The new ‘On the Edge - Extreme Landscapes’ photography course from Photo Iconic takes participants off dry land and out to sea in a high-speed rigid inflatable boat. The adventure starts at the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk and travels out to the off-shore gas rigs in the North Sea. The course also takes in the Suffolk Heritage Coast, the beautiful landscape of Orford Ness with its impressive lighthouse and deserted Ministry of Defence building, the prehistoric Benacre Lake, the seaside towns of Southwold and Lowestoft and the huge and impressive windfarm near Great Yarmouth, presenting the opportunity to photograph the giant turbines from close up. Limited to just five participants, the course costs £520 for two days - 3-4 July - including personal insurance and dinner, but excluding accommodation.

Website: Photo Iconic

Topaz Labs has unveiled “IntelliNoise,” a new proprietary noise reduction technology that specializes in removing image noise while recovering detail. “Removing noise is easy. The real challenge is to also recover details obscured by the noise,” explains Dr. Albert Yang, the primary innovator of IntelliNoise. “IntelliNoise analyzes patterns in the entire image to discover underlying detail and to recover it in the final result.” The new IntelliNoise technology makes its product debut in the newly upgraded Topaz DeNoise 4 plug-in, which works with a variety of host programs including Photoshop, Aperture, and Lightroom for Mac and Windows. Topaz DeNoise 4 with IntelliNoise is a free upgrade for existing DeNoise customers and retails for $79.99.

Website: Topaz DeNoise

The L-bracket is Aeca-Swiss’ newest product, which makes switching from landscape to portrait shooting easier for photographers who regularly use a tripod. The Arca-Swiss L-bracket is a universal solution, so it can be used with most any camera system. The recommended retail price of the Arca-Swiss L-bracket is €190+VAT.

Lensbaby is asking photographers to photographers can submit two of their best images taken with a Lensbaby lens and a homemade aperture disk for a chance to win a spot on the new Creative Aperture Kit product packaging. Lensbaby Creative Aperture Disks allow users to custom cut shapes onto blank aperture disks in order to add unique one-of-a-kind effects to their photos. These disks allow specular highlights in the out of focus area of a photo to take on the shape of the hole on the aperture disk. The aperture disks are compatible with the Muse, Composer, Control Freak, Lensbaby 2.0 and Lensbaby 3G lenses and with the Double Glass, Single Glass, Plastic and Soft Focus Optics. In addition to submitting two photos, make sure to send Lensbaby a clear illustration of the aperture itself too.

Website: Lensbaby Creative Aperture Kit Contest

The Epson Perfection V330 Photo is a new all-purpose, 4800x9600dpi photo scanner with a built-in transparency unit that enables it to scan slides and negatives. The Perfection V330 comes with Epson’s ReadyScan and Easy Photo Fix technologies on board, and features four customisable buttons for convenient one-touch scanning, copying, scan-to-email, and creating PDFs. Also introduced today is the new Epson Perfection V33, a scanner that is almost identical to the V330 except that it lacks the built-in transparency unit. Available from mid-June, the Epson Perfection V33 and V330 are priced at $89 and $119 respectively.

The 13 lucky winners of our Spring 2010 Newsletter Contest have been announced.

Paul Scrafton, Tommy Sadler, John Donnelly, Andrea Jefferson and Michelle Lam each win a Clickfree Transformer SE worth $79.99.
Roger Hughes, Ruel Penaloza, Chris Crafford, Paritosh Upreti and Colin Bolton each win a Blurb voucher worth £30.
Evgueni Damaskine, Burt Yust and Adri de Groot each win a copy of the Henri Cartier-Bresson: Collector’s Edition DVD worth $49.95 each (*US and Canadian subscribers only)

Subscribe to the weekly PhotographyBLOG Newsletter now.

The winners of the April 2010 Photography Blog Competition have been announced. The theme for April was “Rainbow” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
All the colours of ..... by Masiemay

Prize: X-Rite ColourChecker Passport
Kindly donated by X-Rite
http://www.xritephoto.com/

Olympus Europe has released a new online publication, entitled “PEN - The Magazine”. The first issue features six Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera users from all over Europe, including Tarjei Krogh from Norway, Britt Schepers and Eline Spanjaart from the Netherlands, Eduard Gimenez Cerda from Spain, Chris Mettraux from Switzerland and Björn Scheele from Bavaria. Aimed at popularising the new Olympus PEN E-PL1, the first issue of “PEN - The Magazine” offers interviews, photographs and videos plus links to the Flickr galleries and Facebook accounts of the six featured PEN users.

Website: PEN - The Magazine

Southern Explorations is offering a photography and hiking tour in Peru, called Peru Through the Lens. Under the guidance of professional photographer Carl Amoth, participants will visit Machu Picchu and other famous Inca sites. “Machu Picchu at dawn and a bird’s-eye view of the citadel from Machu Picchu Mountain are just two of the extraordinary perspectives you’ll experience during six unique hikes”. the organisers say. Taking place from 14 to 22 August, Peru Through the Lens costs $2,895-$3,250 per person.

