Shot entirely with the Nokia N95 mobile phone, the Connected Worlds exhibition visits 9 cities in 5 continents. London, Paris, Venice, New York, San Francisco, Sidney, Capetown, Singapore and Hong Kong are the venues. At up to 7 meters long the images set out to challenge how we look at mobile phone imaging and create a vibrant panoramic portrait of the elements that make each city unique. The Exhibition opens at the Royal Albert Hall On October 24th. The exhibition will be open to the public on two open days, Saturday October 27th and Saturday November 3 from 11.00am - 3.00pm. The images by Henry Reichhold, pioneering photographer and artist, will be printed using an Epson Stylus Pro 9800 44” large format printer and UltraChrome K3 ink. It will be displayed at the Royal Albert Hall. The Connected Worlds project consist of two exhibitions one ‘realworld ’ and one ‘virtual’. The duality of this approach aims to reflect the way in which images are being shared across the world. The Virtual exhibition will open on Nokia’s Secondlife Island on October 24th 2007 and consist of a purpose built Island Gallery that marks Nokia’s entry into Secondlife - opening up the exhibition to a huge new audience.

Snapfish is calling on Britons to upload photos of what makes them happy to help raise money for NCH, the children’s charity. For every photo of happiness uploaded to http://www.snapfish.co.uk/snaphappy, £1 will be donated. Independent research has revealed that Britons think that romantic love is the single best way to achieve happiness, and that laughter is best for a happiness quick fix.

Printroom, an online storefront for photographers, has relaunched a new website with with significant new capabilities and membership services. Photographers can now create their own branded dynamic, Flash-driven websites in minutes. “Until now, photographers had to either settle for a very basic web storefront or spend thousands to have specialists build a custom web site,” said Andrew Baum, Printroom vice president of marketing. “Printroom effectively shortens the distance between the shutter and profits by enabling photographers to have their own compelling Flash website, complete with Printroom’s highly regarded lab services and fulfillment, for just $99 per year.” Printroom has immediately begun offering this new service.

CNET have reviewed the new Canon SX100, the first camera in the new SX series, offering a 10x zoom, image stabilized lens and 8 megapixel resolution.

“What the camera sacrifices in speed, however, it makes up for in photo quality. Perhaps it’s just the result of an extra few months of tweaking since the S5 shipped, but the SX100’s photo quality, especially at higher ISO sensitivity settings, clearly improves upon its siblings. At ISO 800, for example, there’s far less of a mottled look in the SX100’s shots, but with no increased loss of detail. The new lens has better distortion characteristics—less distortion and more symmetry—and photos look sharp without looking oversharpened.”

Website: CNET - Canon Powershot SX100 Review

Website: Read our Canon Powershot SX100 IS Review

Steves Digicams have reviewed the Olympus Stylus 790 SW, a new shockproof, waterproof digital camera.

“As with all Stylus SW series cameras, the 790 SW features a durable metal exterior and is made watertight by rubber gaskets on the inside to seal gaps and prevent moisture from entering the body. This allows it to be used in a gentle sprinkle or to be completely submerged up to 10 feet. If your picture taking leads to deeper depths, then the optional PT-041 Underwater Housing is required. It can handle water pressure depths of up to 40 meters. Add that with the 790’s various Underwater scene modes, and you have one great little underwater point-n-shoot.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Olympus Stylus 790 SW Review

DigitalCameraInfo have reviewed the Canon A720 IS digital camera, which offers 8 megapixels and optical image stabilization.

“The Canon A720 IS is a unique hybrid of an entry-level budget point-and-shoot and an advanced manual control camera. The PowerShot fits into a rare category of 6x mid-range zooms since most manufacturers tend to stick to the standard 3x optical zoom or push the optics up to 18x. There are, however, a select number of competitors in the field of 6x or 7x optical zoom cameras, though most don’t offer the image quality the A720 IS affords. In general, the Canon A720 IS is a good budget point-and-shoot for automatic shooters who might turn to manual shooters. With its optical image stabilization, mid-range zoom, sub-$250 price tag, and solid performance, the PowerShot A720 IS is a good value.”

