Over the next 8 days we’ll be revealing our favourite products from last year in our annual awards, looking back at the essential photography kit that helped to define 2013.

Kicking things off is the Software of the Year 2013 award, which goes to Zoner Photo Studio 16.

“Zoner Photo Studio 16 is a large program that will cover most of the problems and overcome most objections that a photographer from new starter to keen enthusiast will be able to throw at it.”

Read the Full Review

Congratulations to Zoner and Photo Studio 16!

The Sony Global Imaging Ambassadors programme is a new initiative celebrating the beauty of photography. Through this programme, Sony will work closely with a range of photographers with diverse styles from across the globe. Inaugural participants include William Klein and photographers from the leading international photo agency, Panos Pictures. Yoshiyuki Nogami, Senior General Manager, Marketing Division, DI Business Group, Sony commented: “The Global Ambassadors Programme is an extremely exciting project that allows Sony to lend its technical expertise to some of the world’s leading photographers to enable them to bring their creative visions to life. From Sony’s perspective, we are able to gather valuable feedback about what photographers want from their equipment which will shape our new product development and help us move towards our goal of providing the best digital imaging products available in the market.”

Manfrotto has introduced a full range of compact LED panels for videography and photography: Spectra. Designed for professional videographers, Spectra is also claimed to be perfect for photographers who use LED lights as a secondary light source for portraits or product images. The dimmable lights have a colour temperature of 5500K and are free from flickering and colour casts. Additionally, some models have a Tuneable white option, which allows you to dynamically change the light temperature of the LED, from cold white to warm white, providing a superior level of light quality with precise colour control. Spectra is available in different sizes with different beam angles to accommodate different needs.

Manfrotto has launched a new range of colours for PIXI, an innovative support designed specifically to work with compact system cameras (CSCs). Engineered according to the latest premium Italian style, PIXI is lightweight, intuitive to use and easy to carry in any situation. "The proposal of a new range of colours comes from Manfrotto’s objective to serve, support and satisfy the demands of every character and preference, giving an answer to the ever increasing demand of more stylish products in the world of photography," the company says. The new colours include white (pictured) and a pink/anthracite combination.

The critically acclaimed LightTrac app is now available for all Windows 8 PCs and tablets. The app, which has been available for Android and iOS for quite some time now, helps photographers and filmmakers plan their photo-shoot at the comfort of their home even before visiting an outdoor location. By allowing the user to visually track the elevation and angle of Sun at any time for any place, the user is able to get a sense of the direction and mood of the light at a certain time. This information is presented on top of a satellite map so users can visually explore the nature of light at various times. This saves the photographer from making a round trip to the photo location at the wrong time of day. LightTrac for Windows 8 is available for a 7-day free trial from the Windows store. The full version costs $4.99.

From Tokyo to New York in 90 Photographs is a new photography ebook by Corrado Formentini. The book brings together 90 photographs which allow the reader to embark on a journey that starts from Tokyo, leads through some of the most typical and characteristic parts of Japan to finally reach the heart of New York in Manhattan. "The pictures made ​​in Japan show us the union between tradition and modernity," the author says. "In Tokyo these two aspects coexist in harmony and symbiosis." The photographs shot in NYC aim to show the human face of a city that may seem intimidating at first sight. The Kindle edition of the bilingual (Italian/English) publication can be purchased from Amazon for $7.61.

This January, the Photographic Museum of Humanity (PMH) presents its 12th online exhibition, A Year of Museum. In the course of this month you will be able to see again 10 photographers and their projects, 5 in the upcoming two weeks and 5 in the last two weeks of the month. Click through / scroll down for the detailed programme of the exhibition.

