The US price of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 has now been confirmed. The World’s first Micro Four Thirds camera will cost $799 with the 14-45mm kit lens when it launches in in mid-November. The new 45-200mm telephoto lens will cost $349 and also be available in in mid-November. In the UK, the kit price has been confirmed as £599.

The winners of the 2008 Nikon Small World competition have been announced. Michael Stringer’s dazzling photo of Pleurosigma (marine diatoms) was magnified 200 times and taken using darkfield and polarized light. “My objective was to display diatoms in today’s modern style, through the careful application of colors,” said Mr. Stringer, “I couldn’t be more pleased that the Small World judges recognized the artistic vision in this image.” The 2008 gallery of winning images can be viewed at www.nikonsmallworld.com .

The PhotoScope 85 T* FL from Carl Zeiss is a combined telescope and digital camera that offers a focal length of 600 to 1800mm. Small objects as close as five meters to faraway objects can be captured digitally by the integrated 7 megapixel digital camera. To take a picture, open the 7.5 cm OLED screen on the side of the device, on which the live image can be seen and camera parameter settings can be entered. An IR remote control which can also be used to make all camera settings enables vibration-free release. The launch of the PhotoScope 85 T* FL is scheduled for spring/summer 2009.

There’s over $75,000 of prizes up for grabs in the 2009 International Underwater Photo competition. The 4th annual international underwater photography and video competition series hosted by UnderwaterCompetition.com starts this week. Prizes include premium dive travel, underwater photo and video equipment, scuba diving gear and more. The deadline for submissions is January 15th 2009.

Adobe Camera Raw 5 is now available as part of Photoshop CS4. Camera Raw 5 has a number of new features:

  * Local adjustment brush
  * Graduated Filter
  * “Post Crop” Vignetting
  * Opacity for the cloning/healing tool
  * Improved Auto Adjustment
  * Support for the new Camera Profiles that are still in beta form

Website: Photoshop CS4 with Camera Raw 5 Now Shipping

The RAW workflow software Capture One 4 Pro is now available. Capture One 4 Pro has been designed to enhance the image quality of professional digital captures. “Phase One supports pro photographers who prefer straightforward, responsive, effective options to meet uncompromising standards of quality,” said British fashion photographer Drew Gardner. “So you find in Capture One 4 PRO an experience more consistent with what photography is all about.” Phase One’s Capture One 4 Pro costs $399 and 299 Euros.

Lexar Elite Photographers Vincent Laforet, Moose Peterson, and Rick Sammon will be sharing their extensive knowledge at PhotoPlus Expo 2008 in New York. They will show their latest work, discuss their experiences as professional photographers, and answer questions about their digital imaging workflow. Visit the the Lexar booth between 12:00 pm and 4:00 pm each day at PhotoPlus Expo.

Photographs by Philip Jones Griffiths will be on display in Recollections at the National Conservation Centre in Liverpool. The first display of his work since Griffiths died in March this year, the exhibition will feature around 60 images of Britain in the 1950s and 60s. Recollections by Philip Jones Griffiths runs from from 17 October 2008 to 15 March 2009.

FocalPoint is a Photoshop plugin that enables you to put the point of focus in a photograph exactly where you want it. This selective focus and vignetting plug-in is designed to help photographers easily blur and vignette areas of an image. In the past, expensive or difficult to control selective focus and tilt-shift lenses, filters or vignetting hoods have been used to create this effect - now FocalPoint promises to achieve the same effect but with more control and greater speed than before. Jon Canfield took a look at what FocalPoint has to offer.

Website: FocalPoint Review

Apple have updated their entire Macbook laptop range. The new MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro have all-metal enclosures, LED-backlit displays and pro-performance notebook graphics. “Apple has invented a whole new way of building notebooks from a single block of aluminium. And, just as important, they are the industry’s greenest notebooks”, said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new MacBooks offer incredible features our users will love — like their stunning all-metal design, great 3D graphics and LED backlit displays — at prices up to £350 / $700 less than before”. Apple have also updated the MacBook Air and the 17-inch MacBook Pro.