Website: DigitalCameraInfo - Canon A720 IS Review

The Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro camera is now available at the reduced price of $1,699.95, along with a a free Power Grip and Pantone Huey Pro. Available only through authorized Fujifilm dealers, the “Get a Grip” promotion represents a total savings of $480. “With this new promotion, we’re happy to make it easier for those photographers who have been waiting for the opportunity to get the S5 Pro,” says Darin Pepple, consumer and professional marketing manager with Fujifilm’s Electronic Imaging Division.  “And the new Power Grip provides a useful, proven tool for the professional photographer.”   

The Hasselblad H3DII-39MS is a multi-shot version of the recently announced H3DII-39 DSLR camera. The H3DII-39MS eliminates the need to interpolate images and enables both single- and multi-shot DSLR capability. “With the H3DII-39MS, in addition to single-shot technology, we’ve included our multi-shot technology to offer professional photographers of still life and architecture a camera system that gives them image quality equal or in many cases superior to anything they’ve experienced before, as well as the functionality, flexibility and ease of use of a digital system.” commented Christian Poulsen, CEO of Hasselblad. The H3DII-39MS will be available from January 2008 for $43,995.

Hasselblad is also announcing the H2F, a simplified, film-only version of the H2 camera, which it is replacing at a substantially lower price. The H2F offers full compatibility with H System HV viewfinders, film magazines, and HC lenses. The Hasselblad H2F will be available from November 2007 for $2,799 body only or $7,678 for the H2F camera kit.

Following the release of the E-3 on Tuesday, Olympus is targeting at least 20% global market share for DSLR cameras within 5 years, according to a report by Reuters. Aiming to become one of the top 3 leaders in the sector, Olympus are taking on the likes of Canon, Nikon and most notably Sony, who recently released the A700 DSLR. Other possible contenders include Pentax, Samsung and Panasonic. Olympus’s current market share is around 8%. Much will depend upon the acceptance of the Four Thirds standard, which all Olympus DSLR cameras and lenses are based upon.

Website: Reuters

The Sony HDMS-S1D Digital Photo Album features an 80GB hard drive, connects to a high definition television via HDMI and can store up to 50,000 high resolution photos. Images can be imported via multiple flash memory card formats, CD, DVD, USB or Ethernet. The HDMS-S1D Digital Photo Album uses Sony’s face detection technology to locate faces in photographs and adjusts the slideshow transitions around the location of faces. The Sony HDMS-S1D will be available in October for about $400.

Have you bought a digital camera because it offers face detection, but been disappointed by the slow performance? FotoNation have the answer with the catchily-named FastTrack IPC, hardware acceleration technology that improves Face-Tracking quality and performance by up to 400%. It won’t make any difference to your current camera, but will probably appear in future models, as FotoNation’s system is used by a significant number of manufacturers. “With FastTrack IPC, we are providing better image quality and a prolonged battery life, which are always important in the design of handheld electronic products, such as cameras and camera phones,” said Eran Steinberg, CEO of FotoNation Inc.

Blurb Community Books is the first ever hybrid client/web service to enable groups of people to make books together. Community Books opens up a new way for socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to stay connected and create together. They can be shared, marketed, and sold at cost or for profit in the free Blurb Bookstore. Blurb’s new Community Book capability enables connected creatives to easily make group-contributed books that capture and reinforce their shared experiences and passions,” said Eileen Gittins, Blurb’s founder and CEO.

