Emerson Roberts, the newly-appointed MD at Bowens International has pledged to invest heavily in new product development and expand the photo-lighting equipment manufacturer’s global market share. Since his official appointment two months ago Roberts has already implemented an exclusive distribution deal with the MAC Group in the USA. Now he plans a 2014 launch of a brand new range of highly advanced ‘radio-tech’ monoblocs and promises to expand the company's research & development team in the UK. 

Ricoh Imaging UK has embarked on a promotional campaign offering photographers £40-£85 cashback on the Pentax K-50 (pictured) & K-5 II / IIs. In addition, consumers wishing to upgrade to the Pentax K-3 can take advantage of the latest trade-in offer. On purchase of a new K-3, consumers receive a minimum of £85 when they trade in any camera. The winter cashback campaign runs until 14 January 2014. The trade-in promotion will run from 1 November – 31 December 2013.

Olympus has launched a new promotion in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Offering a free VF-4 electronic viewfinder with every E-P5 14-42mm kit or E-P5 body purchased, the promotion runs from today until 5th January. Customers will have until 2 February 2014 to claim their free VF-4. To learn more, read the terms and conditions of the promotion.

Adobe has released major new updates to the video apps in Adobe Creative Cloud, including new capabilities in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe After Effects CC, Adobe SpeedGrade CC, Adobe Prelude CC, Adobe Media Encoder CC and Adobe Story CC Plus. Today’s updates, which were initially previewed in September , include a direct link colour pipeline between Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Adobe SpeedGrade CC, expanded native support for brilliant visuals including 4K high frame rate content, a new mask tracker in Adobe After Effects, the Adobe Prelude CC Live Logger iPad app and many other feature enhancements. Current Adobe Creative Cloud members receive all of these innovations as part of their existing membership at no extra cost.

Hasselblad has followed up the summer launch of Stellar, its second camera aimed at the amateur and enthusiast market, with the unveiling of three new 'Stellar Special Edition' compact cameras. The latest Stellar models offer photographers the choice of three new camera body colours: black, white and orange - and ship with bespoke camera cases in black or white leather with signature stitching and shoulder and wrist straps. Designed at Hasselblad's own Italy-based Design Centre, Stellar Special Edition models are now available with carbon fibre, padouk or wenge wood grips and cost €2,375 / £1,975 / $3,175 each.

The Society of Nature and Wildlife Photographers (SINWP) has announced the winners of its close-up photography competition. Mohamad Fahmi from Masai in Malaysia was chosen as the winner from over 480 images entered in to the competition, with the image entitled ‘What you looking at’ (above). Mohamad has won a 12-month SINWP membership.

Fujifilm UK is to close its E6 processing lab facility in November 2014. This ceasing of operations has been planned in advance to enable customers who have remaining rolls of Fujichrome Sensia process-paid film sufficient time to get them processed. Fujifilm's pre-paid processing vouchers will continue to be available, but must also be used before the closing date of 1st November 2014.

Nikon has now published a total of four short videos as part of its Pure Photography teaser campaign. These short movies, which are around half a minute long each, are widely believed to herald the upcoming launch of a retro-styled, full-manual digital camera from Nikon. Click through / scroll down to view all four videos.

Via its official blog, Nokia has published four raw DNG files that show off the capabilities of the Nokia Lumia 1020 camera phone. Nokia's Juha Alakarhu announced last week that the company is adding DNG support to the Lumia 1020 and new Lumia 1520 handsets, which has caused quite a stir in the photography community around the world. "“Overall, I’m so proud of what we have achieved in Nokia," Alakarhu says. "We have the amazing camera hardware, very powerful camera user interface, and now the raw support." To read more on the subject and to download the full-resolution raw and JPEG samples, head to the website below.

Website: Nokia Conversations

FotoDC has announced an extensive line-up of events in collaboration with more than 50 partners participating in FotoWeekDC 2013. Taking place from Friday 1st November to Sunday 10th November, FotoWeekDC 2013 encompasses more than 100 exhibitions and other events. Click through / read on for the details.

Akvis has released Version 4.0 of Akvis HDRFactory, an application that creates HDR images from a series of photographs taken at different exposures. This update adds a Share option that lets users upload HDR images to the social services directly from the app, fixes bugs, adds support for raw images from a variety of new cameras, changes the installation process for Windows and adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. The plug-in variant now supports Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Photoshop Elements 12, and Corel PaintShop Pro X6. The new upgrade is free for registered users.

