Reflecta GmbH has announced the Reflecta x4-Scan - a fast, mobile, battery operated standalone 35mm film scanner. The new x4-Scan offers a 2,4” LCD Display, an integrated SD/SDHC card slot and a lithium-ion battery to allow using the scanner completely independent from a PC or mains supply. The Reflecta x4-Scan can be used to digitise both film strips and mounted slides. It takes two seconds to scan a frame, and the resultant digital photographs have a resolution of 5 megapixels. The scanner is available at a price of €139 including VAT.

Website: reflecta x4-Scan (PDF)

Snapfish by HP today announced its support of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. Snapfish is introducing WISH! custom cover photo books and new template designs, with 30 percent of the purchase price going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The WISH! photo books will be available for purchase in time for the holidays at the Snapfish Make-A-Wish Store.

Website: Snapfish Make-A-Wish Store

Fodor’s Travel and Palm Beach County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau have announced thetravel photography contest, “Show Us Your Palm Beach County.” Until December 31st, North American visitors to Fodors.com can upload and share their favorite photos and experiences of Palm Beach County with other travelers. The grand-prize winning photographer will receive a suite of Fodor’s guidebooks and runners-up will receive two Fodor’s guides of their choice. Winners will be featured in a slideshow on Fodors.com and may appear in upcoming editions of Fodor’s Florida guidebooks. To submit a photo and read a full list of rules, visit the website below.

Website: “Show Us Your Palm Beach”

Lifephoto.com, an online digital photo gift store and photo sharing site, has introduced a range ofe new book-building features that enable customers to upload digital photos and build a photo book in minutes. Lifephoto’s photo book selections include photo cover, hardcover and softcover with the option of a photo jacket for a hardcover book. Another book choice is the “lay flat” book with additional quality options. Many page designs and themed background choices are available, but customers can also elect to use one of their own photos as a background in the opacity they prefer. Photo book prices start at $6.95 for a 20-page book.

Sigma have announced a new, optically stabilised version of their 17-70mm DC lens. This fast standard zoom for DSLR cameras sporting an APS-C sized sensor has a maximum aperture of f/2.8 at the wide end and f/4 at maximum telephoto.  The OS (Optical Stabiliser) function offers the use of shutter speeds approximately 4 stops slower than would otherwise be possible, Sigma claim. The incorporation of HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor) ensures a quiet and high speed AF. Three aspherical lenses and one Extraordinary Low Dispersion glass element are on board to fight all types of optical aberration, whilst the Super Multi-Layer Coating reduces flare and ghosting to help maintain optimum contrast in all lighting conditions. This lens has a minimum focusing distance of 22cm(8.7in.) throughout the entire zoom range and maximum magnification ratio of 1:2.7, which is why the word ‘Macro’ appears in the product name. This minimum focusing distance is apparently measured from the sensor plane, as Sigma also claim you can focus as close as 4.7cm(1.9in.) from the front lens element to the subject. The lens will be available for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sigma and Sony DSLRs.

Website: Sigma

Epson have introduced the Epson PictureMate Show, a two-in-one digital photo frame and 4” x 6” photo printer. Boasting a seven-inch, 16:9 tilt digital photo display with 800x480-pixel WVGA resolution, PictureMate Show offers 12 unique and entertaining slideshow formats for digital images, as well as a remote control to conveniently view and display photos. Combined with a 4”x6” photo printer, it allegedly offers the highest maximum print resolution in its class (5760x1440dpi) to produce a print in 37 seconds. PictureMate Show ($299.99) is currently available through a variety of online retail shops and Epson’s retail site.

SeenBy.com Fine Art Photography is raising money to support Kids with Cameras through donating a portion of all profits between December 1 and 31 December, 2009.  Kids with Cameras is an organisation dedicated to raising funds and awareness for underprivileged children in Calcutta through print sales, exhibitions, film festivals and a book of featuring their work. During the month of December, SeenBy.com will donate 20 percent of the purchase price from images ordered on the site to Kids with Cameras campaign to fund Hope House. Additionally, the children’s artwork is available in the Kids with Cameras Edition gallery on SeenBy.com.

ViewPLUS have introduced the Lumiere 4K x 2K digital camera system that takes standard Nikon F mount lenses and can output 12-bit raw uncompressed 4096 x 2048 images at 60 frames per second to the host PC. Additional features include external frame synchronisation to standard HD formats, such as 480i, 480p, 1080i, and 1080p; CVBS and S-Video bi-level and tri-level input signal synchronisation; and an opto-isolated general purpose input/output connector for synchronising to external devices such as a light source. The Lumiere camera system also includes Lumiere-REC, a software development kit that allows users to record image data and output to movie industry-standard CinemaDNG RAW file format, and Lumiere-RT, an application that can be used in conjunction with CUDA technology to colour process and display full 4K-width colour images in real time on a 4K monitor or four high-definition monitors. Starting at JPY 8,400,000, the Lumiere camera system is available to order now from ViewPLUS.

Website: ViewPLUS

Pictory is a new website founded by Laura Brunow Miner, former editor-in-chief of JPG Magazine, which aims to be “a new model for online magazines” and showcase the best work of photographers all over the world. Anyone can submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory’s editorial themes. “I want to help a diverse group of people put together collaborative photo essays,” says Miner. “Pictory is about true, personal stories, and documentation of our lives and cultures. Pictory members don’t have to be professional photographers or writers, but they do have to look, observe, photograph, and consider. A pictory = a picture + story = a captioned image = a photo story.” The first photo story, entitled, Overseas & Overwhelmed is already on display. Current themes waiting for your submissions include Portrait of a Place: San Francisco, My Most Meaningful Image and The House I Grew Up In.