Blurb BookSmart 1.9 Beta is free bookmaking software which enables you to make professional-quality books. New design elements, more than 45 new layouts in each of Blurb’s four book sizes, and the ability to create community books are included in this version. “This version of BookSmart is our most ambitious product release in company history,” said Eileen Gittins, Blurb’s founder and CEO. “Blurb users make several thousand books each week, and are very vocal about their experiences and what they’d like to see next. We listen, prioritize, and develop based on this ongoing conversation with our users.” Blurb’s BookSmart software is free, runs on a Mac or PC, and offers a wide variety of book layouts created by professional book designers.

The Inside Digital Photo radio show have interviewed Scott Kelby, author of a string of bestselling Photoshop books. Kelby talks about his new book and soon to be patented training methodology “The Photoshop 7 Point System”. Scott Kelby realized that there are many photographers do not work in Photoshop every day and even though they may have taken a course or experienced it, without repetition and practice getting around this often complex application is not always easy to navigate. He promises, with his new methodology anyone can. Known as a Nikon shooter, Kelby also discusses his experiences using Canon gear.

Website: Inside Digital Photo - Scott Kelby Interview

Fujifilm’s “Capture to Print Solutions” seminars for professional photographers show how Fujifilm’s FinePix S5 Pro DSLR can be usedfor school, portrait, sports and wedding photography. Held in five cities across the United States, the seminar series will kick off on Monday, November 5th in Orlando. The half-day “Capture to Print Solutions” seminars are completely free to attend.

The Samsung NV20 is a new 12 megapixel digital compact camera featuring the radical touch-sensitive user interface that debuted on the NV range in 2006. As well as the slight resolution increase, Samsung have also added Face Recognition and an expanded ISO range to their new flagship model. The 2.5 inch LCD screen, 34-102mm, Advanced Shake Reduction mode and stylish black metal body of the NV20 are exactly the same as on the older NV10 camera. So has the Samsung NV20 merely undergone a superficial makeover, or is it a genuine improvement compared to its predecessor? Mark Goldstein battled against the inclement British weather to find out…

Website: Samsung NV20 Review

The 8GB SanDisk Extreme III SDHC memory card can store more than 4,000 high-resolution pictures or up to 16 hours of MPEG 4 video. The card has a read/write speed of 20 megabytes per second and is packaged with the SanDisk MicroMate USB 2.0 Reader. Expected to ship within the next 30 days to U.S. retailers, the 8GB SanDisk Extreme III SDHC will costs $179.99.

In a Nikon sponsored white paper from research company IDC, Nikon has been named as the worldwide leader in regards to Wi-Fi integration. The IDC report states “To date, Nikon is the only digital camera manufacturer to consistently and fully embrace wireless photography. IDC predicts that other top vendors will seek to catch up and embrace wireless photography as well, spurring industry-wide adoption.” 60 percent of respondents said that they would be somewhat or much more likely to consider one camera over another if it included wireless connectivity, and that they would pay up to $86 more for a camera with this ability.

So is this true? Would you choose a camera because it had built-in Wi-fi connectivity, and pay more for it? The market as a whole seems to believe nthat you won’t, as Nikon are one of the few manufacturers to really support Wi-Fi - but what do you think?

Kingston Technology have published a 20 question interview with photographer Colin Finlay, known for his photojournalism images as well as his advertising work. Finlay has documented with compassion, empathy and dignity the human condition as it has unfolded throughout the world for the last 17 years. “I appreciate the opportunity to share my work through the ‘Icons of Photography’ Web site,” said Finlay. “The photo critiques are great and I enjoy reading what the other Icons have to say. I’m fortunate to call the other Icons friends and I am proud to be a part of such a great, diverse group.”

Reviews aggregator website Wize has released its list of the top 5 digital cameras. Wize compiles user and expert reviews to deliver definitive ratings for consumer products through its propriety Wize Rank, a product ranking scoring system. The Canon PowerShot SD750 / IXUS 75 (pictured) came out on top of the pile, followed by the Casio Exilim EXZ75, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W55, Canon PowerShot SD850 IS and Olympus Stylus 770 SW.