The Fujifilm FinePix A100 is a new entry-level 10 megapixel digital camera. Aimed at families and first-time digital camera owners, stand-out features offered by the Fujifilm A100 include Face Detection technology, a 3.0x optical zoom lens, ISO 1600 sensitivity and a 2.7” LCD screen. The Fujifilm FinePix A100 will be available from the end of February, with UK pricing to be announced nearer to the date of the launch.

The 54 lucky winners of our fantastic January 2009 Newsletter contest have been randomly selected from the PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscriber list.

Sandra Maria de Souza, Kim Lam, Caroline Lewis and Suella Orme each win a Trek-Tech Optera 230, worth £45 / $60 each.

50 runners-up all win a set of Energizer Advanced Lithium Batteries, worth $7.99 each.

The Nikon Coolpix P90 is a new 24x ultra-zoom digital camera. Equivalent to 26-624mm, the Nikon P90 can also shoot pictures as close up as 1cm. The 12.1 megapixel P90 is certainly no slouch - it can take up to 45 shots at 15 fps and record images before you’ve pressed the shutter button. The Nikon P90 also features a 3-inch vari-angle LCD screen, an electronic viewfinder, PSAM exposure modes and ISO 6400. Four Anti-blur technologies, Auto Scene, Face Priority AF, Smile Mode and Blink Warning complete the headline specs. Available in Black, the Nikon Coolpix P90 will go on sale on 13th March 2009 for £379.99 / €449.00 / $399.95.

The new 12 megapixel Nikon Coolpix S630 offers style, speed and simplicity in a compact camera body. The Nikon S630 features a 7x optical zoom lens, image-sensor shift VR, the all-new Blink Proof which combines Smile mode and Blink Warning, Sports Continuous Mode with up to 10 fps and Scene Auto mode. Available in Black or Ruby Red, the Nikon Coolpix S630 will go on sale on 20th February 2009 for £289 / €319 / $279.95.

The new Nikon Coolpix S620 is an extremely fast camera housed in a compact, well designed body. The Nikon S620 features a start-up time of just 0.7s, a 4x optical zoom lens starting at 28mm wide, 2.7-inch LCD screen and high sensitivity range up to ISO 6400. It also includes four anti-blur technologies, including lens-shift VR, and Motion Detection, new Blink Proof and Quick Retouch, Subject Tracking AF and Scene Auto Selector. Available in Bright Silver, Calm Black, Noble Purple and Precious Pink, the Nikon Coolpix S620 will go on sale on 20th February 2009 for £239 / €269 / $269.95.

The 10 megapixel Nikon Coolpix S230 and S220 are the most elegant cameras in the new S-Series. The Nikon S230 features a combination of an advanced 3.0 inch touch-screen with basic buttons, new Blink Proof, Quick Retouch, Scene Auto Selector and Scene Mode, and a 3x zoom lens. At just 18mm, the Nikon S220 is thin and lightweight (approx. 100 g) and has a 2.5 inch LCD monitor. Both the S230 and S220 have metallic bodies that will fit any small bag and come in a range of fashionable colours varying from Soft Silver, Warm Silver, Aqua Green, Gloss Red, Night Blue, Cobalt Blue and Magenta to Black. The Nikon S230 and Nikon S220 will go on sale on 20th February 2009 for £189 / €209 / $229.95 and £149 / €159 / $149.95 respectively.

The Nikon Coolpix L100 is a new 10 megapixel camera with a 15x zoom lens. Covering a wide-angle 28mm to super-telephoto 420mm, the Nikon L100 can even capture objects from as close up as 1cm. The L100’s Sports Continuous Mode allows up to 13 fps, and it offers four anti-blur features, including Image Sensor Shift VR image stabilisation. Smile Mode takes the picture when your subject looks his or her best whilst Blink Warning warns you when your subjects have their eyes closed. The Nikon Coolpix L100 will be available from 13th March 2009 for £239.99 / €269.00 / $279.95.

The Nikon Coolpix L20 and L19 are two new affordable cameras packed with high-quality features. The Nikon L20 and Nikon L19 (10 and 8 megapixels respectively) both feature Full-Auto Mode, Scene Auto selector, Smile Mode and Blink Warning and are powered by AA batteries. Large buttons and controls, and a 3-inch and 2.7-inch LCD monitor on the Coolpix L20 and Coolpix L19 respectively, improve operational ease. On sale from 20th February 2009, the Nikon L20 is available in black metallic and deep red for £129.99 / €139.00 / $129.95, and the Nikon L19 in bright silver or shiny pink for £99.99 / €109.00 / $109.95.

The latest dxomark.com updates include RAW sensor rankings for medium format cameras. Measurements for the Hasselblad H3DII, Leaf Aptus 75s, Mamiya ZD, and Phase One P45+ cameras are now available. “Adding our measurements on this first set of medium-format cameras to our database demonstrates our commitment to our goal of building the most comprehensive database of RAW image information available,” said Nicolas Touchard, Vice President of Marketing, DxO Labs Image Quality Evaluation.

