Independent developer Ken Tidwell has introduced DSLR Mega HD for iOS, another in his series of popular Min-U Guides to Nikon DSLRs. Containing no less than eleven camera guides, DSLR Mega HD is billed as a convenient alternative to carrying bulky printed manuals. The main camera-related menu chapters include: Playback, Shooting, Custom Setting, Setup, Retouch and My Menu/Recent Settings . There is also an additional chapter, [More], containing miscellaneous info like camera specs, buttons and dials diagrams, glossaries, error messages etc. DSLR Mega HD is available now on iTunes for $8.99.

Lomography has introduced a new collection of colourful Diana F+ and Diana Mini cameras, hand straps and accessories. The Diana F+ is now available in “Buttercup Yellow” and “True Blue”, while the Diana Mini comes in “Fern Green” and “Twilight Blue”. The camera and flash cases are also available in yellow and green, as well as “Peacock Blue”.

Website: Lomography

PhotoShelter has increased the amount of online storage for Pro accounts from 100 gigabytes to 1 terabyte. The subscription fee for a PhotoShelter Pro account is $49.99/month or $549/year and that fee is unchanged with this upgrade. The account also includes 10 customisable website themes, e-commerce tools, advanced SEO, social media integration, and multiple file delivery options.

Buying the Right Photo Equipment: 70 Tips from the Top is the first in Rocky Nook’s new series of small, to-the-point photography books that keep the content short and strong, “like a great shot of your favorite espresso”, as the publisher puts it. Geared toward beginners, this book teaches about the variety of photographic tools available and what each is meant to accomplish. The book is filled with beautiful images that illustrate how the type of equipment discussed can affect an image. Buying the Right Photo Equipment: 70 Tips from the Top is available for $19.95, £15.50 or €16.00 depending on where you live.

The Perfect Photo: 71 Tips from the Top by Elin Rantakrans and Tobias Hagberg provides beginners with a wide range of practical tips that cover composition, image capture and editing. Illustrated with inspiring images throughout, this pocket-sized book is published by Rocky Nook and available for $19.95 / £15.50 / €16.00.

In Nature and Landscape Photography: 71 Tips from the Top, Swedish photographer Martin Borg shares his top tips and insights along with 71 of his most beautiful images. Published by Rocky Nook, the 128-page softcover is available for $19.95, £15.50 and €16.00 in the US, the UK and the euro zone, respectively.

Yahoo! has released the first official Flickr app for Android. You can take photos with the in-app camera module, enhance it with a selection of filters, then upload it directly to Flickr, and share it on Facebook or Twitter. Other highlights include geotagging, full-screen browsing and slideshows for your photos, your contacts’ photos or any of the public photos from the global Flickr community; and an array of organisational tools including titles, descriptions, comments and tags. Requiring Android 2.1 or later, the Flickr app is available as a free download from the Android Market.

JOBY has launched three new portable tripods, including the GorillaPod Micro 250, GorillaPod Micro 800 and GorillaPod Hybrid. The all-new GorillaPod Micro series comprises a pair of ultra-portable mini tripods that feature an aluminium and zinc alloy construction is engineered for dependable stability, quick deployment and precise ball positioning. The GorillaPod Micro 250 ($19.95) supports point-and-shoot cameras weighing up to 250g, while the GorillaPod Micro 800 ($29.95) has a load capacity of 800g. The GorillaPod Hybrid ($39.95, pictured) has been designed specifically for compact system cameras, and comes with flexible, wrappable legs and an integrated aluminium ball-head, supporting cameras weighing up to 1kg.

Amazon’s new Kindle Fire is an Android-powered tablet with a 7” multi-touch capable screen featuring IPS technology, anti-reflex coating, 16 million colours and a resolution of 169 pixels per inch (ppi). The Kindle Fire offers Wi-Fi connectivity and a USB 2.0 port, and supports JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP image file formats (there’s no mention of native TIFF or raw support though). Also boasting a powerful dual-core processor and 8GB of internal memory, the device gives you access to the Amazon Appstore, but not the Android Market. There’s no on-board camera or 3G support either. We have no way of knowing whether the Amazon Kindle Fire will prove similarly popular with photographers as the Apple iPad - this will depend a lot on the number and quality of available photo-related apps -, but its budget-friendly price tag of $199 suggests that it may well be perceived as more accessible than its established competitor.

The Kindle Fire goes on sale on 15th November in the US. There’s currently no word on international availability or pricing.

MacPhun has released version 4 of FX Photo Studio HD for the Apple iPad. The new version introduces a Masking Studio feature that allows users to apply effects to selected parts of an image, a Colour Splash tool that lets you add colours selecctively, seven new effects including a 3D filter, and brings performance improvements that may result in up to 2x faster processing with certain filters. FX Photo Studio HD 4.0 is available on iTunes for $1.99.

