As part of the global partnership signed between PNY Technologies and National Geographic back in 2007, PNY announced today an exclusive offer on its high speed Optima Flash cards that will give access to bonus content from National Geographic’s African catalogue. This limited edition offer gives customers an opportunity to discover the remarkable images, music and maps that National Geographic captures. Customers that purchase a PNY Optima Flash card will now be able to download content via a dedicated website using a printed code that can be found inside the product’s packaging. The PNY Optima Flash cards included in this offer are available in a selection of capacities (ranging up to 32 GB) and boast a write speed of 10 MB per second for both the SD and Compact Flash models. The PNY Optima Flash cards concerned have a 5 year guarantee and will be available from September 2009 onwards through PNY’s usual distribution network.

Hamrick Software, the developer of VueScan, has released its latest version 8.5.26. The company has also announced that its customer base now stands at more than 200,000. VueScan 0.1 was first released in 1998 with support for a single scanner on Windows only. Within 5 years VueScan supported more than 400 scanners, and had acquired a good reputation through word of mouth. After a further 10 years of development, VueScan now supports over 1200 scanners on 3 operating systems, has been downloaded more than 5 million times, and is the scanning program of choice for more than 200,000 customers in over 150 different countries. Version 8.5.26 adds enhanced OCR support using Google’s Tesseract OCR code. Future plans include adding more advanced scanning features, such as scanning multiple photos placed randomly on a scanner (auto image segmentation). VueScan is available in two editions, Standard Edition ($39.95 USD) and Professional Edition ($79.95). The Professional Edition adds unlimited free upgrades, advanced IT8 color calibration and support for raw scan files.

Leica has joined many other premium brands and launched its own store in the UK. Selling the full Leica range of products including the newly announced Leica M9 digital rangefinder camera, the store is located in 34 Bruton Place, Mayfair situated between Old Bond Street and Berkeley Square, London W1. The Mayfair store is the latest development for the company following the opening of Leica stores in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris and Moscow. The Leica Store Mayfair facility is set to complement other Leica Dealers and grow the brand in the UK. Opening hours of the store will be 10.00 to 18.00 Monday to Friday, and 10.00 to 15.00 on Saturdays. If you can’t make it to the physical store, Leica have also just opened their virtual doors at www.leica-storemayfair.co.uk

FixerLabs has just released the Picturefxr iPhone App that automatically enhances and enlarges photos. The Picturefxr App sends photos from an iPhone to external servers, where they are enhanced and enlarged. The results are stored on each user’s private photo gallery and immediately returned by email. The results are claimed to be sharper, brighter, clearer, color accurate; and if requested, can have twice or four times the number of pixels than the original (in other words, Picturefxr can interpolate your photos for you if intending to print them big). The Picturefxr iPhone App is available now on the Apple iTunes Store.

Website: Picturefxr iPhone App

Apple have introduced the new iPod nano, which has an onboard video camera complete with a microphone and speakers. Music lovers can now shoot video wherever they are, view it on their iPod nano and use their computers to easily transfer their videos to YouTube. The new Apple iPod nano can even shoot videos with fun real-time effects such as Thermal, Film Grain, Kaleido and X-Ray, and features an ultra-thin and sleek design with a larger 2.2-inch colour display.The video is standard VGA resolution (640x480 pixels) and uses the H.264 codec. You can buy the new iPod nano today for $149 (8GB model) or $179 (16GB version) from the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers..

Nikon have announced that the total production of Nikkor SLR lenses had reached fifty million as of August 2009. The first F-mount Nikkor was the Nikkor-S Auto 5cm f/2, released in 1959 along with the first-ever Nikon SLR camera, the Nikon F. The 50 million lenses have thus been produced over the course of the last 50 years, with the last 5 million being produced over the past year. Almost all F-mount lenses sold in the last half a century will mount on any Nikon SLR ever made, except for some invasive fisheyes produced in the 1960s. However, not every camera-lens combination will utilise the full potential of the camera or the lens. (Some of the newer DSLRs may not meter and/or autofocus with older Nikkors, DX lenses don’t cover the full frame on 35mm film, VR lenses won’t provide stabilisation on bodies predating the Nikon F5 of 1996, lenses bearing the G designation have limited use on old film SLRs etc.). Nevertheless, the current lineup of more than sixty Nikkor lenses for Nikon SLR cameras also offers a wide variety of lenses, including fisheyes, super wide-angle to super telephoto lenses and micro lenses.

