The 2015 Sony World Photography Awards, organised by the World Photography Organisation (WPO), are now open for entries. Photographers will compete for a range of cash prizes and the latest digital imaging equipment from Sony. The Professional contest has 15 categories with entries being judged on the basis of a series of work, the Open competition has 10 categories and submissions are judged on a single image each. There is a Youth contest for photographers under 20, and a Student Focus competition for higher education photography students aged 18-30. The Open and Youth competitions will close for entries at 23.59 GMT on Monday 5 January 2015 with the exception of the Professional competition, which will close at 23.59 GMT on Thursday 8 January 2015.

Adorama has announced new updates to its VIP programme, offering more benefits, savings and exclusive offers than before. New features, perks and goodies include 30GB of smarter cloud photo and video storage from Picturelife, a complimentary photography lesson from New York Institute of Photography expert photographers, and a free 8”x8” AdoramaPix Photo Book. Additionally, for a limited time, customers can sign up for Adorama’s VIP programme at absolutely no cost. To join, simply visit the website below.

Canon U.S.A. has kicked off its Canon In Action Tour, an educational roadshow ideal for advanced amateur SLR users and filmmaking enthusiasts. The tour includes live-learning seminars and workshops in several major US cities between now and 23 November 2014. Tour attendees will have the opportunity to take part in an in-depth Imaging Essentials Saturday seminar, and/or intensive Sunday training workshops for a nominal fee. Each Saturday seminar covers still-imaging topics ranging from lens selection and composition, to understanding histograms and flash photography with Canon’s versatile Speedlite system. The Canon In Action Tour Sunday workshop offers participants a choice of two all-day, hands-on workshops:  Speedlite Intensive or Exploring DSLR Video. A full schedule of cities and dates for the Canon In Action tour is available at the website below.

Sony today announced availability and pricing details for its Alpha A7S full-frame compact system camera. The Sony A7S will go on general sale in Europe from the end of July 2014 priced at approximately £2,100 and is available to pre-order now on country-specific Sony websites. Additionally, the company announced that the A7S will offer the user the ability to activate a ‘Silent Shooting’ mode, thus making the photographer as unobtrusive as possible. In addition, the recently announced RX100 III will start shipping in Europe at the beginning of July 2014 and will be priced at approximately £700.

The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum (IPHF) has announced it was selected as one of the arts organisations awarded a grant from The PNC Foundation through the PNC Arts Alive initiative in 2014. PNC Arts Alive is a two-year, $1 million initiative from The PNC Foundation that supports visual and performing arts groups with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement in new and innovative ways. The grant was awarded in support of the IPHF’s International Photography Collaborative – “View Through a Lens” – an arts and cultural exchange programme between St. Louis, Missouri and Nanjing, China.

The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, a smartphone with 10x optical zoom, will go on sale in the United Kingdom tomorrow, 31st May. Boasting a remarkably slim and chic body with a 20.7-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), Full HD video, and a Xenon flash; the Galaxy K Zoom will be available from selected online and high street retailers, including Samsung Experience Stores and Carphone Warehouse.

Marwell’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has returned for a fifth consecutive year. This year’s top prize is a 9.day Wild España trip which is a wildlife conservation tour starting from the mountains in the north to the mouth of the Guadalquivir river in the south of Spain, courtesy of Wildlife Worldwide. The competition has four categories, including Cute and Funny, Marwell Wildlife endangered, Marwell Wildlife residents and Native Wildlife. The deadline for entries is 31 August 2014. As always, we suggest that you read the rules before entering your work.

This summer, Manfrotto are running a series of pop-up events across Britain this summer. At these events, Manfrotto will be your local photographic store for one day offering customers the chance to come along to free photography talks, take advantage of special discounts and exclusive offers plus free demonstrations and the chance to view all of their latest products. Click through / scroll down for a list of dates and locations.

PhotoMania has recently launched a mobile version of its photo effects and sharing app. Available for Android and iOS, PhotoMania Mobile allows users to apply several single-click enhancements to any photos on their mobile devices with a range of painting, sketch, vintage and texture effects. Both the Android and iPhone editions are available for free.

Vanguard has added two new lines to their camera bag line-up. Sedona bags are perfect for both the seasoned professional or the adventurous amateur. The collection contains slings (two sizes) and backpacks (three sizes) that can be easily converted from a daypack to a full-gear backpack and even an everyday bag. A Multiple Hanging System includes two higher front straps to hold large accessories such as sleeping bags. Clad in lightweight ripttop nylon, all models are available in black, Kahki / Green and Blue. The Reno collection contains full-featured shoulder bags (two sizes), a sling (one size) and backpacks (three sizes). All bags are made with rip stop nylon and are available in Blue, Khaki / Green and Orange. For details on all Sedona and Reno bags, visit the website below.

RIBA’s new Architecture Gallery will present the first major retrospective of Edwin Smith, one of Britain’s foremost 20th century photographers. Ordinary Beauty: The Photography of Edwin Smith will display 100 extraordinary black and white photographs from a collection of over 60,000 negatives given by Olive Cook, Smith’s widow and collaborator, to the RIBA Library. From urban scenes documenting British social history to evocative landscape images and atmospheric interiors, the images displayed reveal the genius and breadth of his work. Alongside his images of Britain the exhibition will show photographs taken on his travels to Europe as well as his published books and photographic equipment. Specially filmed contributions ranging from Alan Bennett to broadcaster Gillian Darley offer personal perspectives of Smith’s work. Taking place from10 September – 6 December 2014, the exhibition will be accompanied by a series of talks, films and events.

Zoner has just rolled out a number of enhancements to Zonerama.com, its free cloud photo service. Sporting a new, more responsive design, Zonerama now dynamically adjusts to optimise the photo viewing experience no matter what device you access it on. New social features, such as the ability to follow photographers and rate their albums, have also been added, giving Zonerama a greater degree of interactivity. Finally, Zonerama now supports Google’s Chromecast, so users can wirelessly “cast” their photos from a mobile device or laptop to their TVs.

Samsung's new UD590 Ultra HD monitor is now available to pre-order in the United Kingdom. Going on sale exclusively with Overclockers from 1 June 2014, the Samsung UD590has a 28" TN panel, GTG response time of 1ms, static contrast ratio of 1000:1 and maximum brightness of 370cd/m2. It offers a DisplayPort and two HDMI 1.4 connectors but no DVI interface. Samsung's Picture-by-Picture feature enables you to connect two different PCs to the display and see the desktops of both simultaneously on one screen that's divided into two. The monitor also includes UHD up-scaling technology that converts low-resolution content to Ultra HD. 

Adobe has posted Version 1.6.0.393 of Adobe Creative Cloud. This release incorporates the following improvements and fixes:

• You can now install older versions of Adobe products straight from Creative Cloud Desktop. These are installed side-by-side with existing versions.
• Improved performance when syncing a large number of files.
• Fixed scenarios where font sync would show perpetual spinner.
• Improved overall font sync stability.
• Improved error handling for file sync, including the addition of notifications when retrying can resolve an error.
• Batched notifications of file sync operations, limiting the number of notifications when a large number of files are synced in a short period of time.
• Redesigned Sign In experience.
• Increased types of enterprise identities accepted for licensing products.

PhotoShelter has just released a new free educational guide, Protect Yourself: What Photographers Should Know About Insurance. The PDF guide covers basic insurance terminology, lists the most important reasons to get insurance and examples of when to file a claim, and much more. You can download the guide from the website below.