Burrard-Lucas Photography has launched a Landscape Photography Contest. The competition is open to participants worldwide, aged 18 or over on the closing date, which is 1 August 2010. The winner will be awarded with a Canon EOS 7D camera (pictured), a Lensbaby Composer and a SmugMug Pro account. Two runners-up will receive SmugMug standard accounts. Entry is free for up to three entries per photographer.

Website: Burrard-Lucas Photography

Digital Anarchy has just announced its new Beauty Box Photo skin retouching Photoshop plug-in. Providing an automatic way of smoothing skin and removing blemishes in photographs, Beauty Box Photo 1.0 is fully compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and earlier versions of Photoshop and Elements. The software automatically identifies skin tones and creates an intelligent mask that limits the smoothing effect to skin areas while keeping facial details sharp. Beauty Box is regularly priced at USD $99, but you can get it for $79 through 21 June 2010.

Website: Digital Anarchy

The AC3 ZoneController is part of Pocket Wizard’s Control TL product line that gives Mini TT1 and Flex TT5 users three zones of flash control. Three clearly labelled dials allow you to increase or decrease power to three zones of flash in 1/3-stop increments, with a range of up to six stops. Three switches allow you to change zones between Manual, Auto or Off. The device currently works with Canon Speedlites, and - when matched with the new Power ST4 or AC9 AlienBees Adapter - you can also use it to control ElinchromRX, White Lightning and AlienBees flashes. The Pocket Wizard AC3 Zone Controller is available priced at £59.99 including VAT.

The Black Rapid FastenR-3 is the point of contact between your camera and your R-Strap. The R-Strap is worn diagonally across the torso from shoulder to hip and is secured to the camera via the FastenR-3 - successor to the FastenR and FastenR-2 -, which in turn screws into the tripod socket. In The UK, the Black Rapid FastenR-3 is sold by JP Distribution, at an SRP of £14.

Adobe has released version 6.1 of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for Photoshop CS5 users. This final version comes a little more than two weeks after the announcement of the ACR 6.1 Release Candidate. The update adds support for the Canon EOS 550D, the Kodak Z981, the Leaf Aptus-II 8, the Leaf Aptus-II 10R, the Mamiya DM40, the Olympus E-PL1, the Olympus E-600, the Panasonic G2, the Panasonic G10 and the Sony A450. Note that the Camera Raw 6.1 plug-in is not compatible with versions of Photoshop earlier than Photoshop CS5.

Four photographic archives of previously unseen images of U2, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are to go under the hammer at the Entertainment Memorabilia auction on 23 June 2010 at Bonhams, Knightsbridge. These include thirteen - mostly unpublished - photos of U2 from 1978, fifty-six shots of Led Zeppelin from 1973, a collection of informal Polaroids of The Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol, and eighteen black-and-white negatives showing The Beatles at a reception in 1964.

Samsung Germany has quietly announced the Samsung NX5 mirrorless interchangeable-lens system camera. The German-language press release - which calls the NX5 an entry-level model - says precious little about the actual specifications of the camera. The biggest differences between the NX5 and the NX10 appear to concern the rear display and the EVF - where the NX10 had an AMOLED screen, the NX5 makes do with a more traditional TFT LCD; while the electronic viewfinder has a lot less resolution than that of the older model. In exchange, the NX5 is a bit more affordable, with a suggested retail price of €699. The pixel count of the sensor is unchanged at 14.6 million, and of course the Samsung NX5 takes the same NX lenses as the NX10.

The winners of the May 2010 Photography Blog Competition have been announced. The theme for May was “After Dark” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
Double trouble by desertpea

Prize: X-Rite ColourChecker Passport
Kindly donated by X-Rite
http://www.xritephoto.com/

Kingston today launched the next-generation Kingston SDXC UHS-1 Class 10 memory card, claimed to be one of the fastest cards available in the market today. The Kingston SDXC card is compliant with the SDA Memory Card Standard Version 3.01, UHS-1. UHS-1 stands for Ultra-High Speed Bus 1, which is the new architecture of SDXC cards. It is designed to reach speeds of up to a maximum transfer rate of 104MB/sec. and 300MB/sec. in the future. Kingston’s offering has read speeds of up to 60MB/sec. and write speeds of up to 35MB/sec. The Kingston SDXC UHS-1 Class 10 64GB card will be available worldwide at the end of June and has a suggested retail price of £342.

X-Rite has released the new ColorChecker Passport DNG Profile Manager, free to all registered owners of a ColorChecker Passport. The X-Rite ColorChecker Passport DNG Profile Manager provides a single list of all installed DNG profiles, including non-printing image data such as file name, camera, light-source(s), and creation date. It also filters by camera or it can sort by any column header to provide the ability to correctly rename profiles (both internal and external names).  Users can easily enable/disable profiles to prevent profile overload in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and quickly collect and export DNG profiles for backup or distribution. The DNG Profile Manager runs under Windows XP, Vista and 7 as well as Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6.

Travelodium Travel Club and Magazine have launched a new competition for people who love to travel. The objective is to help other travellers by writing about the best places and secrets that most travellers won’t know about in the city/town that you live in. Although this is primarily a writing competition, the organisers would also love to see your photographs. “It would be fantastic if you could send in a least one photo of one of the principal tourist sites of the city,” says magazine editor David Cronk. The best entry for 2010 will win $1000 of travel products.

