Frommer’s is awarding the winner of its first Cover Photo Contest $5,000 and the honour of the winning photo being featured on the cover of a forthcoming travel guide. Four second-place winners will receive a prize pack containing three Frommer’s Day by Day travel guides and a selection of Frommer’s Lug travel accessories worth more than $300. Contestants have until 31 March 2010 to submit their best travel photos. The Cover Photo Contest celebrates Frommer’s new full-colour editions that premiered in September. Début titles available now include London, Paris, New York City, Italy, Costa Rica, Alaska, and Hawaii. Nine more full-colour guides will be available in 2010. The contest is open only to legal residents of the fifty United States,Canada (excluding Quebec)and the United Kingdom who are at least 18 years old at the time of entry. We do recommend that you read the official rules at the website below before entering your work.

Website: Frommer’s Photo Contest

DxO Labs have just released DxO Optics Pro v5.3.7 for Mac that adds raw support in both in its Standard and Elite editions for the Canon PowerShot S90 (pictured). This release also brings better support for Snow Leopard (installation, activation, stability, plug-in for Photoshop), along with some stability improvements for previous Mac OS versions. DxO Optics Pro v5.3.7 for Macintosh costs $169 / €149 / £99 for the Standard edition, and $299 / €299 / £199 for the Elite edition, including sales tax and VAT where applicable. The minimum system requirements include 2GB of RAM, 400MB available disk space and Mac OS X.4 or X.5 or X.6. Canon S90 owners working on a Windows platform should go for DxO Optics Pro v6.1.1 for Windows instead.

Website: DxO Labs

Nik Software has announced a free daily webinar series set on introducing the company’s digital photographic tools to current customers as well as those who have not yet purchased any Nik Software products. Every daily webinar is hosted by Nik Software experts and provides attendees with introductory information and tips for specific Nik Software products including Dfine 2.0, Viveza 2.0, Color Efex Pro 3.0, Silver Efex Pro, and Sharpener Pro 3.0 software. Webinars cover basic installation, usage tips and other information to help photographers achieve maximum success with the Nik Software product line. Available now, these daily webinars are held three times a day, Monday through Friday. Pre-registration for the webinars can be found at the website below.

Website: Nik Software Webinars

Flashfixers have announced the release of ImageRecall 4 - Don’t Panic Photo Edition (DPPE) recovery software. DPPE is the fourth major revision in the ImageRecall recovery software series. Updated to support the latest Windows and Mac operating systems, the new interface still offers users an easy step-by-step recovery process, but saves time by offering 30 percent faster recovery speeds and an improved thumbnail viewer. It also supports the newest larger capacity memory cards and most popular image formats, including many raw file types. The software’s features allow users to rebuild corrupt files, scan cards for damage, view recovered images, change the destination directory, securely erase cards, make backups and burn recovered files to CD or DVD. Don’t Panic Photo Edition for the PC requires Microsoft Windows Operating System (2000, XP, Vista or Windows 7) or Mac OS 10.4 and above for the Mac version, (Intel Core Duo or Power PC G3, G4 or G5 Processor), a minimum of 256mb of RAM and 15mb of hard drive space for installation, plus additional drive space for recovered images. The software can be ordered as a full version for $39.95. A free trial is downloadable from the website below.

Website: FlashFixers

BenQ has introduced a new digital camera, the pocket-thin (18.4mm) BenQ W1220 with automatic, semi-automatic and full manual exposure modes, a 12-megapixel CCD and 5X optical zoom starting at 28mm (equivalent). The highlights of the new BenQ W1220 are the P/Av/Tv/M exposure modes that are quite unusual at the low price point the camera is offered at. Apart from these, the W1220 sports most all the features expected from a 2010 compact, including Smart Scene, Smart Focus, Face Tracking, Smile Catch, Blink Detector and the bombastically named Love-Portrait Auto Capture mode, which is actually a shooting mode for self-portraits. Available now, the BenQ W1220 sells for €125 according to DCViews.

Website: BenQ DC W1220

Olympus have issued a firmware update for the Olympus Pen E-P1 interchangeable-lens digital compact camera. Version 1.2 reduces the duration of the MF ASSIST enlarged display; allegedly to improve operability. It also enables REC VIEW when the monitor backlighting is set to ‘off’. Unlike with most other manufacturers’ models, but in line with other Olympus cameras, the Olympus E-P1 firmware can be updated from within the Olympus Master or Olympus Studio software.