The new Apple LED Cinema Display is a 24 inch LED-backlit widescreen monitor. It features a built-in iSight video camera, MagSafe charger, three USB 2.0 ports, new Mini DisplayPort, mic and speakers in a thin aluminium and glass enclosure. The new LED Cinema Display is the greenest Apple display ever, made with mercury-free LED technology, arsenic-free glass and highly recyclable materials. The Apple LED Cinema Display will be available in November for £649 / $899.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 is now available. There are six new versions - Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, Web Standard, Production Premium and Master Collection - plus 13 stand-alone programs, including Photoshop CS4. Pricing for the collections starts from $1699 in the US. Take a look at our Photoshop CS4 review to find out what’s new.

The Mamiya DL28 is a brand new, affordable medium-format camera system. The DL28 marries the professionally proven Mamiya camera system to the innovative 28 megapixel Aptus-II 6 Digital Back from Leaf. It features a 28 megapixel image sensor with a pixel size of 7.2 microns, 16-bit capture, 12 stop dynamic range and an ISO range of 50-800, and a large 3.5 inch LCD screen. The 28 MP back provides raw files of 53Mb, and 16 bit TIFF files in excess of 159 Mb. The Mamiya DL28 will be available in November for $14,999.

Olympus, Panasonic and Sigma have launched a collaborative firmware update service for the Four Thirds System standard. The new online service allows users to update the firmware in their Four Thirds DSLR lenses, even when the camera and lens are not made by the same manufacturer. Previously, lens firmware could only be updated when the lens was mounted on a camera made by the same manufacturer. Scheduled to start today, this new joint service is the first of its kind in the photography industry.

The Iomega StorCenter ix2 is a new network storage appliance aimed at small businesses and home users. Priced from £219 for the 1Tb version and £309 for the 2Tb version, the StorCenter ix2 provides centralized storage to share, secure and protect your photos, mp3 files, videos and financial records. “The ix2 puts even the most non-technical person at ease with its straightforward operation. But behind the scenes, the ix2 utilizes advanced data protection and data management programs that haven’t been available to consumers and small businesses before. With the ix2, users are literally four clicks away from storage technologies built on the heritage of those that protect data at the world’s largest organizations, all at a cost of a little over £200.” said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC.

Ricoh have released a firmware update for the R10 compact camera. Version 1.14 fixes the following issue:

Even if you set the [Fix Min. Aperture] ON, it will take a picture with aperture open in some conditions.

Website: Ricoh R10 Firmware Update 1.14

We’ve published a selection of sample photos and a video taken with the brand new Ricoh R10 compact camera. The Ricoh R10 is a 10 megapixel digital camera with a 7.1x, 28-200mm wide-angle zoom lens. There are 30 full-sized JPEGs and 1 video for you to download. Our full Ricoh R10 review will follow later this week…

Website: Ricoh R10 Photos

Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure is a new book that gives you a hands-on, guided tour of Lightroom 2.0. Author Mikkel Aaland shares the techniques and photographs from a recent trip to Tasmania, where he led 18 colleagues and a team of Adobe experts on a Lightroom 2.0 road test. In Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure, you’ll find expert tips, updated information for the most recent release of Lightroom, and step-by-step instructions. Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure is available now for $44.99 / £27.99.

The Hahnemuhle Gallerie Wrap System allows artists and photographers to produce professional quality gallery wraps in minutes. Gallerie Wrap is a complete system of easy-to-use fastening components and stretching frames to accommodate most popular imaging formats. With the Hahnemuhle Gallerie Wrap System, you can make the canvas print, stretch and fasten it to the frame yourself, in about 5 minutes. Hahnemuhle Gallerie Wrap stretching frames are available in two sizes. The Standard Stretching Bars offer a frame depth of 1 ¼” tall, and the depth of the PRO Stretcher Bars is 1 ¾”.

PNY has launched the “Let Our Memory Capture Your Memories” photo contest to help raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Parents can submit a favorite photo of their child to the contest and encourage their friends and family to vote for the photo. The contest runs until January 31st 2009, and PNY will donate $20,000 to St. Jude in the winner’s name. PNY are separately donating $100,000 to the hospital.