Flip Video has announced the UK launch of the Flip MinoHD, allegedly the smallest high-definition camcorder in the world. The Flip MinoHD weighs just three ounces, is small enough to fit in your pocket and records 720p video on its 4GB internal memory. A flip-out USB stick makes it easy to upload the videos captured with the Flip MinoHD to any modern computer. “The product has become one of the most successful camcorders in the U.S. and there has been substantial interest in an HD product from the UK so we are delighted to now launch here,” said Ray Sangster, EMEA President at Flip Video. The Flip MinoHD comes bundled with the auto-loading FlipShare software, and is available now for £169.99.

Ritz Camera Centers have announced that they are about to close more than 300 stores across the US. This is part of a court-supervised bankruptcy reorganisation, which will leave about 400 stores still open around the country, the company says. The retail inventory of the stores that are being closed is valued at more than $50 million, and store closing sales offering substantial discounts on all inventory at those locations will begin on Saturday, April 4.

Ritz Camera Centers, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

Photo credit: Nerdelicious | Source: Wikipedia | Licence

Kodak Ektar 100, an extraordinarily fine-grained colour negative film introduced at Photokina 2008, is now available in 120 size. Kodak announced this new emulsion just before Photokina, saying at first that it would only be manufactured in 35mm format. In February 2009, Kodak changed their minds and unveiled their plan to launch Ektar 100 for medium format as well, arguing that “the response to the introduction of EKTAR 100 Film has been amazing, with many requests to make the new film available in medium format”. At the time of this announcement, Kodak promised that Kodak Ektar 100 in 120 format would hit the shelves in April - and they have kept their promise. The 5-roll 120 Pro Pack is now in stock in a number of Calumet stores across the USA, retailing for $17.49.

Member of Parliament John Randall led a debate on recent restrictions on public photography in the House of Commons. He addressed three main issues, namely the taking of photographs in public places by amateurs, the recent advent of Google Street View, and the police using power against “bona fide journalists”. In addition to these topics, Randall also mentioned the “incredible hysteria about taking any photographs that might contain a child”. The debate lasted about half an hour and involved other Members of Parliament as well as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Website: Read the full transcript of the debate in the Commons Hansard

ImageSpan, creator of licensing and royalty payment automation platform LicenseStream, has partnered with image copyright service provider PicScout. This partnership serves “to help LicenseStream subscribers immediately monetise content found by PicScout and obtain more value from that content as it gets published across the Web”, as the jointly issued press release puts it. Online image theft is seen as “a huge and growing problem”, with lost revenues from unauthorised uses of images online allegedly exceeding $65 million. The cooperation between ImageSpan and PicScout promises to provide LicenseStream subscribers with a means of tracking how, when and where their images are being used or abused.

The family-friendly online photo sharing website kizoa.com has just relaunched. Kizoa.com, also accessible via kizoa.co.uk, allows users to create slideshows with drag-and-drop simplicity, organise photos into albums and join groups, and also provides them with an easy-to-use online editing interface.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will host an exhibition of 52 photographic portraits of the leading men and women in Barack Obama’s government, shot on the eve of the presidential inauguration. In the heady days of last year’s election campaign, world-renowned photographer Nadav Kander was commissioned to take portraits of the President-elect’s new government as it was being assembled. Now, for the first time, these images will be on show to the public at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. The exhibition takes place between 18 April and 31 August 2009.

Phase One has released Capture One 4.7, an update to its popular Capture One program. The update adds a new file format for Phase One raw files. The Enhanced Image Package (.eip file extension) permits packaging of a Phase One RAW image file together with the adjustment settings applied to the raw file, with no changes to the original raw file or re-arrangement of settings. Also, Capture One 4.7 now accepts TIFF and JPEG as input file formats, making it possible to use all image editing tools - except lens correction - on them. Finally, the Capture One 4.7 DB and 4.7 PRO also support tethered shooting with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the Nikon D3X digital SLRs.

Capture One 4.7 is a free service release to existing Capture One 4.x owners.

