Half a year after NASA placed an order for eleven Nikon D3S cameras and seven lenses, the general contractor of the Russian Federal Space Agency also ordered top-end Nikon gear for use aboard the International Space Station. The Nikon D3S and Nikon D3X digital-SLR cameras and four long telephoto lenses will be used along with Nikon F5 film SLRs and Nikon D2X DSLRs already employed by Russian cosmonauts working in the Russian segment of the space station.

Lexar has launched a new microsite designed to be a resource for customers and professional photographers. The microsite includes educational videos, customer testimonials, information on how Lexar tests its cards, and other content. Lexar will be adding new videos, testimonials and information to the site, which you can visit by clicking on the link below.

Website: When Memory Matters

RED’s founder, Jim Jannard, has recently made an announcement about a major problem with their Scarlet and EPIC cameras that has been hindering their launch, and will likely continue to do so. “It has held us up now for two months,” Jannard said in the statement made on the REDuser forum. “The fix could be tomorrow. Or not.” Scarlet and EPIC - the two “brains” of the modular RED camera system - were first announced almost two years ago, and Scarlet got a price tag at the end of last year. However, the company that was going to manufacture Scarlet turned out to have “significant issues”, and RED are now trying to find a new partner.

Via 1001 Noisy Cameras

Project AWARE Foundation and SeaWeb’s Marine Photobank are calling for entries for the third “Ocean in Focus” Conservation Photography Contest that feature species in need of protection, the human impacts upon them and their environments, and the importance of conserving biodiversity. The Grand Prize package includes US$500 cash as well as many marine-conservation related gifts. Four additional prize packages will be available: three for honourable mentions and a “Biodiversity Award” package that will be bestowed upon a submission that particularly highlights the need for biodiversity or biodiversity protection. Entrants are asked to submit their most captivating contest photos at the website below before August 31.

Website: Marine Photobank

Jessops is offering its customers the first chance to snap up the Sony NEX-5 in the UK. Currently the smallest mirrorless interchangeable-lens digital camera in the world, the Sony NEX-5 features a 14.2-megapixel Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor, 25-point contrast-detect autofocus system, 49-segment exposure meter and a 3-inch tilting LCD panel with 921,000-dot resolution. Offering a capture rate of 7 frames per second for stills, the Sony NEX-5 can also shoot Full HD (1920 x1080i) video in AVCHD format. Encased in a magnesium alloy body, the Sony NEX-5 (shown above with 18-200mm lens) can be had for £589 including a 18-55mm lens with Optical Steady Shot image stabilisation.

Apple has just unveiled a completely redesigned Mac mini, featuring up to twice the graphics performance, a new HDMI port, and a new SD card slot. The new Mac mini features a compact aluminium enclosure just 7.7-inches square and 1.4-inches thin. A removable panel provides quick access for memory expansion, while the new HDMI output connects the Mac mini to an HDTV and the new SD card slot enables easy transfer of photos and videos from a digital camera. The Mac mini comes standard with a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 320GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, Snow Leopard and iLife for £649. A more powerful version boasting 4GB of RAM and two 500GB Serial ATA hard drives can be yours for £929. Prices include VAT.

HP has launched a new category of Web-enabled printing solutions that will allow people to print from any email device to any new ePrint-enabled printer from anywhere in the world through the new HP ePrint technology. The HP ePrint platform enables people to send the files they want to print from their mobile devices to HP printers that have their own e-mail addresses. This new line of ePrint enabled HP printers include the HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One, the HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One and the HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One, which are priced at £179.99, £149.99 and £99.99, respectively. Finally, the HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One (£229.99, pictured) allows users to fax, scan and copy, using the automatic two-sided document feeder; plus print photos and web content easily.

HP will present an event called Think Big, bringing together large format printing specialists and featuring renowned photographer Robin Preston, on 22 June in London. Taking place in the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, the Think Big event comprises three sessions, with the first one starting at 10:30am. Interested readers can register for the event by calling Warren Burns on 0845 867 8108, or online via the website below.

Website: HP Think Big

Hot on the heels of the Sigma SD15 announcement, Sigma UK has unveiled the suggested retail price of the new 17-50mm f2.8 EX DC OS HSM standard zoom lens. Designed for DSLR cameras with APS-C sized sensors, the lens incorporates two FLD glass elements whose performance is equal to that of fluorite glass. The inner focusing system eliminates front lens rotation, making the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 particularly suitable for use with the supplied petal-type lens hood and circular polarising filters, while the Hyper Sonic Motor makes for fast and quiet focussing. Available now in Canon fit, the lens will also come in Sigma, Nikon, Sony and Pentax versions shortly. The suggested retail price is £649.99.