Website: Pictory

The Imaging Source, a multi-national manufacturer of imaging hardware and software for industry, medicine and astronomy, is now offering amateur astro-photographers a series of highly affordable, low-noise astronomy cameras to capture high-quality images of the night sky. The cameras are outfitted with a tripod socket and a Gigabit Ethernet connector. Monochrome and colour models are available with and without an IR cut filter in three resolutions: 640x480, 1024x768 and 1280x960. The astronomy cameras deploy low-noise CCD chips from Sony, which have an exposure time of up to 60 minutes and a maximum frame rate of up to 60 fps. The astronomy cameras are available worldwide and start at $350 or €290 (without shipping and sales tax).

Website: Imaging Source

Photographer Mark Estabrook has recently found an exposed but unprocessed roll of Ilford HP5 black-and-white film which, after development, turned out to have been shot at a 1978 Bob Dylan concert. Developed after gathering dust for over three decades “at various room temperatures”, the film showed no apparent signs of ageing and the photographs provide a crystal clear view of Dylan on stage during the 1978 performance. “The fact these pictures survived in the condition that they did is testament to the quality and longevity of silver halide photography,” says Estabrook. “As I tell my fellow photographers: try that with a hard drive.”

Pentax have released a firmware update for the Pentax K-x DSLR camera. Version 1.01 adds three kinds of particular effect shooting function to the cross processing feature offered by the camera, allows the user to assign cross processing to the green button, and improves the accuracy of the battery level indicator under specific conditions. K-x owners can download the update from the website below.

Website: Pentax K-x Firmware

PLR IP Holdings, LLC, owners of Polaroid, have announced the signing of six licensing agreements for new Polaroid branded products. Polaroid Studio is an online photo sharing service from MyPhotoAlbum that creates unique, highly customisable online photo albums and photo keepsakes. Camera lenses, filters and close-up lenses, lens hoods and caps, flashes, battery grips, batteries and chargers, camera bags, binoculars and a host of other camera accessories from C&A Marketing; entertainment, mobile, computer and gaming peripherals from jWIN Electronics; night vision units from Famous Trails, notebook accessories, from Matsunichi Digital Holdings and precision-cut screen protectors and durable, optically clear protective films for a wide variety of mobile devices from Panaglobal Distribution will also carry the Polaroid logo in the future. Consumers will be able to purchase these Polaroid branded products in the first half of 2010 at major retail outlets as well as through the Polaroid website.

Website: Polaroid

Nikon UK has announced its new ‘Make Life Easier’ Coolpix game which offers the chance to win a city break to New York for the overall winner, plus a Coolpix S220 camera every day. Players will have their skills challenged in three different shooting scenarios. The three levels of the game focus on a different feature integral to the Coolpix range; at level one, entrants will see the benefit of Smile mode, whilst Blink Proof and Vibration Reduction are featured on levels two and three. To get started, visit the website below.

Website: ‘Make Life Easier’ Nikon Competition

GelaSkins.com is offering a new way to show off your best photo and make your laptop, iPhone, Kindle or Blackberry unique and personal. The new GelaSkins Do-It-Yourself Service allows you to upload personal photos, designs and artwork to decorate your mobile devices. To create a DIY GelaSkins design, visit GelaSkins.com, choose the device, upload the image from your collection,
choose a layout and preview your work of art. All GelaSkins vinyl protective covers are removable using patented 3M adhesive, which prevents air bubbles from forming and allows for easy application.

Website: GelaSkins

Living Exposed have a competition open for two scholarships to join a photography project on the Big Island from 21 to 25 January 2010. A broad range of participants are sought, from beginners looking to learn more about cameras and all their capabilities to professional photographers eager to apply their knowledge and expertise to something new. All applicants must submit five images and also provide a brief background of themselves and their objectives. The deadline for submission is 7 December 2009. Regular participants are required to pay a registration fee of $950, whereas those receiving the scholarships will be exempt from the registration fee and given a stipend of $500 to help offset travel expenses to and from Kona, Hawaii. To apply for a scholarship, check the the appropriate box on your Exposure application.

Website: Application for Exposure: Hawai’i

DxO Optics Pro v5.3.6 for Macintosh brings full compatibility with Snow Leopard, and adds support for 15 new cameras. Newly supported models include the Canon EOS 7D and PowerShot G11, the Nikon D3000 and D300s, the Olympus E-410, E-420, E-450, E-510, E-520, E-620 and E-30 as well as the Sony Alpha DSLR-A230, A330 and A380 models. The 15th camera, the Olympus E-3 (pictured), is only supported in the Elite edition. Also available to DxO Optics Pro users are 255 new DxO Optics Modules, covering 46 cameras. Both the Standard and Elite editions of DxO Optics Pro v5.3.6 are available at a 30% discount until 31 December 2009.

Website: DxO

As promised last week, Ricoh has posted a function-enhancing firmware update for the Ricoh GR Digital III digital compact camera. Enhancements include external flash GF-1 compatibility, playback by date, paging function for multi-frame views, menu paging function, new focus distance when snap is selected and a new “ADJ. ISO direct change” function. The Ricoh GR Digital III firmware and instructions for using these functions can be downloaded free of charge from the website below.

Website: Ricoh Firmware Update

PDN PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo announced that more than 27,000 photographers and photo enthusiasts attended this year’s annual trade show. Aside from the 300 approximate companies displaying their latest technologies and services, PhotoPlus Expo’s expansive line-up of seminars and workshops proved to be a major attraction for attendees. Next year’s PDN Photo Plus Expo will be held from October 28-30, 2010 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York.

Website: PDN Photo Plus Expo