On 23rd November, an 82-year-old Leica Luxus 1 camera was auctioned at a Bonhams sale in Hong Kong, fetching £603,837 (HK$7,460,000) - a world record for this particular rare Leica model. Jon Baddley, Head of Collectables at Bonhams, said after the auction: “This was the first Leica sale in Hong Kong and the results more than justify our belief in the idea of bringing these wonderful cameras to China which has a rapidly emerging market for vintage cameras. We took a bit of a gamble but it has paid off handsomely.” The Hong Kong sale included over 250 lots of Leica cameras and accessories from two major private collections.

Joby has announced a new range of pocket-sized mobile accessories called GripTight. All products in the line-up have been designed to support camera phones. The range includes three products, the GripTight GorillaPod Stand (£25, pictured) with a maximum load capacity of 325g, the GripTight Micro Stand (£25) with a load capacity of 250g and the GripTight Mount (£13).

Wilkinson Cameras have partnered with Aspire Photography Training to deliver discounts of up to 20% on a range of photographic equipment, accessories and training. Customers will also get ‘hands on’ opportunities to try and test the latest photographic equipment while on Aspire courses and seminars. The benefits of this partnership are open to all new and existing Wilkinson VIP customers and also all clients of Aspire Photography Training.

Datacolor will be hosting its next free webinar, “Holiday Stocking Stuffers from Datacolor,” on 28th November from 3-4 p.m. Eastern Time. The webinar will focus on ideal gifts for photography lovers featuring products that have unique and interesting qualities. Led by Datacolor experts C. David Tobie and David Saffir, the webinar will help people choose the best products from a wide variety of items including Spyder products, lenses, tripods, lens filters, camera bags, memory cards and more. An interactive Q&A will take place throughout the webinar to answer any questions the audience might have. Participants who register in advance will be entered to win a Spyder4PRO (pictured). On a related note, the company has announced a Cyber Monday offer on the product, which will be available for $139.99/€99.00 on 26th November from 12:00am until 11:59pm through the Datacolor website.

Website: Datacolor

MacPhun has announced a holiday promotion. If you buy any 2 of the company’s Mac apps - Snapheal, FX Photo Studio and ColorStrokes -, you get the 3rd one for free. Users simply need to e-mail MacPhun a screenshot of their Mac dock with any 2 of the company’s apps, and they’ll email the 3rd (missing) app for free. Additionally, all three apps are available with at least 50% discount till Monday..

Sinar has launched a new camera for architectural and landscape photographers. The Sinar lanTec is a highly portable technical camera that can be used on a tripod as well as hand-held. The shift range is set effortlessly up to 20mm left and right. In addition, you can raise the lens by up to 25mm, or lower it by up to 15mm, which helps prevent convergent or divergent verticals when shooting architecture. In the event you wish to make stitched, rotational panoramic pictures, it’s good to know the tripod mount is physically located on the optical axis, however, for hand-held use, the tripod base can be removed quickly, thanks to its rapid and secure locking mechanism. As for composing the image, your Apple iPhone or iPod Touch can be connected to the lanTec via a special Sinar rotating adapter. This serves as a viewfinder which can quickly be set for either portrait or landscape orientation. Thanks to a range of optional adapters Sinar lanTec camera is compatible with a number of Sinar, Mamiya and Hasselblad digital back mounts.

JP Distribution has added a range of Hüfa products to its portfolio. The new Hüfa S (£9.99, pictured) is a simple-to-use lens cap holder that clips onto camera bags, backpacks, laptop bags and purse straps. Available in three colours the Hüfa S is smaller than Hüfa’s original lens cap holder and is designed for use with narrow straps such as the sling style straps from BlackRapid. The Hüfa Strap (£29.99) is a quality-constructed camera strap with the Hüfa lens cap clip built right in, featuring a wide, air-comfort strap cushion for added comfort. Hüfa’s newest product is a non-abrasive, lint free camera lens wipe (£4.99 per 24-pack) that offers the convenience of a single-use wipe that leaves no residue behind.

The Lomographic Society is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new Lomo LC-A+ special edition. Limited to 1000 units, the Lomo LC-A+ 20th Anniversary Edition is wrapped in a fine blue crocodile-pattern stamped leather featuring the society’s 20th Anniversary metallic emblem. The camera is available now for €349 from the Lomography Online Shop.

Fitch Ratings have cut the debt ratings of Panasonic and Sony to ‘junk’ status citing “weak demand… as well as continuing price competition from overseas companies.” The ratings agency acknowledges that Panasonic is “in the right direction in its restructuring efforts” but remains “cautious that the benefits of the restructuring may be marred by the weak performance in Panasonic’s electronics products and components businesses and lead to a slow recovery in profitability.” With respect to Sony, Fitch points out “continuing weakness in the home entertainment & sound and mobile products & communications segments will offset the relatively stable music and pictures segments and improvement in the devices segment which makes semiconductors and components.” From a photography point of view it’s interesting that the ratings firm believes CMOS image sensors are among the most profitable products in Sony’s portfolio and finds it “likely that Sony will use its strength in imaging sensors to promote its next range of smartphones as best-in-category for photography.”