Review: Read our in-depth review of one of the latest Nikkors, the AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f1.8G

Getty Images today completed its fifth annual photojournalism grants programme by announcing the names of those who have been selected to receive the grants. The winners include photojournalists Krisanne Johnson, Brenda Kenneally and Zalmai (with each receiving $20,000 grants), plus two students, Ed Ou and Carl Kiilsgaard, who will receive $5,000 each, and editorial support to pursue their projects. Krisanne Johnson’s project, “I Love You Real Fast,” examines the lives of young women in Swaziland, where women have a life expectancy of close to 31. Brenda Kenneally’s project, “Upstate Girls: What Became of Collar City,” studies the issues of class and poverty in Troy, New York. Zalmai’s project, “Promises and Lies,” reveals the human cost of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Carl Kiilsgaard’s project, “The White Family,” follows a family that has lived in rural Kentucky – where, in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty that has not yet been won – for generations. Ed Ou’s project, “Perilous Journey,” documents the full journey that Somali refugees take as each year thousands flee from the violence in Mogadishu to the port city of Bosasso and the perilous boat journey to Yemen begins, as they seek work as laborers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

X-Rite has announced a free webinar called ‘Colour Workflow for the Photographer’. The topics include obtaining consistent colour in camera, monitor-to-print matching, digital projector profiling,  benefits of creating and using custom profiles, soft-proofing in Adobe Photoshop and other applications, and applying printer profiles in Photoshop. The free X-Rite webinar is intended for wedding, portrait and landscape photographers, photo lab professionals and anyone doing their own printing. The webinar will be held on 23 September 2009, at 10am GMT. You can sign up at the website below.

Website: Colour Workflow for the Photographer

Kodak have issued a press release about the KAF-18500 image sensor built into the Leica M9 digital rangefinder camera. The M9 is now the fourth Leica camera to utilise KODAK CCDs, building on Kodak’s earlier support of the Leica Digital Module-R, the Leica M8 (Leica’s first digital rangefinder camera), and the new Leica S2. With an image capture area that matches the size of traditional 35mm film, M-series lenses can now be used without the imposition of artificial image cropping, Kodak remarks. Matching this larger image capture area with the rangefinder’s unique optical design required a redesign of both the sensor’s pixel and microlens configuration compared to the sensor used in the M8 camera, which Kodak was allegedly able to achieve without compromising on Leica’s stringent image quality requirements. In addition, the sensor incorporates a new IR-absorbing cover glass as well as a new red colour pigment for improved color fidelity and improved image quality.

We attended the UK launch of the new Leica M9 digital rangefinder camera in Mayfair, London. Available today, £4850 will buy you 18 megapixels of full-frame goodness and the classic Leica M-series handling. Click through to see 17 up close and personal photos of the Leica M9.

We attended the UK launch of the new Leica X1 digital camera in Mayfair, London. Leica were only showing a non-working sample of the X1 behind glass, hence our brief look at what could well turn out to be a relatively mass-market camera for the German manufacturer. Click through to see 6 up close and personal photos of the Leica X1.

Leica has unveiled the Leica M9, an 18-megapixel, full-frame digital rangefinder camera. Currently the smallest full-frame digital camera in the world, the Leica M9 has a 23.9x35.8mm Kodak sensor with an IR cut filter but no anti-alias filter. The viewfinder has a magnification of 0.68x and offers automatic parallax correction. The rangefinder is of course coupled to the viewfinder. The Leica M9 has an electronically controlled, vertically running metal focal plane shutter, with a shutter speed range of 1/4000-32 seconds. Flash synchronisation is via a dedicated hot-shoe, with the x-sync speed being 1/180 second. A special discreet mode allows shutter cocking to be delayed until the photographer takes his finger off the shutter release button. The Leica M9 can shoot continuously at up to two frames per second, and records images on SD and SDHC memory cards, in a choice of DNG and JPEG formats. The suggested retail price of the Leica M9, which shall become available in the next couple of days, is £4,850.