Transcend has released its first HD Media Player, the DMP10, featuring full support for popular media formats and high-resolution digital video/audio output. With the Transcend DMP10 HD Media Player, users can simply connect a USB storage device to playback digital media their Full HD 1080p digital content in the comfort of their living room. The player supports the most popular HD file formats, including MKV, AVI, WMV, RMVB and M2TS, and its colourful user-friendly menu interface and wireless remote control makes locating and playing media files fast and simple, the company says. The Transcend DMP10 will be available shortly, price to be confirmed.

Eye-Fi has announces an expanded Wi-Fi hotspot plan for users of its X2 family of cards. Through a partnership with Devicescape, Eye-Fi customers in Europe will now be able to use their Explore X2 and Pro X2 cards with a personal subscription to a Wi-Fi hotspot provider, such as Boingo, BT Openzone, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone and SFR. For guidance on how to add personal hotspot subscription plans to your Eye-Fi card, visit the website below.

Website: Eye-Fi Blog

The Big Issue in the North Trust is inviting photographers to take its Photo Marathon challenge on Saturday, 17 July. Photographers will have eight hours to take eight photographs, on two sets of four topics that are being kept secret until the day of the marathon. The Big Issue in the North Director Caroline Price said: “This is a really exciting and challenging project for keen photographers. As the topics are being kept secret until the day, the judging will not be based on physical environment or condition, but on improvisation, fun and creativity.” Each entrant is asked to make a donation of £15.

The Sinar p3 view camera and the Sinar arTec architectural camera can now take third-party camera backs. Sinar has developed a new rear coupling frame for the Sinar p3 and matching adapters for Hasselblad V, H1/H2 and Mamiya 645 AFD, designed especially for users of digital backs made by other manufacturers. A similar expansion of versatility has taken place with the Sinar arTec camera which, with adapters for Hasselblad V, H1/H2 and Mamiya 645, is also available to users of third-party backs.

CyberLink has just launched MediaStory, a unique slideshow creator application for iPhones and Android Phones. The application comes with pre-designed slideshow templates with various themes that can be applied to turn photos into animated slideshows on the fly. The slideshows can be played on the smart phone or uploaded to Facebook. CyberLink MediaStory for smart phones can be purchased from the iTunes App Store and Android Market, at $2.99. Also, there is a free version - CyberLink MediaStory for Facebook - that creates animations from photos already stored on Facebook.

A US Coast Guard investigator named Paul Shultz recently fished out a Nikon Coolpix L18 digital compact camera, housed in an underwater case, which has turned out to have floated to Florida from the island of Aruba. According to a report by Associated Press, it took the camera half a year to make the 1,100-mile journey on the back of the waves, helped by “various currents”. Owing to the underwater housing - whose make/model has not been disclosed - the camera remained functional, and it was possible to retrieve the pictures - and a video “recorded by” a sea turtle that accidentally turned on the floating camera while it was en route to Florida - stored on its memory card. Using clues found in the photos, Shultz was able to identify the owner of the camera as Dick de Bruin, a sergeant in the Royal Dutch Navy. “The camera is on its way to the de Bruin family via FedEx and should be there any day,” AP says.

Via Associated Press

Canon has recently filed a patent application for a solution that would allow digital cameras to faithfully capture high-contrast scenes in a single take. Photography Bay reports that the patent application describes a process whereby different exposure times are assigned to different photosites on the sensor to ensure highlights are not blown out and shadows are not blocked up. If you are interested in the technical details, you can read the entire patent application online.

Via Photography Bay

Adobe has posted a second prerelease of its Lens Profile Creator utility, which generates custom lens profiles for use with the Lens Correction tool in Photoshop CS5. As Adobe puts it, “a lens profile describes the types of optical aberrations that exist in a particular lens and prescribes how to correct the lens distortions in an image captured from the same lens”. These optical aberrations include geometric distortions, corner shading and chromatic aberrations. You first need to capture a set of chequerboard images with your camera (provided as part of the application package), which you can then feed into the Lens Profile Creator utility. Today’s update fixes several reported issues in the initial build, Adobe says.

Website: Lens Profile Creator

Bibble Labs has just released version 5.1 of Bibble Pro, and introduced Bibble 5.1 Lite. New additions to Bibble include tools like Perfectly Clear, a one-touch image optimisation algorithm, and Heal & Clone, which allow photographers to remove distracting elements from their images. Also new to version 5.1 is raw support for ten new digital cameras including the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2 and G10, Sony A450, NEX-3 and NEX-5 and Olympus E-450 and E-600, among others. As far as the all-new Bibble 5.1 Lite is concerned, it offers much of the same speed, power and control as Bibble Pro, but without several of the pro-specific features at a lower price. Bibble 5.1 Pro and Bibble 5.1 Lite are available immediately for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers for $199.95 and $99.95, respectively. Bibble Labs customers who purchased Bibble 4 since September, 2006 are eligible for a free upgrade to Bibble 5. Bibble 5.1 is a free upgrade for all current Bibble 5 customers.

Website: Bibble Labs