Jobo AG has announced the Jobo Plano 10 Gestic digital picture frame, which features integrated sensors for intuitive touchless operation. This slim frame can be conveniently operated with the simple movement of a user’s hand or several fingers directly in front of the frame without the need to touch the frame. By moving a hand or fingers within 6 inches of the frame, users can easily scroll through their pictures from the left or the right to reach the first or the last picture. The Jobo Plano 10 Gestic incorporates a large 10.4” high resolution TFT-Color-LCD display with a resolution of 800x600 pixels and aspect ratio of 4:3. The Gestic will be available end of November with an AC adapter, remote control, and manual for $249.

JVC today announced the launch of its first pocket flash memory camera, the new PICSIO GC-FM1. PICSIO shoots true eight-megapixel stills and 1080p Full HD video with image stabilisation.  Videos are recorded in the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format and stored as .MOV files. There is no optical zoom though. The PICSIO camera is about the size of a small cell phone, and is available in three colours - Black Ice, Blue Steel and Purple Passion. It boasts a stylish design with a case that features a tone-on-tone geometric pattern and chrome accents for a jewel-like appearance. The JVC Picsio GC-FM1 is available now for $199.95.

Epson have announced the affordable, portable Epson PictureMate Charm.photo printer. The PictureMate Charm can print a borderless 4x6” colour photograph in 37 seconds, and the prints are smudge, scratch and water resistant. Also, they are claimed to resist fading up to 96 years under glass and over 200 years in dark album storage (though Epson does not actually guarantee the longevity of prints). The printer features a 2.5” LCD screen to view, crop and print photos, as well as remove red eye and select popular photo layouts and colour tones. PictureMate Charm also prints from all popular memory cards with built-in card slots, and prints wirelessly from PDAs and digital camera cell phones with a separately sold Bluetooth adapter. ThePictureMate Charm will be available on Oct. 20 through a variety of online retail stores and Epson’s retail site at an estimated street price of $149.99.

Following on from the success of the CX1 website, Ricoh have now announced the launch of a site dedicated to the promotion of the GRD Digital III digital compact camera. According to Ricoh, the GR Digital website has been developed as a one stop shop for all enquiries and will be in the form of a Flipbook. You can click and drag on the page corners to virtually flip the pages. The GRD III website features full sales information including technical specifications, review feedback from press, and stockist detail for the authorised Ricoh partners. In addition there is a competition for the lucky entrant to win a new GR Digital III worth £529.99. The competition closes on November 30th 2009 and all those in United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland are eligible to enter.

Website: Ricoh GRD III Promotional Website

Texas Instruments have announced the OMAP-DM515 coprocessor, which delivers up to 20-megapixel still imaging capabilities, as well as 720p HD camcorder functionality.  Note that, as with the Silicon Image announcement posted earlier today, it remains to be seen if any sensor manufacturer will ever actually bother to produce such high-resolution sensors for camera phones, and if any optics maker can come up with a lens that can support them, but the announcements indicate that the processing power will be there to handle the amount of data such a sensor would generate.

Canon have released a firmware upgrade to the Canon EOS 1000D / REBEL XS digital SLR camera. Version 1.0.6 incorporates the following changes:

• Some cameras may exhibit a phenomenon in which the LCD monitor does not display, the shutter does not release, and the busy indication remains lit in the viewfinder.
• The message, “Err 99 Shooting is not possible. Turn the power switch to and again or re-install the battery”, appears on the camera’s LCD monitor, and after the above operation is carried out, the LCD monitor displays in a language that is different from the actual language setting.

Website: Canon EOS REBEL XS / 1000D Firmware Update

Silicon Image has introduced the camerIC-18, the newest member of its family of camerIC camera processor IP cores. The camerIC-18 is targeted for integration into digital still camera and video System-on-a-Chip (SoC) application processors for mobile devices such as cell phones.  The camerIC-18 supports resolutions ranging from 5MP to 18MP, all in a single low-cost/low-power design. To effectively deliver resolutions above 12MP, the camerIC-18 IP core now includes sophisticated bad pixel detection/correction and noise reduction techniques to ensure image quality even when combined with the lower cost, high-resolution CMOS sensors commonly found in mobile devices, the company says. The camerIC-18 IP core has the imaging bandwidth to support HD, 3D, 4K and higher resolution video camcorder ISP functions.

LAST CHANCE TO ENTER! This month we are giving away 7 KATA 3N1-30 camera bags (worth £115 each). That’s a total prize value of over £800!

The KATA 3N1-30 was voted Best Camera Bag of the Year at the recent “Gear of the Year Awards 2009”.

On Monday 12th October 2009, seven names will be randomly selected from the list of PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscribers and will each win one of the KATA 3N1-30 camera bags.

Click here to enter

Kris Dickson has been awarded the title of UK Master Photographer of the Year 2009. The announcement was made at the Master Photography Awards in Newcastle last night. In addition to the main prize of the evening, Dickson was awarded firsts in the following categories: UK Fashion and Beauty, the Mario Acerboni Northern Ireland Award and the overall Mario Acerboni Award. He was also crowned UK Fashion & Press Photographer of the Year. Jingna Zhang, from Singapore, was named Overseas Master Photographer of the Year 2009. Click through / read on for the full list of award-winning photographers.

