Bright blue, orange, green and purple are the new colours in which the Pentax K-x will be available in the USA. Until now, the Pentax K-x came in black, white, red and navy blue. The new colours are now available exclusively for pre-order in the Pentax Web Store. Each fresh new colour comes in a kit with a matching 18-55mm lens.

Website: Pentax Web Store

Foundation Rwanda: An Evening of Food & Fotos, taking place at Bonhams’ Madison Avenue galleries on 13 May, will feature art for activism with several top chefs and artists showcasing fine food and photography to benefit Foundation Rwanda. The evening will feature an auction of fine, contemporary photography selected by New Yorker magazine’s Visual Editor Elisabeth Biondi, Aidan Sullivan of Getty Images, and Bill Hunt of HASTED HUNT KRAEUTLER gallery. Among the eclectic selection are works by Eugene Richards, Nigel Parry, Jonathan Torgovnik, Gillian Laub, Pieter Hugo, Paolo Ventura, Steve Pyke, Elinor Carucci, Ruven Afanador, Brent Stirton, Martin Schoeller, Platon and more. All proceeds will go to foundation Rwanda. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the website below.

Website: Foundation Rwanda: An Evening of Food and Fotos

X-Rite Photo Marketing has announced the extension of the ColorMunki Photo $50 cashback rebate offer. ColorMunki Photo is a completely integrated colour control solution to calibrate displays, projectors and printers. This promotion, which is available now through June 30, 2010, is valid on any ColorMunki Photo purchased from any authorised dealer in the USA and Canada. The ColorMunki rebate form is available for download by visiting http://www.xritephoto.com and clicking on “Hot Promotions”.

The Sigma 8-16mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM, the world’s widest rectilinear lens for DSLR cameras with an APS-C sized sensor, is now available in the US.  This is the first ultra-wide zoom lens with a minimum focal length of 8mm, designed specifically for APS-C size image sensors. The wide-angle of view of 121.2 degrees produces striking images with exaggerated perspective, enabling photographers to emphasise the subject. The lens is currently available in Canon mount at all authorised Sigma dealers for the MSRP of $1,100, and it will be available in Sigma, Nikon, Sony and Pentax mounts in the coming weeks.

The 47th Bièvres International Photo Fair is taking place from 5-6 June 2010 in Bièvres, France. This photo fair is a unique event in Europe that attracts tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world every year. Located 12km south of Paris, Bièvres is the place for camera collectors and other fans of vintage photographic equipment and related photographica. Additionally, the fair offers photography buffs a range of interesting lectures and conferences. For more information, pay a visit to the website below.

Website: Bievres International Photo Fair

The MicroFlip Flash Bracket is the newest invention of Conrad Sloop, former owner and designer of Stroboframe Flash Brackets. The Micro-Flip employs several brand new and patented innovations including a “flush-mount” stainless steel upright arm that is so thin it “disappears” into the DSLR’s grip yet maintains the rigidity necessary to support large flashes.  This “disappearing” upright arm design makes the MicroFlip the smallest, most compact design of any fully rotating vertical to horizontal flash rotating system on the market today. Priced at $199.99, MicroFlips are in stock and ready for shipment, the distributor says.

The Plugin Site has released Version 2 of its FocalBlade sharpening plugin for Windows. FocalBlade 2 can be described as a plugin that sharpens photos for display and print with the help of various automatic and manual tools. On top of that it also reduces noise and produces great looking blur, soft focus and special effects. FocalBlade supports one, two and three pass sharpening workflows, incorporates modes for various tasks and experience levels offering interactive explanations for each feature. FocalBlade even batch processes images with the help of actions or scripts. Compared to FocalBlade 1, the new version works 10 to 120 times faster, depending on the used settings and CPU. FocalBlade 2 is now fully scripting aware and supports smart filtering in Photoshop CS4 and CS5. A plugin that can be used in dozens of graphics applications, including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro, FocalBlade 2 for Windows is available for $69.95. The academic/educational licence costs $39.95. A Mac version will also be available soon, the developer says.

Website: The Plugin Site

Canon and the Association des Femmes Journalistes (AFJ) have opened submissions for the tenth competition to find 2010’s Canon Female Photojournalist of the year. Sponsored by Canon France and granted by AFJ, the winner will receive an €8000 prize and a photojournalistic project. The competition is open to any female professional photojournalist of any age or nationality. This year’s applicants will be judged both upon the presentation of their project, the quality of their photographs, relevance of their chosen subject, the inspiration behind their story and any previous work. The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2010, and the winner will then be selected in June by a jury made up of photography and press professionals as well as members of the AFJ. As always, we suggest that you read the rules before entering your work.

Website: Canon Female Photojournalist Award

Datacolor has just announced it will be offering Spyder3 Elite™ owners a feature enriched software upgrade, known as Spyder3 Elite 4.0, available for instant download on the Datacolor global website. New features in the Spyder3 Elite 4.0 upgrade include Software Brightness Control, Iterative Gray Balance Option, Display Graphing, Monitor Quality Analyser and more. Spyder3 Elite 4.0 is available now for a one-time cost of $19 via an instant download. For existing Spyder3 Pro users, there is a one-time cost of $99 to upgrade.  For users who purchased Sypder3 Elite in 2010, this upgrade is available at no charge.

