X-Rite has signed a merger agreement with Danaher, under which Danaher will acquire the company for $5.55 per share. This offer represents a premium of almost 39% over X-Rite’s closing share price of $4.00 on the last trading day prior to the announcement. Upon completion of the transaction, X-Rite, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, will operate as a stand-alone company within Danaher’s Product Identification group which is a part of their Industrial Technology Segment.

X-Rite and its wholly owned subsidiary Pantone will showcase their most advanced solutions for the prepress, print, publishing and converting industries at the Drupa 2012 trade fair held from 3–16 May in Düsseldorf, Germany. Attendees who visit the X-Rite/Pantone stand D023, Hall 5 will experience hands-on demonstrations of the complete range of products, hear live presentations of case studies and obtain first-hand information on the new solutions.

At the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, Adobe will showcase the upcoming Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium software package. Featuring major updates to Adobe After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder and Premiere Pro, Adobe CS6 Production Premium promises to “redefine the content creation workflow” for video professionals. “After Effects CS6 is the biggest release in a decade, with huge performance gains and powerful 3D features,” the company claims. Adobe will demonstrate its new solutions at its booth #SL2624 as well as more than sixty partner booths throughout the show.

Canon is developing a thirty-inch 4K resolution industrial video display, a prototype of which will be exhibited from 16-19 April at NAB 2012. While detailed specifications and pricing have yet to be finalised, Canon aims to commercialise the display before the end of 2012. In addition, Canon will also exhibit two 3rd-generation Digisuper HD field lenses and the HJ17ex6.2B portable HD lens, all of which are aimed at HDTV programme creators.

Canon UK has announced that the sales start date of the Canon EOS-1D X has been pushed back to mid-June. Blaming a delay to the start of mass production, the company has also announced that the Canon EF 24-70mm F2.8L II USM lens will only hit the shops in early July.

Canon has announced the upcoming release of a new firmware update for all four models of the Company’s XF-series professional camcorders, enabling a new 35mbps recording mode. Popular with many major news broadcast corporations, this recording mode enables the capture of 1440x1080-pixel HD video at 60i or 50i. Once the firmware is installed, the recording mode will be accessed through the regular mode selection menu on the camcorder and the frame rate will be automatically selected, dependent on the camcorder’s PAL or NTSC setting. The firmware update is expected to be available for download at the end of May.

Canon has announced the development of a new digital cinema camera capable of recording 4K-resolution video. The Canon EOS C500 will offer raw 4K output and will be available with Canon’s EF mount and the industry-standard PL mount. Furthermore, 12-bit RGB 4:4:4 signal during 2K (2,048 x 1,080 pixels) video output will deliver rich colour and high compatibility with image processes such as chroma key compositing. Support for frame rates up to 120p in both 4K and 2K resolution will provide enhanced creative flexibility, enabling high-speed (slow-motion) video capture in high resolution. A development prototype of the EOS C500 digital cinema camera will be on display at NAB 2012. In the UK, the EOS C500 will be available from Q4 2012, priced at £20,000 / €24,600 RRP including VAT. In the US, Canon U.S.A. has “preliminary plans” for offering the camera at a suggested list price of “approximately $30,000”.

Canon has announced the development of four new digital cinematography zoom lenses supporting 4K resolution. The expanded EF Cinema Lens series will include two wide-angle cinema zoom lenses, the CN-E15.5-47mm T2.8 L S (EF mount) and CN-E15.5-47mm T2.8 L SP (PL mount), alongside two telephoto cinema zoom lenses, the CN-E30-105mm T2.8 L S (EF) and CN-E30-105mm T2.8 L SP (PL). These new lenses will join Canon’s existing line-up of high-end EF Cinema Lenses in forming the core of the Cinema EOS system. Prototypes of the new cinema zoom lenses will be on display at NAB 2012. Availability is slated for September. Pricing to be confirmed.

The Canon EOS-1D C is a new digital SLR camera targeting the motion picture, television and high-resolution production industries. Supporting in-camera 4K (4,096 x 2,160) video recording with 4:2:2 colour sampling, the Canon EOS-1D C features an 18-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with a sensitivity range of ISO 100-25,600. Stills shooters benefit from a 61-point auto focus system and continuous shooting speeds of up to 12/14fps. 4K video is recorded using 8-bit Motion JPEG compression at 24p, and Full HD (1920 x 1080) video capture is available at frame rates of 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60fps. The camera supports internal recording to CF cards at all resolutions up to and including 4K, offering enhanced mobility. Video can also be output to external recorders (excluding 4K video) via an integrated HDMI terminal using an uncompressed YCbCr 4:2:2 signal. The EOS-1D C will be available from October 2012, priced at £10,000 / €12,300 RRP including VAT In the US, the suggested retail price is $15,000.

