The organisers of the Can-Do film festival and competition are seeking short videos shot on a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV (pictured), 5D Mark II or 7D. The films can be in one of ten genres including music video, spec commercial, TV show teaser, movie trailer, narrative, documentary, nature, sports event, wedding event and military services. The submission period opens on 1 January and closes on 20 March 2010. You can submit more than one movie, but each film should be four minutes or shorter. All submissions must be in the H.264 Apple QuickTime file format, and every submission must be accompanied by a Release Form. To read the full rules and regulations, head to the website below.

Website: Can-Do Film Festival and Competition Rules and Regulations

The launch of new photography website FocalPop brings photographers and photo buyers a new way to buy and sell photography. FocalPoint works on the principle of crowdsourcing: image seekers create a request describing the photo they need, photographers upload shots that meet the request, and then the seeker selects a winning photo. Photographers can sign up for notifications of new requests and participate in those with the style, price, and licensing that best works for them. They also stand to earn high revenues with a minimum of 70% commissions on photo sales and the price of photos starting at a minimum of $50. Buyers will be happy to finally get the exact photos they need without having to spend hours digging for the right photo, the company predicts.

Website: FocalPop

The new Pandigital portable photo printer is the first product coming out of an alliance between Zink Imaging and Pandigital, which extends to the development and marketing of products that leverage Zink’s so-called Zero Ink printing technology. Zink Technology provides Pandigital with a technology platform from which it will launch a new generation of devices that are compact, easy?to?use, and earth?friendly. Powering these Zink?enabled products is the patented Zink Paper, an advanced composite material with embedded yellow, magenta, and cyan dye crystals. Zink?enabled devices use heat to activate and colorise these crystals, radically simplifying the printing process. The new Pandigital portable photo printer which, thanks to Zink’s technology, requires no ink cartridges to produce borderless full-colour 4x6” prints, will be available in limited release before the end of 2009, with US-wide distribution planned for the first quarter of 2010. According to Engadget, the printer has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $149.99, while a pack of Zink Paper will cost you $39.99.

Via Engadget

German university student Franziska Dierschke has come up with an idea for a digicam that looks like a toy gun. The Aimat, as it is called, has no viewfinder, LCD screen or anything that’s considered a basic “ingredient” of a digital camera, except a lens, a sensor and a shutter release. Apparently, the emphasis is not on image quality, perfect focus or exposure; but on the playful act of shooting a picture of someone who doesn’t quite know what’s going on. The Aimat digital camera was first displayed at Berlin’s DesignMai exhibition back in 2007, but disappeared under the radar for over two years, to recently resurface - still as a design concept only, rather than an actual product. We’ll keep you posted if/when it becomes commercially available.

Via SG | Thanks to our reader Tibor for tipping us on the news!

Enlight Photo has announced that the Orbis Arm, a mounting bracket for the Orbis ring flash, is now available across the U.S.A and in many other countries around the world. The arm makes the Orbis even more versatile, firmly connecting the whole flash system into one unit, the manufacturer says. The arm is now on sale in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the USA, Canada, Singapore, the UK and across Europe. The US price of the Orbis Arm mounting bracket is $59. A full list of dealers can be found at the website below.

Website: Orbis Flash

Leaf Imaging announced today the immediate availability of Leaf Capture Remote – an application that extends Leaf Capture 11 workflow software, enabling remote image viewing on an Apple iPhone, or iPod Touch. The Leaf Capture Remote app allows photographers and digital operators using Leaf digital backs and camera systems to view, zoom and pan high resolution Leaf RAW images on an Apple mobile device. Leaf Capture Remote application version 1.0 is free and available now for download from Apple’s iPhone App Store. It supports all Leaf products that connect to Leaf Capture.

Website: Leaf Capture Remote

Nikon has created a new and exciting interactive tool to graphically represent their current lens lineup. The horizontal axis of the chart shows the actual focal length in millimetres, the vertical axis is for the maximum apertures. The lenses themselves are represented by a spot, a bar or a rectangle; depending on whether we are talking about a prime, a zoom with a fixed maximum aperture or a zoom with variable maximum aperture. You can also display product images of the lenses as thumbnails if you wish. Users of the tool can also filter lenses by the size of their imaging circle (DX or FX), focusin method (AF or MF), prime or zoom, and features (such as vibration reduction, internal focus etc.).