Website: Datacolor
Review: Read our review of Spyder3 Elite

AMMO Books has reprinted The Contact Sheet, an intriguing photography book edited by Steve Crist, making it available again after the first edition sold out in a matter of months. Back in the time when photojournalists used film instead of the then non-existent digital medium, contact sheets were used to aid photographers and editors in the selection of images for enlargement and publication. They also reveal a few things about a photographer’s thought process, which is why they are valuable to researchers and admirers of past masters. This book offers an insightful look into some of the most iconic photographs and photographers of the past - from Dorothea Lange to Robert Doisneau -, unveiling rarely seen contact sheets from the original photo sessions. More than forty iconic photographs by world-famous photographers are examined in detail in The Contact Sheet, complete with short biographies and background details of the sessions themselves. The 192-page book is available from AMMO Books, priced at $39.95.

Website: Ammo Books

The L’Iris d’Or and professional category winners of the 2010 Sony World Photography Awards have been announced. The 12 professional winners spanned categories as diverse as fashion, architecture, current affairs and sport and were revealed at the Sony World Photography Awards Ceremony at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. The prestigious L’Iris d’Or/Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year award was awarded to Tommaso Ausili.  The Italian photographer’s evocative series of photographs in the Cotemporary Issues category, entitled “The Hidden Death”, is an insightful depiction of an assembly line at an abattoir.  Ausili was awarded a $25,000 cash prize plus Sony digital SLR camera equipment and he joins previous L’Iris d’Or winners David Zimmerman and Vanessa Winship as a member of the World Photographic Academy.

Blurb has launched Blurb BookShow, a widget that enables authors to share their books in an experiential format wherever they are online – on Facebook, their blog, a website and so on. Blurb BookShow offers an experience similar to that of turning the pages of a book as users can flip through the book’s pages online making the book more discoverable and driving interest to the print book. On the iPad, users can use the device’s touchpad to flick through the book pages as well as pinch and zoom to enlarge images. During beta testing, Blurb authors using Blurb BookShow allegedly experienced 6x more visits to their bookstore pages and had an 88% increase in book sales.

Website: Introducing the Blurb BookShow Widget

ACD Systems have just released ACDSee Photo Manager 12, the latest version of their easy-to-use photo managing and editing software. Photographers can now easily store and share images online without leaving the application with the new Online mode, which connects users to a free 2 GB account on ACDSeeOnline.com. Plus, a new FTP uploader allows users to upload images to an FTP site directly from ACDSee. Additionally, a new one-click tagging function has been added to identify the best photos from a series, or isolate images for editing or review without moving the files into different folders. Finally, the user interface has been refined to help users easily navigate between organising, viewing, editing and sharing photos. Compatible with Windows 7, ACDSee Photo Manager 12 is available for a free 30-day trial and for purchase for $69.99 at the website below.

Website: ACDSee

Pentax has released firmware updates for a number of their older DSLR cameras. The new firmware versions address a single issue - they improve operational stability when the cameras are used with certain SDHC memory cards. The updates can be downloaded from the following websites:

Website: Pentax K10D Firmware 1.31
Website: Pentax K20D Firmware 1.04
Website: Pentax K200D Firrmware 1.01
Website: Pentax K-m Firmware 1.11

Engelmann’s Photomizer is now also available as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in. Billed as a one-click-plug-in for fully automatic image optimisation, Photomizer is claimed to be “perfectly suitable for batch processing of Photoshop”. Featuring clever algorithms that recognise the parts of the image that actually need intervention for a better overall impression, the Photomizer Plug-in for Photoshop is available now priced at €129.99. A free trial version can be downloaded from the website below. System requirements include Windows XP/Vista/7 and minimum 1GB of RAM.

Website: Photomizer Plug-in for Photoshop

As promised a week ago, Olympus today released firmware updates for all of its Micro Four Thirds (MFT) cameras to boost their AF speed. Apart from speeding up the auto-focus of the E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1 cameras, the update also allows photographers using the Olympus E-P2 and E-PL1 with the VF-2 electronic viewfinder fitted to view the menu and recorded images on the LCD. Finally, for the E-P1 and E-P2, the update also makes continuous auto-focus tracking in movie mode as fast and accurate as on the new E-PL1. In order to update your camera’s firmware, you will need to download the Olympus Camera Updater from the website below.

Website: Olympus - Firmware and Language Update Instructions

The winner of Bing’s Earth Day photo contest has been announced. A photo of a bee gathering the nectar of a passion fruit blossom, taken by Alan Bosse, a student studying web design at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, was chosen by Bing users to be featured on Bing’s homepage in honour of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day today. (Apparently, you have to set the United States as your country/region to actually see it, otherwise a different photo appears on the homepage.) You can read more about the contest at the website below.

Website: Bing Blog

Leica has issued a firmware update for the Leica S2 digital SLR camera. Version 1.0.0.16 extends the camera’s functionality by providing a new white balance preset, extra viewfinder information, a customisation option for the depth-of-field preview button, selectable OLED screen standby time and extended user-defined button programming. On top of that, the shutter speed and aperture dials can now be locked to prevent inadvertent shifts. The new firmware update also brings improvements to existing functions - click through for a list of these.

Website: Leica Owners’ Area