UK software developer FXhome has released PhotoKey 5, a professional post-production tool which enables photographers to remove green screen backgrounds from studio shots.  Version 5 has a completely new Chroma Key system and, whilst it remains simple to use, gives users the best results possible by addressing many of the problem areas associated with other green screen solutions, the company claims. Enhancements in PhotoKey 5 include the addition of a new Chroma Key filter, which provides a more powerful keying algorithm than the existing Auto Colour Difference Key, as well as a new spill suppression technique for more realistic composites. Fully licensed backgrounds and overlays are included as standard, and the Pro version includes a new bilateral blur filter and support for multiple background images. PhotoKey 5 will be available to buy from 19th April for both Mac and Windows PC and will retail at $149 (£97.50) for the standard version and at $299 (£195) for the Pro version.

Jorge Torralba, the mastermind behind the highly successful Rangefinderforum.com, ZeissImages.com and LeicaImages.com websites, has announced the launch of JustNEX.com, an online gallery dedicated to images captured with Sony NEX series cameras. Besides being a gallery, JustNEX is also an image forum.where participants can comment on and discuss the photos uploaded by members. Additionally, the website lets visitors search for photos taken with a specific lens, camera, focal length or any other combination, while the online Market allows photographers to sell equipment they no longer need.

Watoto Canada has just launched the “It Takes a Village” photography competition. This creative contest will solicit photographic submissions illustrating what the African proverb “It Takes a Village…” means to Canadians. Three winning photographers will be given an all-expenses-paid opportunity to travel to Uganda in June 2012, where they will take photographs of Watoto’s community building work in action and blog about their experiences. The three winners will also receive tuition from award winning Canadian photojournalists while in Africa. The contest will run from 16 Aprik - 7 May 2012. For more information, visit the website below.

X-Rite’s i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer has scooped up a Red Dot Design award. Evaluated by an international panel of 30 judges, the i1Pro 2 was selected from among 4,515 other product design entries from around the world. “X-Rite is honoured to be selected for this coveted product design award for our thoughtfully redesigned i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer,” said Tobias Rausch, X-Rite Product Manager, i1 Solutions. “Recognised for its high quality design, the i1Pro 2 device helps deliver to colour professionals around the world the workflow tools they need that incorporate ever important emerging colour standards.” The i1Pro 2 device can be found in X-Rite’s new i1Basic Pro 2, i1Photo Pro 2, i1Publish Pro 2 and i1Publish products.

The Lomographic Society has launched the special-edition La Sardina Splendour 35mm film camera. Commemorating the early days of street photography, the Sardina Splendour features a 22mm f/8 lens, and comes bundled with the dedicated Fritz the Blitz flash gun. The camera is available in the Lomography Online Store for €179.

DxO Labs have just released DxO Optics Pro 7.2.2 for Mac and Windows, offering support for the new Nikon D4 (pictured), as well as for the Olympus XZ-1 and Olympus PEN E-P1. Additionally, more than 500 new camera-lens combinations were added to the DxO Optics Module library during the past several weeks, crossing the milestone of 6,000 available modules. This means that DxO Optics Pro v7.2.2 now supports additional Canon, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Samyang, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina and Zeiss lenses for numerous Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony cameras. This upgrade is free for all owners of DxO Optics Pro 7, as well as for photographers who acquired a license for DxO Optics Pro 6 after September 1, 2011.

X-Rite has announced its new portfolio of i1 colour management solutions which now include a redesigned i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer. The i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer introduces an expanded feature set including enhanced optical brightener compensation, a new position detection sensor, better temperature stability, plus new diagnostics and self-correction features. The i1Pro 2 device can be purchased as part of the i1Basic Pro 2, i1Photo Pro 2 and i1Publish Pro 2 product kits.

White Knight Press has just released the Photographer’s Guide to the Fujifilm X10 e-book, with a paperback edition scheduled for a late April launch. This book, a complete guide to the operation and features of the Fujifilm X10 digital camera, is a follow-up to the author’s earlier guides to advanced compact digital cameras, including the Fujifilm X100 as well as models by Leica, Panasonic, Canon, and Nikon. The new book explains all operations, features, menus, and controls of the Fujifilm X10 camera in clear language, providing guidance not only about how to accomplish things with the camera, but when and why to use certain features. The guide’s more than 200 photographs, almost all in full colour, provide illustrations of the camera’s controls and menus, and include examples of the various types of photographs that can be taken using the many creative settings of the camera. The 338-page book is available now in PDF format for download for $9.95 through the website below.

Unified Color Technologies have announced that their HDR software offerings now support Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4. The company has updated HDR Expose 2 and HDR Express to support Lightroom® 4 and tested for full compatibility. To download the free updates, users of the respective applications can simply choose the “Check for updates” option in the Help menu.

On 19th April, the Manfrotto School of Xcellence will host a webinar devoted to creative landscape photography. Presented by Pete Bridgwood, this one-hour tutorial will examine the role of colour, explaining how to use complementary colours and how to employ the accentuation or muting of colour most effectively. Taking place from 4pm to 5pm GMT, the webinar is free and open to all. For more details and to register, visit the website below.