now includes Equalizer, a superior multi-contrast Tone Mapping interface, and HDR Align and Blend, a High Dynamic Range operator that combines images without “grunge” effects. Included is a histogram with both Levels and Ansel Adams Zone System scales. PercepTool 2.0.2TM may be downloaded only from the website below. For those who have purchased the original PercepToolTM the upgrade cost is $75. The full version is $150.

Frommer’s has unveiled the winner of the 2010 Frommer’s Favorite Travel Moments Photo Contest. Peter G. Allinson, M.D., from Maryland scoped the top prize of a $4000 vacation, and a Tamron zoom lens, for his image of a diver and a sperm whale which he shot while holidaying in Rousseau, Dominica, in the Caribbean. He said: “We located the whales and were able to swim, photograph and play with them on multiple days. This is a photo of my friend Jeff thanking one of the whales, known as Scar, for posing with us. Interacting with and making eye contact with these huge gentle intelligent creatures was the most memorable moment of my life.”

Avanquest has launched a new version of its interactive photo sharing solution SendPhotos. This application automatically sends photos taken on a mobile phone to a dedicated website to enable easier sharing. “The SendPhotos project started with a simple observation; most of the photos we take with our mobile phones never leave our devices,” said David Wright, CEO of Avanquest Software Development. “Sharing digital memories has always been the core idea behind the project but this new version has evolved substantially to offer a dedicated website where users can enhance images and produce printed products.”

Epson America has announced three new canvas products that will be added to its Signature Worthy collection of media. These include the new Exhibition Canvas Gloss, Exhibition Canvas Satin and Exhibition Canvas Matte products, which are built on a polyester and cotton blend that is specially coated to produce vibrant colours as well as rich, deep blacks and tonal gradations that are claimed to distinguish them from competitive products. All three Exhibition Canvas products are available in roll widths of 13, 17, 24, 44 and 60-inches, and 17” x 22” cut sheets will be available in early 2011. Pricing starts at $34 for the 13"x20’ roll of Exhibition Canvas Matte, and goes up to $425 for the 60” x 40’ roll of Satin/Gloss.

Win a Lomography camera in our Festive Competition! Just in time for Christmas, we have two great Lomography cameras to give away to two lucky winners - the Diana Mini En Rose and the Sprocket Rocket.

This competition is now closed.

The lucky winner of the Diana Mini En Rose is Ashley McKnight.

The lucky winner of the Sprocket Rocket is Graham Morris.

PhotographyCourses.biz, a new subscription service for amateur, enthusiast and semi-pro photographers, has just launched a range of gift subscriptions. Timed to coincide with the pre-Christmas shopping season, the gift subscriptions are available now and cover 1-, 3- and 12-month periods.  Buyers simply fill in the name and email address of the recipient during the payment process, and the PhotographyCourses.Biz team will email a downloadable voucher containing a unique user name and password. The one-month offer is available for £4.75 (over 50% off the usual price), the three-month subscription is £29.25, while the one-year service costs £97.50.

A star is Born: Photography and Rock since Elvis is a new book published by Steidl & Partners. Tracing “how stars on both sides of the camera shape the image of musicians and rock bands,” this book contains glamour portraits, journalistic documents of live performances and PR materials from record labels. The 340-page hardcover sells for £26 in the UKm $48 in the USA and €30 in the euro zone.

Kodak has just introduced its Social Photo Album Creator for Facebook which allows consumers to easily combine photos from the popular social networking site with friends and family, easily creating one album together. Users simply create their album from their current Facebook photos, and invite their friends and family to add their own photographs. They can even visit any Kodak Picture Kiosk at participating retailers, and print from their Facebook account right at the kiosk.

Nikon has issued a firmware update for the Nikon Coolpix P7000 digital compact camera. Version 1.1 reduces the total recording time for raw files, and fixes a couple of bugs with lens control and occasional false indication of blown highlights on the LCD screen. You can download this firmware update from the websites below.

Website: Nikon Coolpix P7000 Firmware Update 1.1 - Windows
Website: Nikon Coolpix P7000 Firmware Update 1.1 - Mac

MacPhun has released an update to PhotoPal, their multi-tool photo editing app for iPad. Inspired by regular iPad users, PhotoPal 2.0 features an user interface with big hand-drawn buttons and logically grouped tools, special effects & custom frames. Most of the tools and effects can be adjusted with just a swipe of a finger. To celebrate the launch of the update, MacPhun has temproarily reduced the price for the app to $0.99. The cost will go back to the original $3.99 on Monday, 20th December.

Newpro is now listing the new Cullmann Nanomax 200T tripod, which is the smallest of the 4 models in the Nanomax series. Thanks to the ‘macro’ feature on the legs (a feature shared with the Nanomax 250 and 260 tripods) it can be used as a tabletop or macro tripod when required. The CB5.1 ball and socket head is removable and the centre column is split with a 1/4” screw thread on both pieces allowing the whole column to be reversed and inserted inverted or the head can be attached to either of these extra screw threads.  For extra stability, the 1006 Ground spike can be attached to the bottom of either section of the centre column. With a load capacity of 2kg, the Cullmann Nanomax 200T is available at a recommended retail price of £47.99.

Anton/Bauer, the world’s premier provider of batteries, chargers, lighting and other mobile power systems for the professional broadcast, video and film industries, is now shipping the QR-DSLR (pictured) and DSLR-ADP-ELPZ power solutions for the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EOS 7D and EOS 60D digital SLR cameras. Utilising the Logic Series batteries, the QR-DSLR has the ability to mount to most third party support rigs, such as those from Red-Rock Micro, Zacuto and Cinevate, and offers a counter balance to the rig.  The DSLR-ADP-ELPZ is based around the ElipZ® battery system and provides the user the ability to power the camera and ElightZ or EledZ on-camera lights.

Shiny Development today announced Explore Flickr 2.0, an update to their popular flickr app for iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. Since its release in May, version 1 of Explore Flickr has been featured as ‘What’s hot’ in 45 countries and has been downloaded over 75,000 times, the company says. Today’s update includes a range of user requested features including text search, exploring images by tag and slideshow viewing. Explore Flickr itself is free, but these premium features cost $4.99.

Ricoh has released an app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, which enables its users to easily find and view images that were taken with a GR Digital camera and uploaded to Flickr. The GR World app also allows users to specify photo genres and bookmark their favourite photos for viewing them together. GR World can be downloaded from the App Store for free.