Source: Olympus Japan

Hearst Corporation has announced the 2011 international biennial competition to recognise and showcase the professional work of talented young photographers. Hearst 8 X 10 Photography Biennial began in 2009. The premiere biennial garnered more than 1,000 entries from 47 countries. The 2011 contest is open to all U.S. and international freelance, amateur and professional photographers and students, aged 18 to 35 years of age. All entries must be submitted no later than May 31, 2010. Winners will be announced in September 2010. Additional information and submission guidelines can be found at the website below.

Website: Harst 8x10 Photography Biennial

Today LaCie announced the LaCie CooKey and LaCie WhizKey, built with sturdy metal, making the surfaces tough and dependable.  The Gold SIP connectors on these USB keys are both water- and scratch- resistant. But the LaCie CooKey and LaCie WhizKey offer more than a resilient surface and up to 32GB of storage—they integrate an extra 4GB of online storage through Wuala. A company of LaCie, Wuala is an online storage service that allows you to securely store, back up, share, and access files from anywhere. The LaCie CooKey and WhizKey will be available in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities through the LaCie Online Store, LaCie Reseller+, and LaCie Corner, starting at the suggested retail price of $19.99.

Website: LaCie

Kingston has announced the Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB Boot Drive. The SSDNow V Series is the latest addition to Kingston’s Value family of solid-state drives (SSD). Priced under £90, the Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB Boot Drive is a fast and cost-effective way to bolster any desktop’s boot, shutdown and application load times. This means users will see an instant speed increase with their software, such as Photoshop, iTunes or Firefox, loading almost 6 times faster than regular desk top hard-disk drive standards, Kingston claims. The Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB Boot Drive will begin shipping in late February 2010, priced at less than £90 GBP. It is backed by a three-year warranty and 24/7 tech support.

Website: Kingston Europe

Digital Anarchy today announced a free update to their popular ToonIt! Photo plugin. Toonit! Photo for Photoshop creates cartoon-like images from photographs automatically, while still allowing artists to customise the cartoon with different paint styles, shading and outlines. Version 2.5 expands ToonIt!’s cartoon outline effect with three new styles: Woodcut Outlines, Conte Outlines and Scratchboard Outlines. There is also a new colour blur option, and improved interface and new cartoon presets available in the update. ToonIt! Photo for Photoshop is regularly priced at $159 USD. Version 2.5 will be on sale for $99 until February 7, 2010. ToonIt! runs in Photoshop 7.0–CS4 and Elements 5.0–8.0. The plugin is also available for Aperture 2.0 and higher. The plugin runs on Macintosh 10.3.9–10.6, Windows XP–7.0 and Vista systems. Current owners of ToonIt! 2.0 should contact Digital Anarchy for update instructions.

Website: Digital Anarchy

Epson America is now shipping an expanded offering of Signature Worthy papers to professional photographers and fine artists, including the new Epson Hot Press and Cold Press Papers and Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper. Optimised for use with Epson Stylus Pro Printers and inks, including new Epson UltraChrome HDR ink technology (found in the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900), the new Signature Worthy Hot Press and Cold Press Papers yield richer blacks, smoother tonal transitions and an expanded color gamut to produce the most advanced fine art prints. The Hot Press papers offer a smooth surface and Cold Press papers feature a textured surface. In addition, Hot Press and Cold Press Bright offer a bright white point, while the Hot Press and Cold Press Natural offer a warm white point. Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper and Signature Worthy Hot Press and Cold Press fine art cut sheet papers are now available through authorised Epson Professional Imaging resellers.

Website: Epson Pro Imaging

The nine lucky winners of our Christmas 2009 Newsletter Contest have been selected from the list of PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscribers.

Anna Ling, Milind Patel and Peter Cuthbert have each won a Photo Paper Direct give-away set, a fantastic prize for either the amateur or for the professional photographer. Each of the 3 give-away sets has a combined list price of over £50.00 per set.

