Tamron USA has announced the “My Food Exhibit” photo contest offered exclusively to Tamron lens users residing in the US. Entrants will create a 3D virtual exhibit showcasing 8-14 of their best images in a food theme. Professional photographer Hernan Rodriguez will judge the contest and choose the winning exhibit based on overall image quality and originality of the collection. The winning exhibit will be featured on the Tamron USA website and Tamron newsletter. The winner will also receive his/her choice of one of five Tamron lenses: 18-270mm Di II VC PZD 15X all-in-one zoom lens; SP 17-50mm F/2.8 Di II VC; SP 70-300mm Di VC USD; SP 60mm F/2.0 Di II 1:1 Macro; or 18-200mm Di III VC for Sony E-Mount. The deadline for submissions is 31st December. As always we suggest that you read the rules before entering your work.

PMDA today announced that its fourth annual Portraits of Love Project will launch in November 2012 and aim to provide active US military personnel with free family portraits during the holiday season.  Starting 1 November 2012 and running through 31 January 2013 military families can sign up for a free portrait session hosted by the program’s growing network of photographers. Participants will receive two free 5x7 prints from Shutterfly. Active military families can participate at select USO facilities, military bases hosting on-base sessions and at the Project’s nationwide network of local photography studios.

Available in three editions, the Wi-Fi enabled GoPro HD HERO3 is billed as the world’s smallest 4K video camera. Each new edition retains the look of the previous HD HERO cameras but comes in at about half the size of its predecessors. At the top end of the new product line up, the GoPro HD HERO3 Black Edition delivers 4K and 2.7K video resolutions at 12 and 30fps respectively, all in the size of a small box of matches. At 1080p Full HD and 720p HD resolutions, the Black Edition is capable of capturing movies at up to 60 and 120fps, respectively, for slow-motion playback. The White, Silver and Black editions are available for pre-order at GoPro.com and are shipping to speciality retailers around the world for $199.99, $299.99 and $399.99 respectively.

Plustek has released three sample images scanned with its brand new OpticFilm 120 dedicated medium-format film scanner at 5300ppi. Shot with a Rolleiflex T Type 2 TLR camera on Kodak Professional T-Max 400 and Ilford HP5 films, the samples have a pixel count of ~121 million (approximately 11,000x11,000 pixels) each. Two of them are presented as TIFFs, while the third one is a JPEG. According to Plustek they were all “scanned using the Auto CCR function of LaserSoft SilverFast Ai Studio 8.” You can download the Plustek OpticFilm 120 samples from the website below but do note that the files are huge and Plustek warns that the “link may be removed at any time if bandwidth restrictions are exceeded.”

Matt Burns, the mastermind behind the Stolen Camera Finder website, has launched a new free service called OddPrints. “It’s basically a free and simple way to print photos for unusual picture frames or for passport applications etc.,” Matt explains. “With OddPrints you simply upload a photo, choose the size of your frame and then re-download your image. The image is ready to print and cut out at just the right size with optional guidelines to help… It’s free to use, no ads, no watermarks, no nonsense.”

Nikon UK and NME have teamed up for the NME Music Photography Awards with Nikon exhibition at the famous Getty Images Gallery in London. The exhibition will feature the best images from this year’s music photography competition which was open for entry during the festival season this summer to both amateurs and professional photographers. Now in its third year, the competition attracted more images than ever before, with the judges having to select winners from over 7,000 entries. With a Nikon 1 camera kit up for grabs for the amateur categories and a D800 digital SLR kit for the professional category, each of the category winners will also get to meet NME’s Picture Editor and experience a photography master class with an NME photographer. The best two will then be chosen to shoot a gig for NME and one eventual winner will get to shadow an NME photographer. All winners will be announced in NME magazine, issue 27th October 2012. The exhibition at the Getty Images Gallery opens on 7th November and runs until 1st December.

Online photography business gurus Mark Cleghorn and Kenny Martin have launched ‘Business Class’ - a brand new webinar-style monthly learning programme aimed at helping portrait photographers trade more profitably. Under the plan photographers will be able to access the online classes on an ongoing or ad hoc basis for £29 per month. Mark Cleghorn (pictured), founder of PhotoTraining 4U (PT4U), international seminar speaker and author of a series of ‘How To’ photography books explained: “For the cost of a 10x8 print photographers will have access to our monthly 3-4 hour webinar classes plus downloads, including a full recording of each webinar they attend.” For more information check out the website below.

Manfrotto UK has announced three Christmas promotions on its acclaimed range of tripods and monopods. The Manfrotto MK293A4-A3RC1, the most compact 3-way kit in the 290 family, now retails for £99.95 (a saving of £30.00). The Manfrotto 055XB tripod complete with the 804RC2 head is now available for £149.95 (£75.00 off the regular price). The compact and lightweight Manfrotto 190XDB tripod can be yours for £89.95 (saving you £15.00). Each promotion runs until 31 January 2013.

Fujifilm UK has announced availability and pricing for the Fujinon XF18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS lens. The 27-84mm equivalent Fujinon XF18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS is a compact standard zoom with optical image stabilisation and a linear motor-driven focussing system that allows the camera to lock focus on the subject in a matter of 0.1 second. In the United Kingdom the lens will go on sale at the end of October / beginning of November, priced at £599.00. (The US MSRP is $699.95, as announced earlier.)