Nikon has announced two digiscoping accessories for the Nikon 1 System. Popular among birdwatchers, digiscoping is a form of super-telephoto shooting using a Fieldscope attached to an SLR camera, CSC or compact digital camera. The Digiscoping Adapter DSA-N1 (£219.99/€265.00) and Digiscoping Bracket DSB-N1 ( £169.99/€204.00) have been created exclusively for Nikon 1 System cameras, allowing them to operate in A and M modes. The Nikon Digiscoping Bracket DSB-N1 additionally includes a cable release to prevent camera shake when shooting. Note that Nikon 1 J1 and V1 users may need to update their cameras’ firmware to use the DSA-N1-

CamRanger from Intro2020 is a stand-alone device that connects to select Canon or Nikon DLSR cameras with a provided USB cable to create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network that your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch can then connect to. Together with the associated free iOS app, CamRanger allows users to control their cameras remotely see the live view feed when their camera is placed in remote locations. “For macro photography the touch screen focus facility gives amazing control that can be fine-tuned with manual focus adjustment, all via your iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) screen,” the company says. Where exposure control is important, you can adjust your aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings via the touch screen and add exposure compensation where required. The CamRanger device is about the size of a smartphone and is powered by a rechargeable, replaceable battery. Its size and portability allows CamRanger to be used in a variety of settings and it does not need any wireless networks to operate as it creates its own virtual network to communicate wirelessly with the app installed on your Apple iOS device. CamRanger is available from early December and carries a suggested retail price of £269.99. The associated app is free.

The Samsung HMX-F90 is a 720p camcorder with 52x optical zoom and a five-megapixel CMOS sensor. The affordable new camcorder comes with a 2.7” TFT LCD display. time-lapse recording and One-Touch movie sharing. Users can simply connect their cameras to their PC via the USB cable, select videos to upload and the intelli-studio software will launch automatically to take the user through the upload process. Weighing in at 267.9 grams with a battery, the Samsung HMX-F90 records videos in MPEG-4 format and stores them on SD cards. Although the 1/3.2-type CMOS sensor has a pixel count of 5 million, the camcorder can only record stills at a resolution of less than 2 megapixels. Availability and price have yet to be communicated.

Photography education and entertainment site PhoozL has announced its latest “super-judged” photo contest: ‘The Portrait’. ‘The Portrait’. The judge is world-renowned commercial and fine-art photographer Albert Watson, who will pick the top three winners and Honourable Mentions. Now open for submissions, the contest runs until 16 December 2012. Entry is free and open to all logged-in members of Phoozl.com. For more details and to enter your work, head to the website below.

Last week Sony hosted the world’s first real time digital photography exhibition, allowing visitors to appreciate the work of three photographers - Lee Strickland, William Daniels and Paul Sullivan - from the moment the shots were taken. Each photographer was armed with Sony’s latest NEX-5R camera, complete with built in Wi-Fi allowing them to send photos directly to the gallery in London from their separate locations across Europe. As the night developed, 14 screens on the gallery walls were filled with over 200 images sent through in real time demonstrating parallels and contrasts between each city and the people that live there. Now Sony has released a two-and-a-half-minute video capturing the spirit of the event.

Moleskine has created a very original gift voucher for the upcoming holiday season. Users can send a personalised stop-motion film to someone they love – anywhere in the world. The gift film recipient gets to make their very own Moleskine Photo Book or Album. They can upload photos, images, text and video, share a digital version and invite friends to collaborate on it with them. The stop-motion film itself is easy to make: all you need is an image of yourself and the recipient. You can check out a sample movie at the website below.

ArcSoft has released the “Whip Social Album” mobile application. The free app allows users to quickly create and share photo albums, using customised templates. Whip allows users to choose up to 24 photos for each album. Once the photos are selected, the album is automatically generated with just one tap.  After that, users can select one of nine available templates that include background music from “indie” bands, and offer the opportunity to caption and edit each photo. Additionally, ArcSoft’s proprietary image editing technology built into Whip enables users to enhance their photos in a number of ways. Downloadable from iTunes, the app is also available on the Windows 8 platform.

From today until 28 February 2013, BeFunky will provide free access to their premium effects, frames, filters, goodies and other features available on their online photo editor to anyone under the age of 21. Users must have a Facebook account so that their age can be verified in order to access the free premium features on the BeFunky website. “We want to offer students from all over the world the opportunity to experience all of our premium editing capabilities and create amazing and fun photos—for free,” said Tekin Tatar, CEO of BeFunky. “Our mission is to bring easy-to-use, professional photo editing to the masses and encourage people to have fun with their pictures, and we think this is a great way to do that.”

PHYX Cleaner 2 is a collection of fast GPU-accelerated plugins designed to repair footage suffering from banding, random noise or aliasing. “We have seen numerous comments in internet forums asking; how to repair DSLR footage, how to make it look better. PHYX Cleaner 2 is our definitive answer, and may also be used to repair or enhance other digital footage or 3d renders,” noted Justin Bendo, President and CEO of PHYX. The plugins support Apple Final Cut Pro (X), Apple Motion, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere Pro. PHYX Cleaner 2 is available for $99 via the website below.