Pyle Audio has launched its new Hi-Speed HD Camera (PSCHD60). Features include a 12-megapixel sensor, up to 1080p video recording capabilities, a 2.4" touchscreen and a WiFi remote to wirelessly snap pictures. The device comes complete with a USB cable, car charger, splash-proof case and mounting clips. The Hi-Speed Camera from Pyle Audio is available for $99.99 via the website below.

iON has unveiled its third-generation iON Air Pro wearable, high-definition video camera with Wi-Fi connectivity. Featuring a 12-megapixel image sensor, the rugged iON Air Pro 3 Wi-Fi - which boasts improved underwater capabilities up to 49 feet - shoots up to 60 frames per second at 1080p, with dual streaming to enable users to simultaneously “shoot and share” their recordings. The iON Air Pro 3 Wi-Fi can be pre-ordered now for $349.99 with shipments expected to start on 15th November. In the UK, the iON Air Pro 3 will be available online in early November for £349.99 at actioncameras.co.uk, Crooked Imaging and Snow & Rock.

Canon has released a firmware update for its EOS 5D Mark III full-frame digital SLR camera. Click through / scroll down for a list of improvements and fixes implemented in Version 1.2.3.

Via its official blog, SmugMug has announced that it has teamed up with Apple to provide full integration with Aperture. "You can now connect and sync your SmugMug account with your account in Aperture and easily browse, upload, download and organize all from one app," the company says. "Aperture will sync down all of your SmugMug images even if they didn’t previously exist in your Aperture library. Best of all, images shared from Aperture stay synced, so if you share an image to SmugMug and then make further edits to it in Aperture, those edits will sync up to SmugMug without having to re-Share (upload) the image."

Display specialist AOC has launched three new 61 cm (24″) monitors with an aspect ratio of 16:10. Coming in a classy texturised black finish and different equipment variants, the 60 series models from the AOC Professional Line deliver a WUXGA resolution of 1920 x 1200. The AOC i2460Pxqu is based on a top-notch eIPS (In-Plane Switching) panel, with 178° viewing angles and a brightness of up to 300 cd/m². In addition to D-Sub and DVI-D, the i2460Pxqu features an HDCP-compatible HDMI socket as well as a DisplayPort. The AOC e2460Pxda and e2460Sxda each utilise an LED-backlit TN panel,a luminosity of 250 cd/m² and a static contrast of 1000:1. Both analogue and digital video signals can be received via D-Sub and DVI-D. In addition, the e2460Pxda offers full ergonomic flexibility, allowing users to adjust the panel height by 130 mm as well as to tilt and swivel the monitor.

Boinx Software is inviting all animation experts and hobbyists alike to beta test the brand new DSLR live view feature in iStopMotion for Mac. The beta version of iStopMotion supports live view with the Canon EOS 40D, 60D, 60Da, 450D, 550D and 700D. Boinx encourages all beta testers to use the built-in feedback assistant to report Canon DSLR models that do not work with the live-view function, as well as provide any additional feedback on areas for improvement. To become a beta tester, head to the website below.

DxO Labs have released DxO Perspective for Mac OS X, an application designed to correct perspective and horizon problems. In architectural or urban photography, depending on the position of the photographer with respect to the scene, buildings’ vertical and horizontal lines can lose their parallelism. DxO Perspective corrects all kinds of perspective problems, and  restores balance and authenticity to landscape photos by perfectly straightening a slanted horizon. DxO Perspective for Mac OS X is immediately and exclusively available in the Mac App Store. The software is free through  3rd November.

LaserSoft Imaging has released an individually adapted version of SilverFast 8 for Canon's new CanoScan 9000F Mark II scanner. SilverFast offers a Multi-Exposure feature that increases the number of greyscale values detected by the scanner from 1.379 to 9.550. The software's NegaFix module stores more than 120 negative film profiles helping users get a correct colour rendition when scanning negatives. For transparencies, SilverFast's premium Ai Studio 8 and Archive Suite 8 versions offer automatic IT8-calibration, which allows to calibrate the Canon 9000F Mark II with a single mouse click.