Sony has unveiled the Sony Handycam HDR-TG7VE ultra-compact HD camcorder, which also takes still photos. The new Handycam HDR-TG7VE boasts 16 Gigabytes of internal memory, enough for 6 hours of Full HD recording, in addition to offering full compatibility with Sony’s Memory Stick cards, plus automatic geotagging with GPS and a Map Index View, a stills mode for capturing 4-megapixel digital photos, Intelligent Face Detection and Sony’s Smile Shutter technology. Videos and photos are played back on a 2.7” touch-sensitive LCD. Availability is slated for May 2009.

B&H Photo Video’s New York SuperStore and offices will be closed for Passover from Wednesday, April 8th through Thursday, April 16th. A notice posted to B&H’s website says that orders must be placed by 11:00AM EDT on Tuesday, April 7th in order to ship before the holiday. Any order placed after this time will only ship when B&H reopens.

Bogen Imaging GmbH has announced that it had been appointed exclusive distributor of the Litepanels Micro LED camera lights in Germany. Litepanels Micro lights provide a soft, continuous fill light for photographers and videographers alike, and are powered by easily available AA batteries. The RRP is €329 including German VAT.

In the UK, the Litepanels Micro LED lights are already available at retail, costing around £280 including VAT.

Website: Bogen Imaging Deutschland Press Release (in German)

Olympus has announced a firmware update for the Olympus E-30 DSLR. Version 1.1 addresses the following issues:

- Reduces the sound of Image stabiliser operations when IMAGER AF and HYBRID AF are being used.
- Resolves the issue where pressing the delete button in Close-up playback occasionally caused the Card access lamp to blink.
- Resolves the issue where images with a changed aspect ratio played back with Index display sometimes had horizontal stripes.

Website: Olympus Firmware Updates
Review: Read our in-depth review of the Olympus E-30

The winners of the March 2009 PhotographyBLOG Competition have been selected by a panel of judges. The theme for March was “Buildings” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
Oslo opera by skweeky

Prize: 1 copy of Powerretouche Full Pro Pack
Kindly donated by Powerretouche.
http://powerretouche.com

The 3 lucky winners of our fantastic March 2009 Newsletter contest have been randomly selected from the PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscriber list.

John Frenzel wins a 160GB Clickfree Portable Backup Drive worth £93.99.

Jon McGovern and Sam Radford each win a Billingham Large Hadley bag, worth £125.99 each.

RCP-Technik GmbH & Co. KG has announced a new entry-level compact camera marketed under the Rollei brand. If you’ve always wanted to own a Rollei but never been able to justify the cost, the Rollei Compactline 90 may be just the camera you’ve been waiting for. Of course, a point-and-shoot model with a 3x zoom lens, a nine-megapixel 1/2.5” sensor, face and smile detection and 21 scene modes is not quite the same thing as a classic Rolleiflex TLR - but at an RRP of €79.95, the Compactline 90 must be one of the most affordable Rolleis ever.

Website: RCP-Technik Press Release (in German)

Photo Iconic has announced a series of landscape photography holidays in the Tatra Mountains National Park. The High and the Low Tatras, located in Central Europe, offer some of the continent’s most stunning scenery. The week-long photographic holidays take place in the Slovakian part of the mountains. Photo Iconic has teamed up with wildlife photographer Chris Weston and specialist holiday company Mountain Paradise to offer a package comprising an airline ticket from the UK, full-board chalet accommodation for a week, the services of a private guide and photographic tuition from two award-winning photographers. The price is £945 per person, of which £100 go to the Tatra Foundation. Course dates are May 30th - June 5th and June 6th - June 12th.

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Mentors,” an exhibition of work by BFA Photography Department students. The images are inspired by their year-long mentorship with key figures in the New York arts community. The exhibition will be on view April 10 - 25 at the Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26 Street, 15th Floor, New York City.

Image: Sean Gutowski, Burning Ship, 2009, C-print

1-click actions have announced the availability of the latest update to the Photoshop Actions DVD. It offers over 1.4 GB of actions, borders and textures. The latest version is available now at a cost of $249.95. Discounted upgrades are available for existing owners of 1-click actions products.

Accessory Power has announced a new universal charger that will charge not only AA and AAA rechargables but a large number of proprietary Li-ion batteries too. ChargeALL is compatible with over 100 different digital camera batteries, according to the company’s claims. Moreover, the charger has an LCD panel that lets you monitor progress and reports if a battery has gone bad. No word on pricing yet.