Website: This is My City Travel Writing Competition

Tamron has just announced the second series of its free learning programme that’s specifically targeted at first-time digital SLR owners. Starting on June 7, 2010, and every Monday for 12 weeks, Tamron will release an entertaining and informative one-minute episode of “DSLR Know-How with Tamron: Series 201” on YouTube that’s designed to bring picture-takers to a higher level of photographic expression. “In just one minute per week you can learn important tips to making excellent pictures at no cost,” notes John VanSteenberg, Tamron’s Senior Education Manager. “Each of these one-minute video demonstrations is designed to take the viewers of the first series and newcomers to a higher comfort level with their equipment and photographic techniques.”

Website: TamronVids

Panasonic has posted four full-resolution sample images taken with the new Panasonic Lumix G Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 lens mounted on a Lumix G2 body. The twelve-megapixel samples depict a variety of subjects ranging from the skyline and marina of Venice to a landscape, an image of a tree and - rather surprisingly for this type of lens - a cat portrait. The pictures - along with samples taken with other Micro Four Thirds lenses - can be downloaded from the website below.

Website: Panasonic Sample Images by Lens

Mozy, an online backup service, has announced general availability of MozyHome 2.0 and MozyPro 2.0 for Windows on its website. New enhancements include faster upload speeds and decreased bandwidth usage, new convenience and access features, and Mozy 2xProtect – a new feature which allows Mozy users to backup to a local external drive in addition to Mozy’s online data centres at no additional cost. Mozy 2.0 customers can achieve up to 25 per cent faster backups compared with previous versions. Mozy also redesigned the service’s interface to simplify set up and use. Although advanced configuration options still allow power users to maintain the level of functionality they require to protect their data, the new Mozy interface makes it easier for consumers and businesses to verify that files have been backed up and stored securely. MozyHome 2.0 and MozyPro 2.0 are available immediately at the website below.

Website: Mozy

The Master Photographers Association (MPA) has announced details of its 2010 Master Photography Awards. The Awards are open to all qualified members of the Association, plus there are also several categories that are open to all professional photographers anywhere in the world - not just members of the MPA. Categories include wedding, portrait, landscape, scientific and commercial. The entry fee is £8.50.

Website: Master Photography Awards

Auslogics has released BoostSpeed 5 – an all-in-one solution for keeping PCs running fast and error-free. The new Auslogics BoostSpeed 5 has a fresh user interface; it includes innovative optimisation techniques and introduces new features including a System Advisor, a Disk Doctor, a File Recovery tool, a Disk Explorer plus Resource Monitoring and the latest version of Auslogics Disk Defrag. Auslogics BoostSpeed 5 will be available at SRP £30.65 per user.

Website: Auslogics

Sanyo has announced the world’s first waterproof Full HD consumer video camera with optical zoom. The Sanyo DMX-CA100 Dual Camera Xacti has a 14.3-megapixel CMOS sensor capable of capturing full-resolution stills at a speed of one frame per second (fps), and 2-megapixel stills at 7fps. The lens has a focal range of 6.8-34mm, equivalent to 38-190mm in 35mm terms, and an almost constant maximum aperture (f/3.5 at wide angle, f/3.7 at telephoto). Waterproof down to a depth of 3m for up to 60 minutes, the Sanyo DMX-CA100 Dual Camera Xacti can be used underwater while snorkelling. As a video camera, it can shoot Full HD footage while taking advantage of Sanyo’s “Double Range Zoom” technology, which changes the size of the video capture area on the image sensor. Compatible with Eye-Fi and SDXC memory cards, the Sanyo DMX-CA100 will be launched at the end of this month. Pricing to be confirmed,

Canon UK has announced a new cashback offer on its Legria camcorders. Those British/Irish customers who buy a Canon Legria FS or HF R model until the end of July are eligible for a cashback of £30 / €35. Those who purchase a Legria HF M or HF S series camcorder in the same period will get £50 / €55 back. Claims must be received by 31st August 2010.

Website: Legria Cashback UK | Legria Cashback Ireland

Olympus has announced a joint promotion with Novoflex, a maker of lens adapters for Micro Four Thirds (MFT) cameras. Those who have bought an Olympus PEN since 15 April 2010 or are buying one until the end of this month get a 20% discount on one Novoflex MFT lens adapter purchased at one of the participating dealers. To be eligible, register your Olympus PEN online until 30 June 2010 at the website below, print out the voucher, cut out the serial number from your camera box, then present the receipt for your PEN and hand over the printed voucher including attached serial number to the dealer when buying the adapter.

Website: Olympus

The LUMIX G FISHEYE 8mm / F3.5 is a new fisheye lens for the Micro Four Thirds system. Offering a diagonal angle of view of 180 degrees, the LUMIX G FISHEYE 8mm is comprised of ten lenses in nine groups, an inner focus system with a closest focusing distance of 0.1m, and a stepping motor which makes the focusing action smooth and silent for use in both photo and movie recording. The LUMIX G FISHEYE 8mm will be available in the UK from July 2010 priced at approx £729.99.