Website: Peru Through the Lens

Zoner Software has just launched Zoner Photo Studio Free, a free program that helps users easily manage pictures, edit them, and share them online. Highlights include automatic redeye removal, cropping, horizon levelling, panorama creation, one-click Quick Fix and more. Zoner Photo Studio Free is free for personal and non-commercial use on single computers running Window XP, Vista, or Windows 7.

Website: Zoner Software

Today Canon launched the CanoScan 9000F, a 9600dpi photo and document scanner that is also capable of scanning a range of film formats. In addition to a hardware resolution of 9600x9600dpi, the CanoScan 9000F also boasts a colour depth of 48 bits and improved scanning times. Capable of digitising both mounted 35mm slides and film strips in 35mm and 120 format, the CanoScan 9000F comes with Canon’s Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement (FARE) Level 3 technology on board for removing dust and scratches using infrared light. The bundled software package includes Adobe Photoshop Elements, ArcSoft PhotoStudio and LaserSoft’s SilverFast SE. The CanoScan 9000F will be available from June 2010 priced at £229.00 / €240.00 / $249.99.

X-Rite has announced the Grand Prize winner and six monthly winners in its “Show Us Your Munki” video contest. “Through this YouTube ‘Show Us Your Munki’ video competition, X-Rite asked people to look at the important issue of color management in a light and playful way,” said Mark Rezzonico, Vice President X-Rite Photo Marketing. “Every month we looked forward to the funny and imaginative new video entries incorporating our ColorMunki Photo color control solution. The icing on the cake was finally awarding the Grand Prize to the video entry that made us not only laugh the most but also showed viewers the lighter fun side of color management when using a ColorMunki Photo.” Contest entrant Tony Pernice from New Jersey was chosen by X-Rite as the $2,500 Grand Prize winner for his video entry titled “Messin’ With Color Munki”.

Website: Show Us Your Munki Contest Winners

Epson UK has announced that as part of its loyalty programme, owners of selected Epson models can save £400 when purchasing either a Stylus Pro 7880 (pictured) or Stylus Pro 9880 large format printer. Printers qualifying for the loyalty programme offer are the Stylus Color 3000 and 1520; Stylus Photo 2000, 2100 and R2400; Stylus Pro 5000, 5500, 4000, 4400, 4800, 7000, 7400, 7450, 7500, 7600, 7800, 9000, 9400, 9450, 9500, 9600, 9800, 10000, 10000CF and 10600. In addition, Epson has announced price reductions on two other large-format printers including the Stylus Pro 7700 and 9700, as well as its GS Canvas Satin media, developed specifically for the Stylus Pro GS6000. The 24” Stylus Pro 7700 has been reduced from £2,395 to £1,995 and the 44” Stylus Pro 9700 has been reduced from £4,795 to £2,995. 44” rolls of GS Canvas Satin are reduced from £202.61 to £130.43 and the 64” rolls are reduced from £295.65 to £182.61.

Big Girls: Large Format Photographs by Women Photographers at Rick Wester Fine Art features a variety of compelling large-format photographs by female artists. On view from May 20 to July 30, 2010, the exhibition encompasses a host of themes within the theme, including portraiture, figure studies, abstraction, autobiography and fantasy. Rick Wester Fine Art is located at 511 West 25th Street, Suite 205, New York. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10-6pm, and Saturday, 11-6pm.

Lynda.com has released 10 courses covering the products in Adobe Creative Suite 5. Course topics include Photoshop CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, After Effects CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, Fireworks CS5, Encore CS5, and Soundbooth CS5 tutorials. Registered users of all Adobe Creative Suite 5 products receive a free 30-day trial membership to lynda.com, which unlocks 100 percent of the lynda.com course offerings in addition to the Creative Suite 5 tutorials.

Website: Lynda

The Adobe Creative Suite 5 product family, including Adobe Photoshop CS5, is now shipping. The Creative Suite 5 line-up includes five new versions: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, as well as 15 point products and associated technologies. Adobe Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash CS5 Professional, Dreamweaver CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, After Effects CS5 and other Adobe Creative Suite tools are available separately or in one of the aforementioned five Creative Suite editions.

Website: Adobe Creative Suite

Nikon UK has announced a new promotion for all UK and Irish customers purchasing its D700 FX- format digital SLR camera. Customers purchasing a Nikon D700, either as a body or part of a kit, will be entitled to claim a free MB-D10 battery grip worth £343.99 RRP. The offer is available from 1 May 2010 to 30 June 2010 (inclusive) and all claims must be received by 31 July 2010.

Website: Nikon D700 Promotion