Adobe has released final versions of Lightroom 3.5 and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) 6.5. Previously available as release candidates, these updates add support for a range of new cameras including the Nikon Coolpix P7100, Olympus E-PL3 and Sony SLT-A77 (pictured), among others. Lightroom 3.5 additionally includes a number of bug fixes.

Website: Adobe Lightroom 3.5 for Mac | Adobe Lightroom 3.5 for Windows
Website: Adobe Camera Raw 6.5 for Mac | Adobe Camera Raw 6.5 for Windows

Wacom has launched a new generation of its Bamboo tablets. The range of colourful interactive tablets includes the Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch (small/medium), the Bamboo Pen & Touch (small) and the Bamboo Pen (small). The lightweight Pen & Touch and Fun models now boast wireless capabilities, an improved design and a combination of multi-touch and pen-on-paper-feel technology. The Bamboo Pen & Touch is priced at £74.99, the Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch costs £89.99 (small) / £169.99 (medium), the Bamboo Pen retails for £49.99, while the new plug ‘n’ play wireless accessory kit can be had for £34.99.

Canon Europe has launched a campaign to educate and inspire entry level DSLR users about photography. The Canon ‘EOS Adventure’ campaign aims to encourage amateur photographers to take their photography adventure to the next level and hone their photography skills by providing inspiration, education and an opportunity to showcase their work on Yahoo! and Flickr. A competition is also part of the campaign, offering users the chance to win their very own EOS Adventure; an exclusive photography adventure in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve with Canon’s wildlife photography experts, Jonathan and Angela Scott. Visitors to the EOS Adventure website will be encouraged to use their new photography skills and enter the resulting shots into the competition via the dedicated EOS Adventure page of the Yahoo! site. The Canon EOS Adventure competition will run in eight European countries (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Poland) until Sunday 20th November 2011.

Green Hills Software, an independent vendor of embedded software solutions, has announced that its compilers, Green Hills Probe and MULTI integrated development environment (IDE) have been used by Phase One in the development of the Phase One IQ series digital cameras. “An 80-megapixel sensor generates a vast amount of photographic data—the typical image size is almost 500 Mbytes—and Phase One needed its new digital camera to process and stream the data through multiple channels at the same time,” the company said. According to Søren Ilsøe, software architect, Phase One, “Green Hills Software was able to support the processors faster than any other vendor and made their compiler and MULTI IDE available to us at an early stage… Green Hills is a very professional partner and its technical team supported us in a smooth and efficient manner, allowing us to concentrate on delivering our application on schedule.”

Travel photographer Michael Freeman has teamed up with his publisher, Focal Press, to create the Picture Your City challenge to help inspire fledgling photographers and highlight interesting scenes in and around New York City. “We’re asking photography students to submit an image that exemplifies how they picture their cities and, from the submissions, I’ll choose one photographer to spend time shooting with me and I’ll share some tidbits of inspiration along the way,” said Freeman. “When I was a new photographer, I really enjoyed learning from seasoned professionals. I look forward to giving back to new photographers – and seeing New York City through their eyes!”. To be selected to spend time with Freeman, student photographers should go to the website below to fill out a brief form and upload a photograph of their city. Entries will be accepted through 30th September.

Ritz & Wolf Camera & Image has just announced a revamp of its online imaging site RitzPix.com. The redesigned, Silverlight based site features a new look, enhanced photo editing tools and extended product offerings.To complement the product expansion, RitzPix.com has added a wider variety of themes including more than 50 new photo book layouts, new calendar and collage choices, and more.

Rocky Nook’s latest title, Panobook 2011, is now available in the UK. Filled with 156 high-quality panoramic photographs from Kolor’s 2011 Panoramic Photography Competition, Panobook 2011 is a beautiful, 224-page hardback that opens to 24 inches across two pages. “This collection of images provides an introduction to the best of today’s panoramic photography and serves as inspiration for the interested photographer,” the publisher says. “Laymen and photographers alike are certain to be delighted as they embark on a tour of the world.”

Nik Software has released version 4 of its Color Efex Pro filter suite. Announced three weeks ago, Color Efex Pro 4 is now shipping. New effects include Detail Extractor, Vintage Film Efex, and Image Borders. The release also includes stackable filters, a new History Browser, improvements to imaging algorithms, greater performance, and enhanced usability. Two versions are available: the Color Efex Pro 4 Complete Edition contains 55 filters with a suggested retail price of €199.95/$199.95. The Color Efex Pro 4 Select Edition contains 26 filters with a suggested retail price of € 99,95/$99.95.

Cypress Innovations have released piRAWnha 3, a new version of the first app to enable raw processing on the iPad. piRAWnha features both raw developing and post?processing options, including exposure
compensation, white balance correction, highlight recovery, denoise operations, gamma correction, saturation?hue?brightness adjustments, high?quality contrast adjustments, sharpening and an image histogram that is updated with each edit. Version 3 introduces a LivePreview to view edits in real time, an improvement that is claimed to “dramatically speed up” the editing process. piRAWnha 3 is available on iTunes for £5.99 / $9.99..