Website: Nikkor Lenses Positioning Map

Via Thom Hogan | 1001 Noisy Cameras

Anyone who purchases 200GB or more of extra Google storage will receive a free Eye-Fi wireless memory card, which lets users send photos and videos directly from their camera to the Web. The combined power of Google’s Picasa Web Albums and Eye-Fi’s automatic geotagging service also lets users easily view their photos plotted on a map where the image was taken, and search or organise photos by location. Google’s storage solutions featuring the Eye-Fi card start at 200GB per year for $50 and are available for customers in the United States and Canada via the website below.

Website: Picasa Web Albums

This month we are giving away three Photo Paper Direct Give-Away Sets and six O’Reilly photography books!

On Monday 11th January 2010, nine names will be randomly selected from the list of PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscribers and will each one of the following great prizes:

Three people will each win 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 will each win one of these O’Reilly photography books:

From Camera to Computer
Mastering Digital Panoramic Photography
Build a Better Photograph
Photography Unplugged
Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual
Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

To have a chance of winning these great prizes, simply subscribe to the PhotographyBLOG Newsletter.

Jessops have announced a number of pre-Christmas offers across its product range. The Fujifilm FinePix J30 in blue colour now costs £79, £50 less than its introductory price of £129; the FinePix F72 EXR (pictured) is £179, down from £249. Those wishing to purchase the Nikon Coolpix S225 can now get it for £89, saving £10. Finally, the pink version of the Canon Ixus 95 IS digital camera can be had for £149.

Website: Jessops

South Coast Media Group and SouthCoastToday.com are now accepting photo submissions for their holiday photo contest. Interested participants are encouraged to submit their photos now through 16 December via the contest website.Following the open submission period, voting will take place between 16 and 23 December. Contest winners will be chosen by popular vote and judges votes with different prizes for each. Final contest winners will be announced on 24 December.

Website: South Coast Today Holiday Photo Contest

AKVIS Software has released an update to AKVIS Enhancer, an image enhancement program that improves image detail, fixes dark, hazy, or out of focus photos, and can create HDR images. AKVIS Enhancer works in four modes: Enhancer, Focus, Smart Correction, and HDR mode. In first three modes you can improve a picture using one single shot; in the HDR mode you need a series of shots, but the result is impressive, the company says. The program is available in two versions – as an independent program (standalone) and as a plug-in to a photo editor. Version 11.0 adds a new interface design, gains Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 / Snow Leopard / Windows 7 support, and the plug-in version now supports the Smart Filter function in Photoshop CS3 / CS4. 64-bit support has also been added to the plug-in version. Registered users of Version 10 can upgrade to Version 11 for free, while to owners of older versions, upgrades to v.10-11 are available for $29. The full price of AKVIS Enhancer is $69.

Website: AKVIS Enhancer

A UK-wide survey by HP Photosmart demonstrates the fun Britons have in sharing amusing – often embarrassing – photos with friends and family over Christmas. Falling asleep and dodgy dance moves are the most embarrassing images caught on camera with men more likely to be caught snoozing and women more likely to have their uninhibited disco moves immortally captured in print, the company says. Based on their regional findings, HP have compiled a light-hearted list of the top five things you should do to avoid getting photographed in embarrassing situations. These include being wary in Nottingham - as Nottingham residents are said to be most likely to post incriminating photo evidence on social networks -, keeping an eye out in Belfast - where people are most likely to print off photos “purely to embarrass their friends” -, avoiding 25-34-year-old men - who are most likely to circulate embarrassing photo evidence to colleagues -, steering clear of Edinburgh -  where you’re most likely to be snapped having a drunken sob -, and heading instead to Brighton, whose inhabitants are least likely to be caught on camera doing something embarrassing.

London’s theprintspace gallery is to host DayFour’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” exhibition. ??The idea for this exhibition was to explore something we in the affluent West have become very used to over the last few years: the ability to have most of our desires satisfied with comparative ease. The contributors were asked to think about wishes, desires, lusts, hopes, expectations. The exhibition will run from Friday the 11th of December until Wednesday the 30th of December (excluding bank holidays) at theprintspace gallery on 74 Kingsland Road.