Olympus have released a new firmware upgrade for the Olympus E-3 DSLR camera. Version 1.3 includes the following changes::

- select the AF target by pressing the arrow keys
- improves AF accuracy when using fast lenses with f2.0 aperture
- improves C-AF performance
- improves battery life when using the HLD-4 battery holder

The firmware can be updated through the Olympus Master software.

The speed of the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive has now been doubled to 8x. The increased speed to burn files applies to both single and dual-layer discs. The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive packs up to 50 GB of data on a single Blu-ray disc. “With the doubling of the speed to burn Blu-ray discs, video professionals will be able to spend more time creating content and less time on production,” said Christelle Dexet, Multimedia Product Manager for LaCie. “And for those who need to safely store large quantities of information for extended periods of time on secure removable media, the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive is an ideal solution.” The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive is available now for $449.99.

Portraiture 2 is a new skin retouching plugin for Adobe Photoshop from Imagenomic. Portraiture 2 intelligently smooths and removes imperfections whilst preserving skin texture and details such as hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. The built-in Auto-Mask feature quickly identifies most of the skin tone range of the image automatically, saving you time and effort. Portraiture 2 supports both Mac OSX and Windows XP/Vista operating systems and is fully compatible with Photoshop Elements and Photoshop (32 and 64-bit versions). Jon Canfield finds out if Portraiture 2 is worth $199.95 in our latest review.

Website: Portraiture 2 Review

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

1st Place
One day old by Igor

Prize: 1 x 24x24” or 24x18” Canvas Print of a Photo of Your Choice
Kindly donated by Photo Artistry.
http://www.photoartistry.co.uk

The Pentax Optio E70L is a new 10 megapixel entry-level camera. Featuring a 3x zoom lens (32-96mm), 2.4 inch LCD screen, ISO 80-6400 and face recognition and smile detection, the Pentax E70L is powered by widely available AA batteries. The Pentax Optio E70L will be available in March 2009 for £99.99 including case and batteries.

Canon has launched the EOS Professional Network (EPN) across the UK and Ireland. Consisting of EOS Professional Centres and EOS Professional Stockists, the Professional Network has been developed to provide the very best retail experience within the professional imaging market. “We are delighted to launch the EOS Professional Network which will give photographers greater access to Canon imaging products.  It has been developed to equip our retailers with the very best tools, to support, demonstrate and supply the complete Canon solution to photographers”. commented Lee Bonniface, Special Retail, Sales Director CCI UK & Ireland.

Microstock image website Pixmac are offering $500 for every 500 pictures uploaded and approved. From 1st February 2009, all contributors who upload their pictures on Pixmac will get a $500 sales guarantee for 2 years for every 500 approved pictures.If you want to get the cash immediately, you can choose the option to get $100 for every 500 approved pictures - before having had any sales. This promotion runs until 28th February 2009.

The JOBO photoGPS is now compatible with the Mac operating system. The JOBO photoGPS is a small and lightweight GPS receiver that fits directly on any digital camera’s hot shoe. Suggested retail price for the JOBO photoGPS is $159. The optional Hot shoe adapter for Sony cameras is $49.90.

UK photographic retailer Jessops has reported a loss of £19.1 Million for 2008. This follows a loss in 2007 of £9.3m. Like for like sales for the year ended 30 September 2008 were down 6.5% year on year. The compact camera market was up 7.3% in volume but down 5% in value and the DSLR market was up 16.1% in volume and 19.3% in value. David Adams, Executive Chairman, said: “It is not clear when economic conditions will improve but the combination of our strong market position, solid relationships with suppliers and continuing cost reductions should ensure that Jessops is in the best position operationally to deal with the very difficult economic conditions in which we are operating.”

Kodak is cutting upto 4,500 jobs during 2009, after reporting a fourth-quarter loss of $133 million. Fourth-quarter sales were $2.433 billion, a 24% decline from the year-ago quarter. Digital sales for the fourth quarter were $1.779 billion, a 23% decline from the year-ago quarter, and traditional revenues were $652 million, a 27% decline from the year-ago quarter.

“The second half of 2008 will go down in history as one of the most challenging periods we have seen in decades,” said Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Eastman Kodak Company. “We built significant momentum following the completion of our corporate transformation and our business results were on track through most of 2008, with digital revenue up 10% in the first half of the year, following double-digit growth in the second-half of 2007. However, during the last three months of the year, we experienced dramatic declines in several of our key businesses due to the slowdown in consumer spending and significantly reduced demand for capital equipment.”

Website: Kodak Press Release

Panasonic is closing two factories in Malaysia and the Philippines with the loss of 560 jobs. Blaming a “a rapid change in the global electronics market,” workers at the electronics parts plant and battery factory are affected. In a separate development, the Nikkei paper has reported that Panasonic will report a a net loss of about 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) for 2008/9, its first loss for 6 years.

Website: Panasonic to cut 560 jobs, close Asian plants