Canon U.S.A,, Ron Howard and the public have selected 91 winning photographs from the “Project Imaginat10n” contest, which will see five innovative celebrities direct short films based on ten of the photos. A consumer vote helped narrow down the photographs, where one of the selected winners’ photos was chosen by Ron Howard in the “Discovery” category to be a thematic tie across the celebrities’ films. The directors will now each select one additional photograph from the other nine storytelling categories that personally inspire them, ultimately utilizing ten photos to represent their creativity and imagination.  In addition to “Discovery,” the themes include Character, Mood, Goal, Backstory, Setting, Obstacle, Relationship, The Unknown and Time.  The winning photographs determined by Ron Howard and the consumer vote can be seen at the website below.

Last month, Samsung issued a call for every Briton called David Bailey to meet up in London and take part in a photography project. The initiative was successful as 142 David Baileys came together to meet their namesake, iconic fashion and celebrity photographer David Royston Bailey. The company gave all participants the new Samsung NX1000 camera (read review) to test the theory that “it’s so good that it lets everyone take photos like the world’s best photographer.” For more information, visit the website below..

SF Photo School has announced a brand new webinar series, entitled ‘Masters of Wedding’. “Ray Lowe, Kevin Wilson & Martin Grahame-Dunn share their unique styles, experience & some of their best work, tips & techniques to take your wedding photography to the next level,” says SF Photo School’s Uzair Kharawala. “This is a 6 hour webinar series which will cover topics such as how to pose couples, use of ‘directional light’, composing your images, off-camera flash, use of reflectors, engagement photography, destination weddings, how to create your ‘signature’ black & white images, marketing your business, how to organise wedding photography, how to price your services, post processing workflow and much much more…” For more information and to book your place, visit the website below.

Sigma UK has announced a short-term special offer that enables anyone who purchases a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM lens to claim a free Sigma 77mm UV DG filter. Worth over £60, the Sigma 77mm UV DG filter benefits from a special multi-layer lens coating, developed to counteract the highly reflective characteristic of image sensors. Starting today, the offer is open to UK residents only and runs until 31st December. To read the terms and conditions, download the claim form.

Photography Blog and Corel have teamed up to giveaway 5 copies of Corel PaintShop Pro X5!

The 5 lucky winners are: James Hackett, Cees Buitendijk, Ron Zigelhofer, Paul Smith and Burkhard Schrammel.

Whether you want to create powerful photos or dynamic digital works of art, Corel® PaintShop® Pro X5 provides all of the photo editing and creative design tools you need. Manage, adjust and edit your work with a few simple clicks. Create stunning photos with intense visual contrast using new and enhanced HDR features - including the new ability to create HDR-style effects from single RAW photos. Organise your photos and tag people and places using the new Find People and Map View features. Get inspired with creative brush and vector tools, including new text and layer options. Hone your skills with built-in tutorials and use new social media integration to instantly share your creative vision on Facebook®, Flickr® and Google+™.

The new Find People feature of PaintShop® Pro X5 helps you identify the people in your photos, making it easy to find and share photos of family and friends, or sync with your social contacts on sharing sites. In addition to manual tagging, you can also use powerful face detection technology to automatically analyze facial characteristics and help identify and organize the people in your photos.

Steidl has announced new editions of two of Joel Sternfeld’s classic photobooks. The reprint of his seminal American Prospects (€88 / £75) features new photographs, and a revised format and cover. The subjects of the now classic American Prospects include a fireman shopping for a pumpkin while a house burns behind him; motorcyclists at the side of the road taking in a stunning, placid view of Bear Lake, Utah; the hi-tech world headquarters of the Manville Corporation in picturesque Colorado, obscured by a defiant boulder; and a lone basketball net in the desert near Lake Powell in Arizona. The other book, Stranger Passing, (€65 / £50 / $88) contains portrait photographs that form in Douglas R. Nickel’s words, an “intelligent, unscientific, interpretive sampling of what Americans looked like at the century’s end.”

In 2011 the Hasselblad HTS1.5/ Tilt/Shift adapter was removed from the US market pending litigation involving a patent infringement claim. The legal process has been concluded in favour of Hasselblad. As a result the HTS1.5 Tilt/Shift adapter is immediately available for purchase in the US. Hasselblad Bron President and CEO Michael Hejtmanek commented “Today was a good day for Hasselblad and for photographers across the United States.  The courts have decided that the patent infringement lawsuit preventing the sale of the Hasselblad Tilt Shift Adapter is without merit.” Designed for the HCD28mm, HC35mm, HC50mm, HC80mm and the HC100mm lenses the HTS 1.5 adds, in effect, five different “tilt and shift lenses” to the Hasselblad HC/HCD lens range.

GoPro’s new mobile app is now available for free download from Apple’s App Store and coming soon to Google Play. Compatible with GoPro’s HD HERO2 camera, the GoPro App enables full camera control and live scene preview for easy framing on smartphones or tablets. Subsequent releases of the GoPro App will enable streaming playback of videos and photos from the camera to a smart device, sharing of photo and video content from the camera to social networks, controlling of multiple cameras, and streaming live video from the camera to the web.

The Plugin Site has released FilterHub, a panel extension for Photoshop CS4, CS5, CS5.5 and CS6. Described as “a powerful replacement” for the program’s Filter menu, FilterHub supports both built-in Photoshop filters, filter plugins and third-party automation plug-ins. The FilterHub panel stays open as long as you wish and displays a configurable list of filters and plug-ins. Before running a filter it can automatically create a duplicated layer, a merged copy of all layers (stamped layer), a smart object or flatten the image. FilterHub costs $39.95 (Academic/educational licence: $24.95).