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

Nikon UK has just announced a new cashback offer on the Nikon D90 and a price drop on the Nikon D5000. The cashback promotion entitles British and Irish customers to claim £60/ €70 cashback on the Nikon D90 digital SLR camera from 1 May 2010 to 30 June 2010. Claims must be received by 31 July 2010. In addition, Nikon has reduced the recommended retail price of the D5000 to £569.99 /€675.00 (body only) and £639.99/ €758.00 for the kit with the AF-S 18-55mm VR lens.

Website: Nikon Cashback Offers

CDWinder, a media cataloguing application for Windows, has received a new update involving the integration of OpenStreetMaps. CDWinder also has a new function to export and convert photos, and contains numerous improvements for stability and performance in cataloguing, find and import functions. “The integration of detailed street level mapping is a huge improvement for the display of precise geotag coordinates in our GeoFinder. And now we can also write precise geotags back into the photos, independent of Google Earth.” said Andreas Becherer, chief developer of the CDWinder team. A single CDWinder user licence is €29 / $39. Multiple licences for business or network use are available, and priced depending on the number of clients and features required.

Website: CDWinder

Pandigital today announced it is now shipping its new wirelessly connected Pandigital Photo Mail Digital Photo Frame to several US retailers. Announced at the beginning of the year, the Pandigital Photo Mail Digital Photo Frame displays photos emailed directly to its dedicated email address. The Pandigital Photo Mail does not require Wi-Fi to do this, as it connects through AT&T’s wireless network. The suggested retail price of the frame itself is $179.99, but it only includes the first 300 photos emailed to it with no service fee to the customer. If you wish to send more photos to the frameyou will have to purchase additional photo allotments from Pandigital.

Fujifilm Japan has announced a new media player that allows you to play back three-dimensional images and movies shot with the Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1 on a Fujifilm 3D television set. Endowed with an SD card slot and capable of reading the Finepix Real 3D W1’s MPO and 3D-AVI files, the Fujifilm HDP-L1 media player connects to a 3D TV via HDMI. The device is now on sale in Japan. At press time, there is no word on international availability or pricing.

Apple has released a new version of Aperture 3. Version 3.0.3 improves overall stability and fixes bugs. Click through / read on for the list of improvements and fixes.

Website: Apple Aperture 3.0.3 Release Notes

Samsung has announced the ten winners of its World Creative Imaging Competition (WCIC). The competition involved selecting students from some of world’s most famous and influential colleges, who were asked to convey their ‘creative moment’ through the use of the new Samsung NX10. Following an online vote which allowed the public to become ‘fans’ of the entrants, images created by the ten winners were unveiled at the Photo and Imaging Exhibition 2010 in Seoul, Korea. The images from the final ten winners are available to view at the website below.

Website: World Creative Imaging Competition

BenQ has announced the expansion of its digital camera lineup with the 12-megapixel BenQ E1260 “HDR camera”. Equipped with a 28-112mm equivalent zoom lens and a 2.7-inch rear screen, the BenQ E1260 comes with an assortment of scene modes including Landscape; Portrait; Backlight; Backlight Portrait; Night Scene; Night Portrait; Macro; Sunset; Text; Foliage; Snow and Still Mode. Other features which are included in the E1260 include: Auto Face Tracking; Blink Detector; Self/Love Portrait; Beauty Enhancer; Smile Catch; Smart Focus; File Management; Auto Rotation and 3 Second Prerecording. As to the much-touted HDR capabilities, the company says precious little about how they work - we supect it’s some kind of a shadow enhancement feature like Nikon’s D-lighting, Canon’s i-Contrast or Olympus’ Shadow Adjustment Technology. Besides taking 12-megapixel photos, the BenQ E1260 is also capable of capturing 720p high-definition video. Availability is slated for May 2010.

Website: BenQ E1260

amsung has announced the fastest external hard drive yet in its STORY Station product portfolio – the Samsung STORY Station 3.0 with the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface offers a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 5 gigabits per second compared to 480 megabits per second in USB 2.0. The new interface is backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1 interfaces. The STORY Station 3.0 drive is available in capacities ranging from 1TB to 2TB, and comes preloaded with Samsung Auto Backup, SecretZone and SafetyKey software for data encryption and password protection.