Easyspace has reported a surge in interest for photography-related extensions among the new ICANN generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). In fact, the most popular group of new domains so far is extensions which reference the art of photography such as .photos, .photography and .camera as well as .gallery. These new gTLDs will ultimately sit alongside existing domains, such as .com. It is free to register interest in one of the new gTLDs with Easyspace while they are in the initial Sunrise phase which allows trademark holders to protect their brands. The Sunrise phase for Dot Camera, Dot Photography and Dot Gallery ends on 31st January. They then move into Landrush on 5th February before becoming available to the general public in General Availability on 12th February.

iWatermark Pro is the first Pro version of iWatermark for Windows. A specialised tool to watermark photographs, iWatermark Pro works with Lightroom, Photoshop, Picasa, ACDSee, iPhoto and Aperture; offers batch/sequential processing; supports multi-threaded multiple CPU/GPUs; allows users to add, remove and edit metadata; and much more. iWatermark Pro for Windows is available for $30.

Silvershotz has made the transition from print to digital and is about to launch an interactive and multi platform visual experience. Originally known as the Black & White Enthusiast, Silvershotz was founded in 1998 by David Bigwood in Australia. The publication was later renamed Silvershotz and relocated to the UK, with distribution reaching 12,000 print run every 8 weeks. Last year, Silvershotz made its transition to digital, and is now ready to be relaunched as an interactive publication in March 2014. The new Silvershotz will be available for PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Nikon UK have announced their support for an initiative that sees the stars of Formula 1 unite for the Zoom auction of photographs in a bid to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. The drivers and team principals of F1 teams were asked to take a photograph of their chosen subject and those images will be signed and auctioned by Coys on Friday 7th February 2014 at London’s prestigious InterContinental London Park Lane, hosted by the BBC’s F1 presenter Suzi Perry. Along with the images, Nikon Coolpix cameras which have been signed by some of the sport's biggest names will also be auctioned off.

Lowepro has launched a new range of shoulder bags called Nova Sport AW. Available in three sizes, the Nova Sport AW is an outdoor friendly shoulder bag perfect for day-long adventures, or longer travels. The Nova Sport AW fits on SLR in the smallest model, through to two pro SLRs in the largest model. All three models include space for extra lenses, flashes and accessories, plus a tablet (7L and 17L) or laptop compartment (35L). 

SmugMug is launching a new film series that will provide a unique snapshot of the working lives of some of the world’s best photographers. Click through to view the trailer for the world premiere of the new series and subscribe to the SmugMug Films YouTube channel..

The winners of the Hasselblad Masters 2014 Competition have just been announced. "We're delighted with the number of entries the Hasselblad Masters 2014 competition attracted," says Hasselblad's Global Photographer Relations Manager Paul Waterworth. "The standard was extraordinarily high this time around, and the category winners can be truly proud of their achievement." The winners include Martin Schubert, Antonio Pedrosa, Rafael Rojas, Josheph Goh Meng Huat, Roman Jehanno, Bara Prasilova, Rafal Malesztyk, Hengki Koentjoro, Dmitri Ageev, Bryn Griffiths, Paul Gisbrecht and Chris Straley.

At CES 2014, Singapore-based start-up aKu is showcasing the prototype of a new device called "ladibird" that takes all of the essential optics and electronics of a large-sensor system camera and merges them into a phone casing for the Apple iPhone. The ladibird's image sensor is 7.5x larger than the average smartphone imager and 4x larger than the sensor of a typical compact camera. The ladibird camera is currently in the early stage of development with a prototype for the iPhone 5 - aKu has completed one successful round of Indiegogo funding, and is currently conducting its second round, which will go towards mass production of the camera. Prototypes of the device can be viewed at suite #621, tower 1 - on the 8th floor of the Signature at MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

Manfrotto has announced the KLYP+ photographic solution for the Apple iPhone 5/5S. Billed as the "first all-in-one photographic set for iPhone 5/5S to shoot extraordinary images," the Manfrotto KLYP+ includes a bumper case with a tripod mount, three different add-on conversion lenses and a brand new LED light. The KLYP+ is available now in Manfrotto's online shop.