Six people have each won one of these O’Reilly photography books:

Rob Seymour has won From Camera to Computer
Ringo Paulusch has won Mastering Digital Panoramic Photography
maria del mar pardiñas has won Build a Better Photograph
Arthur Jankowska has won Photography Unplugged
Michael Powell has won Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual
Jorma Heikkinen has won Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

The winners of the December 2009 Photography Blog Competition have been announced. The theme for December was “Feet” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
New shoes for my feet by catonic

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

NTI has announced the newest member in its Backup Now family for Windows PCs - Backup Now EZ. It installs ready-to-run with two predefined jobs to let you start protecting your PC immediately. Use the sleek, easy-to-use interface to create a drive image backup for a full and complete backup of your working PC or a file/folder backup to create a quick and efficient backup of your most important data files. The incremental backup for both drive image backup and file/folder backup will only back up new and changed files saving you both time and storage space. And with the graphical status indicator of your backup jobs, you can keep an eye on the vital stats of your backup jobs in a quick glance, the company says. NTI Backup Now EZ is compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and retails for $49.99, with a free trial available.

Website: NTI Backup Now EZ 2010

WD has recently introduced its fastest My Book external hard drive ever—the new My Book 3.0 desktop external drives are among the first devices certified with the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface. Offered standalone, or in a kit that includes a USB 3.0 PCIe (gen2) adapter card, the 1TB and 2TB My Book 3.0 drives are available now at select retailers and shopwd.com. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface on My Book 3.0 drives provides transfer rates of up to 5 gigabits-per-second, allowing users to open and save files up to 4.7 times faster than USB 2.0.  The new My Book 3.0 drive is compliant with the USB-IF SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard to provide compatibility with other USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 products. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1. MSRP for the My Book 3.0 drive 1TB is $179.99 USD. MSRP for the My Book 3.0 drive in a kit that includes a USB 3.0 PCIe (gen2) adapter card is $199.99 USD. The 2TB My Book 3.0 drive retails for $279.99, adapter card included..

Casio has demoed a camera prototype with integrated GPS that knows your position even when it’s lost the signal. According to Japanese website DC Watch, the new Casio has a “hybrid GPS” in that it can geotag images taken indoors with no satellite reception. This is made possible by way of an orientation sensor and a three-way accelerometer that can sense the relative movement of the user, and using this information plus the last GPS coordinate received before reception was cut off, can determine where the photo was taken. This is similar to what regular GPS units do when the car goes into a tunnel, but has been allegedly more difficult to implement as people within a building move in a more complex way than cars in a tunnel. Casio says it needs more market research and testing to determine the commercial viability of the product. DC Watch claims the working prototype they have seen was based on a Casio EXILIM Hi-ZOOM EX-H10.

Via DC Watch (Google Translation)

The Royal Photographic Society’s International Print Competition, the longest standing photographic competition of its kind in the world, is open for entries. This year, the competition is sponsored by Allen & Overy, as in the past two years.The overall winner will receive the Society’s gold medal and a prize of £2,000. Two entrants will win silver medals and £1,000 each. Three bronze medal winners are entitled to prizes of £500 each, while the winners of the themes, “Cities of the World’ and ‘Industry and Commerce’ will receive £750 each. The winner of the Under 25 category will be awatded with the Society’s gold medal and a prize of an Olympus PEN camera. The submission deadline is 29 March 2010. Shown above is one of last year’s bronze medal winners, ‘Who Eats Who’ by David Maitland.

Website: RPS 153rd International Print Competition

Bogen Imaging, the photo-video accessories distributor and part of the Vitec Group which also owns the Manfrotto brand, is changing its name to become Manfrotto Distribution. The rebrand is part of a strategy by the Vitec Group to address the fast growing amateur, high-end P&S and Four Thirds chip DSLR camera sectors, while also maintaining focus on the enthusiast and professional photography and video markets that it is known for. The name change is effective from 1 January 2010, and affects all markets including Germany, France, Italy, UK, Japan and the USA.

Website: Manfrotto Distribution

Etre, a digital communications agency, has created the Etre Touchy gloves as a stylish, fun and practical way to keep your hands warm while fiddling with your gear outdoors. Originally targeted at users of mobile phones, music players and portable games systems, Etre Touchy gloves have proven particularly popular with photographers, the company says. They give you the warmth and dryness of a normal pair of gloves combined with the electronic device compatibility of fingerless gloves. That’s because they are part normal pair of gloves, part fingerless pair of gloves. That is, they cover your middle, ring and little fingers completely, keeping your hands cosy, clean and damp-free; while exposing only the tips of your thumbs and index fingers, allowing you to.access the controls. The gloves are made from 100% lambs wool and are available in four different sizes – men’s, women’s, youth’s and children’s – and in four different colour combinations. Etre Touchy gloves retail at £19.99 and are available for consumers to purchase at the website below.

Website: Etre Touchy