The Royal Photographic Society Annual Awards ceremony, which recognises those who have made outstanding contributions to the art of science and photography, will take place on 19 November. Annie Leibovitz will be presented with the Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship of the RPS, while the society’s Terence Donovan Award goes to Mark Edwards. Bryce E Bayer, best known for the Bayer colour filter array used in digital cameras, will be awarded this year’s Progress Medal with Honorary Fellowship. Honorary Fellowship recipients include Scottish born photojournalist Harry Benson CBE, who has photographed 11 American presidents, including Bill Clinton (see accompanying photo). Click through / read on for the full list of RPS award winners.

onOne Software has launched version 1.2 of DSLR Camera Remote Server, their server-side application that allows you to remotely control your DSLR using an iPhone or iPod Touch. The new version adds support for the Nikon D300s, improves on the permissions detection and warning on Mac OS X, and fixes a number of issues with the Canon EOS 500D and Nikon D300 cameras. Note that DSLR Remote Server is the application that runs on your PC or Mac, to which the camera is connected. It’s not the app that runs on the iPhone or iPod Touch itself. DSLR Remote Server 1.2 is compatible with version 1.1 of the iPhone/iPod app.

Iridient Digital have released RAW Developer 1.8.6, which brings support for nine new camera models. These include the Nikon D300s (review), the Canon 7D, G11 and S90, the Sony DSLR-A850, DSLR-A550 and DSLR-A500, the Panasonic DMC-GF1 (review) and the Leica M9. Improvements to the default ICC camera profiles for the Canon 50D and Nikon D300 have also been made.

Website: Iridient RAW Developer

Fujifilm has announced the release of Wunderbars, billed as “a revolutionary framing system for canvas prints”. Wunderbars gives users a new way to create canvas wraps - quickly, easily, without the need for specialist tools and thanks to Wunderbars’ exclusive stretcher bars each canvas will retain its tension, Fujifilm says. Each frame features a sprung pin mechanism which automatically stretches the canvas and ensures it remains under constant tension. No wedges are needed, making for a cleaner finish on the rear of the frame. Wunderbars frames come in packs of four in a range of sizes from 8inch to 48inch and are priced at £12.90 to £39.98.

Speedlight Pro Kit’s latest innovation, a flash-mounted 46cm beauty dish, is being launched in Europe. Designed for portraiture, the beauty dish consists of two key elements; a large white collar and an inverted silvered cone mounted within.  The dish is fixed to the flash so that its light is bounced back off the cone’s silvered surface onto the white material giving an even and flattering lift to the subject. The opaque central portion of the cone diverts away light from the centre, thus eliminating hotspots and harsh shadows. The beauty dish retails at £52.00 via the website below.

Website: Speedlight Pro Kit

An American Family: Three Decades with the McGarveys, a National Geographic Focal Point publication, is a unique photographic chronicle of the last 30 years of a typical American family. The remarkable collection of images peers into every aspect of the McGarvey family’s life to produce an album that is instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever shared the American experience. If you’re nostalgic for the 70s and all the decades since, or curious about the McGarveys who opened up their personal lives to a photojournalist for 30 years, or about Pam Spaulding, the woman who documented them, this book will likely be of interest to you, the publisher says. The book, An American Family: Three Decades with the McGarveys, is priced at $35 and will become available on 20 October.

Adobe has released the new, free Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone application. Photoshop.com Mobile provides consumers a convenient way to edit photos, apply effects and share images instantly with friends - all with the flick of a finger. Seamless integration with users’ free Photoshop.com accounts enables photo sharing and data back-up, saving them valuable space on their iPhones. The application is available free of charge at Apple’s App Store. Note that for the time being, the application is available to US and Canadian residents only.

The Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/28 ZE is a new wide-angle lens for the Canon EF mount. With a maximum aperture setting of f2, it is among the most light-intense of its kind in its focal length. Following the recent introduction of its two ultra-wide-angle lenses, the Distagon T* 3,5/18 ZE and the T* 2,8/21, the new Distagon T* 2/28 ZE is Carl Zeiss’ first “moderate” wide-angle lens for the EF mount. Thanks to the Carl Zeiss T* anti-reflective coating and meticulously crafted lenses, the new Distagon T* 2/28 ZE is claimed to deal effortlessly with reflections and stray light. The Distagon T* 2/28 ZE will be available starting this autumn for a suggested retail price of €965.55 (excluding VAT).

One of the largest and most prestigious international underwater photography and video competition series celebrates its five year anniversary this year. The unique competition series was founded by professional underwater photographers Jason Heller & Eric Cheng and hosted by popular websites DivePhotoGuide.com and Wetpixel.com. The series is held in association with two leading scuba diving expos on opposite sides of the world, simultaneously - Our World Underwater, now in its 40th year, and one of the largest consumer scuba diving expos in the US, and DEEP Indonesia, the first and only scuba diving and watersports expo in Indonesia, one of the most bio-diverse marine ecosystems in the world. Participants will compete in technical, themed and video categories, to win more than $80,000 in prizes including premium dive travel, underwater photo and video equipment, scuba diving gear and more. For more information, visit the website below.

Website: Underwater Competition