Former creative head of Getty Images Lewis Blackwell is the author of a new book, Photowisdom: Master Photographers on Their Art. Blackwell will deliver a lecture in the School of Visual Arts Theatre at 333 West 23rd Street, New York, on 14 December 2009. The lecture and slide presentation will be followed by a Q + A with the audience and a book signing. The book itself is a 216-page, full-colour publication featuring outstanding images and “revelatory” interviews, the publisher says. The interviewed photographers share their visions, their challenges, their motivations and their methods as they discuss the purpose and the technique of photography with the author. Photowisdom: Master Photographers on Their Art is available for $50.

With two new macro lenses, the Makro-Planar T* 2/50 and the Makro-Planar T* 2/100, both now also available with EF bayonet, Carl Zeiss expands its existing ZE line of lenses. Both macro lenses render objects in close-up on a scale of 1:2. To enable such detail, these lenses include Carl Zeiss’s acclaimed “floating elements” design. This special lens alignment enables high optical performance across the entire focusing range, from 0.24 m to infinity. The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 and Makro-Planar T* 2/100 are already available with F bayonet (ZF) and K bayonet (ZK). The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 is also available as a ZF.2 version. Both lens systems are optimized for analogue and full-frame digital SLR cameras.

Website: Zeiss

Super Talent has released its newest product, the CFast storage card, which has a bandwidth of 375MB/s, i.e. four times more than the fastest High Speed 600x (90MB/s) CompactFlash card while still keeping the small original CF mechanical form factor.  With a Super Talent CFast storage card installed, there will be no waiting time for the camera to catch up, and it will be much swifter to view pictures on a camera or to copy them to computer, Super Talent promises. The company is offering five different CFast storage cards, 8GB and 16GB based on Single Level Cell flash and 8GB, 16GB and 32GB based on Multi Level Cell flash. Do note that the first generation of these CFlash storage cards supports transfer speeds up to 200MB/s rather than the theoretical maximum of 375MB/s, but this is still over twice the speed of the fastest CF cards on the market today. Pricing to be confirmed.

Website: Super Talent

Leading figures from the international photographic community have been announced as the jury members of three separate award programmes of the Sony World Photography Awards 2010. The Honorary Jury for the main annual competition comprises 12 specially selected World Photography Organisation Academy members. They include Mark Sealy, Nadav Kander, Scott Thode, Chloe Limpkin, Aidan
Sullivan, Pablo Bartholomew, Roberto Koch, Monica Allende, Bill Hunt, Trisha Ziff, Michelle Dunn and Bohnchang Koo. The judges for the Student Focus, a competition which involves over 120 photographic institutions around the world, are: Adrian Evans; Adrian Boot, Jonathon Torgovnik, Idris Khan and Sue Steward.

Website: Sony World Photography Awards

Kodak has decided to sell all the assets associated with its OLED business to a group of LG companies. This move follows the signing of a contract earlier this year that has enabled LG to use Kodak’s OLED technology in their devices. Kodak scientists had developed the world’s first OLED (organic light-emitting diode) material back in the seventies, and the American giant has used the technology in a variety of products ranging from digital photo frames to digital cameras. After the sale of its OLED-related assets - a transaction which is expected to close by the end of the year -, Kodak will continue to have access to the technology for use in its own products, the company said in a statement.

Verbatim is launching the Pocket Drive, a stylish black 250GB portable 1.8” Hard Disk Drive which is small enough to slip easily into a trouser or jacket pocket or purse. The drive has a number of features and benefits: a blue LED light illuminates when data is being transferred and the drive offers pre-installed Dmailer backup software with data encryption. Verbatim Syncronisation software is also loaded on the drive which allows data to be synchronised with ease between the home PC and the external hard drive. The Sync software works with files of all types and provides synchronisation of mailboxes and web site details such as the favourites that are saved in the browser. Measuring 90x64x14mm and weighing in at 85g, the Verbatim Pocket Drive comes with a black carry pouch. The recommended retail price (RRP) is £99.99.

Website: Verbatim