The Leica X1 is a 12.2-megapixel compact camera with an unusually big, APS-C sized sensor and a fast wide-angle lens. It has a fixed-mount, fixed-focal-length Leica Elmarit 24mm (36mm equivalent) f/2.8 lens with high-speed autofocus, and a 23.6x15.8mm CMOS sensor with a 3:2 aspect ratio. The Leica X1 has all the manual control an advanced photographer can desire, from manual exposure to manual focus, but it also comes equipped with a number of automatic options. Touted as an ideal choice for available-light photography, the Leica X1 has a sensitivity range of ISO 100 to ISO 3200. With a maximum shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second and a continuous shootig rate of up to 3 frames per second, the Leica X1 is equally well suited to capturing fleeting, split-second moments. The availability of the Leica X1 is slated for December 2009. The recommended retail price is €1550 in the euro zone. Pricing for the UK, where the Leica X1 shall become available in January 2010 only, has not yet been revealed.

MotionDSP Inc. announced the release of version 1.1 of its vReveal video enhancement software for Windows users. vReveal 1.1 delivers several new features including even more powerful video stabilisation, support for uploads to YouTube in HD, the first integrated Facebook video uploader in a desktop application of this kind, and DivX output support. And using an optional CUDA-enabled NVIDIA graphics processor (GPU), vReveal can process videos up to five times faster, compared to using just a CPU. Examples of how vReveal’s enhancement features improve the appearance of digital videos are available at the vReveal website.

Website: vReveal

Think Tank Photo has announced the launch of its newly redesigned website. The new website features expanded content and video related to working photographers using Think Tank camera bags and laptop bags in the field and the studio. The redesign incorporates Think Tank’s traditional branding with a bold new graphic design and navigation.  Think Tank Photo consulted with Closed Loop Marketing on site strategy, usability and search marketing. Blast Advanced Media built the site on their Motivity e-commerce platform, provided organic SEO consultation services, and advised on the best user-centred design practices.

Website: Think Tank Photo

Harman technology, the company behind the Ilford Photo brand, has announced the “Image on a Box Photographic Competition 2009 – North America”. The competition, whose theme is ‘Fine Art’, is open to US and Canadian residents. Entries must be shot on ILFORD DELTA 400 Professional film and printed on any ILFORD black and white photographic paper. The closing date for the competition is June 30, 2010. The first prize is US $1000 worth of Ilford Photo’s black-and-white products.

Website: Image on a Box

Buffalo Technology today announced the new Buffalo DriveStation with Hardware Encryption, an externalnal desktop hard drive with built-in encryption. Its Full Disk Encryption mode, with robust AES256bit encryption, secures all data as soon as it is written to the drive. With access only available via a pre determined password, users can be sure that all data is secure, safe and hidden. For convenience, the new Secure Lock Manager Easy feature automatically remembers passwords, eliminating the need to enter one each time the drive is accessed. The DriveStation with Hardware Encryption also has a Non-Encryption mode, allowing sharable files to be viewed by a PC or Mac via USB connection. Other features include Memeo AutoSync software, which automatically syncs the DriveStation with a PC or Mac, ensuring backed up files are always kept up to date. The Buffalo DriveStation with Hardware Encryption is available in capacities ranging from 500GB to 2TB from Amazon, Dabs, Insight, Misco and other leading resellers, with pricing starting at £69.99 SRP.

Vanguard, one of the global leaders in photo-video accessories, today announced the launch of its new website. The website includes new product information, 360-degree and zoom product views, videos and more concise descriptions of VANGUARD’s growing collection of tripods, monopods, ball heads, camera bags and cases, binoculars, spotting scopes and associated accessories. Additionally, there are special, login-required sections for dealers, distributors and journalists for immediate access to frequently-requested information.

Website: Vanguard World

NVIDIA has announced that CyberLink MediaShow 5, a new program that organises digital photos based on who is in them, is utilising the CUDA parallel processing power of NVIDIA GeForce graphics processing units (GPUs) to search and sort photo libraries. CyberLink MediaShow 5 searches and organises your photo collection using a sophisticated face recognition algorithm. By utilising co-processing – which leverages the parallel processing power of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs in tandem with the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) – CyberLink MediaShow 5 provides up to a 70% improvement in application speed so you can find the photos you want faster.