Now in its second year, the CB Richard Ellis competition sets a brief for photographers to explore “cities at work” at any time during a 24-hour period. The organisers split the day up into 24 hours and allow for up to 24 images per photographer, but only one per hour of the day. Winners for each hour are chosen by their judging panel, and the prize for each hour is sponsored by an international brand. The winner and two runners-up will be given prizes sponsored directly by CB Richard Ellis. The grand prize will be a week’s holiday for two in Jordan. Whereas the previous competition was only open to contestants from the UK, this year they are opening up the competition to all photographers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As with every competition, we encourage you to read the rules before entering your work.

Update: |Due to popular request, entry has been extended for the 2009 competition until Midnight on 31st January 2010.

Kenro has released a new CD folio case aimed at professional photographers. Made from a leatherette material the CD folio comes with a frame on the front for a photo or message. The folio inside has been designed to hold a single CD and has a designated space for a photo. The folio has a magnetic closure and is supplied in a presentation box. The CD folio is available now with an RRP of £8.95.

onOne Software has released its new Plug-in Suite 5 for Adobe Photoshop, which is now available for download. Announced almost exactly a month ago, Plug-in Suite 5 includes FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.5 Professional Edition, PhotoTools 2.5 Professional Edition, Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition and MaskPro 4. Plug-in Suite 5 is available now to new users for $599.95 and to existing users of previous versions of the Plug-in Suite for $199.95.

Website: onOne Software

Widgetize has announced FantasyLens 2.3, an update to their portrait generation app for iPhone and iPod touch. With innovative features like one-touch automatic colour matching, FantasyLens makes it easy for anyone to create composite portraits using photos of friends, family alike, the company claims. Turn anyone into an astronaut, the Mona Lisa, a sunflower, the Statue of Liberty and more - all without any prior image editing or Photoshop skills. Requiring an iPhone or iPod touch 2.2 or later, FantasyLens 2.3 is available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Photography category priced at $0.99.

Website: FantasyLens 2.3

Nikon have released a new version, 2.7.0, of Camera Control Pro. This software allows photographers to control a camera remotely from a computer using either a wired or a wireless connection. Changes in this version include added support for the new Nikon D3s DSLR, Mac OS X version 10.5.8 and 10.6.1 as well as 32- and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. Note however that in a 64-bit environment the software operates as a 32-bit application.

Website: Nikon Camera Control Pro 2.7.0

Olympus has announced a limited-edition E-P1, whose body is covered in Swarovski crystals. According to Pocket-lint, the Olympus E-P1 Swarovski edition will be available exclusively to order from Harrods’ Micro Anvika department. The two-lens kit, which comes complete with a flash and a wooden box, can be yours for £1999.99.

Via Pocket-lint

Anna Fox, Zoe Leonard, Sophie Ristelhueber and Donovan Wylie have been nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2010, and their work will be on display in The Photographers’ Gallery, London, from February. The exhibition opens on 12 February 2010 and runs until 18 April. The winner of the £30,000 annual award wil be announced on 17 March. The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2010 rewards a living photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution, in exhibition or publication format, to the medium of photography in Europe between 1 October 2008 and 30 September 2009.

Nikon has released version 2.2.3 of its Capture NX software. The new version adds support for the Nikon D3s DSLR and fixes a few bugs related to GPS data, flash exposure compensation data and unexpected software terminations. Additionally, the Macintosh version fixes an issue with the verification of most image profiles in the Profile First Aid panel of Mac OS X’s Color Sync Utility.

Website: Nikon Capture NX 2.2.3

‘YuuWaa’, an innovative solution for the back-up, storing and sharing of all types of digital content, combining USB flash drive memory, online data storage and services today announces that is has doubled the storage capacity of both ‘YuuWaa’ products at no additional cost to customers, as part of a special end of the year offer. ‘YuuWaa Go’ will now provide 24GB of combined storage (previously 12GB) with a 4GB USB flash drive and 20GB online capacity for £19.99. ‘YuuWaa Plus’ will now provide 58GB of combined storage (previously 24GB) with an 8GB flash drive and 50GB online capacity for £29.99.

Website: YuuWaa

The Port of New Orleans will host an exhibit “The End of the Great River: Photographs of the Lower Mississippi River Delta” on December 1st through 18th featuring the work of New Orleans-based photographer Matthew White. The showing of White’s work will consist of fine art landscape images of the Mississippi River Delta, from Port Sulphur in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana south to the end of the three passes that drain the river into the Gulf of Mexico: Pass a Loutre; South Pass and Southwest Pass Photography for the project began in the spring of 2000, shot on both black and white film and in colour digital and has continued to the present day. In this collection, White has shot nearly every named location in lower Plaquemines Parish and has compiled a sizable collection of documentary-style often contemplative photographs of the most remote areas of the parish. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm in the lobby of the administrative building at the Port of New Orleans.

A function-enhancing firmware update for the Ricoh GR Digital III camera will be released on December 1st. 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 Ricoh website.

Kodak has announced that it is ceasing production of its Ektachrome 100 Plus Professional (EPP) and Ektachrome 64T Professional (EPY, pictured) film emulsions. The company cites “significantly decreased sales volumes” as the cause of discontinuance in both cases. The suggested alternative for EPP is Ektachrome E100G. There is no suggested alternative for EPY. Based on current usage demand, both discontinued products are expected to be available in the market through early 2010.

LaCie today introduced its most complete HD multimedia hard drive player, combining Full HD 1080p playback, allegedly unsurpassed format compatibility and DLNA media server functionality – LaCinema Classic HD, design by Neil Poulton. According to claims made by LaCie, LaCinema Classic HD will play all your files without concern – from the most popular DivX format to high-quality MKV H.264 video format via its HDMI 1.3 connection. You can use it as an external hard drive to load media from your Mac or PC. Then, simply connect the LaCinema Classic HD to your HDTV for instant playback. Finally, the LaCinema Classic HD also features the option of connecting a USB Wi-Mark,Fi 802.11N adapter (sold separately) for wireless access to the home network. LaCinema Classic HD is available through the LaCie Online Store, LaCie Reseller+ and LaCie Corner, starting at the suggested retail price of £199.

Website: LaCie

PhotographyBB announced today the release of the 22nd edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The November 2009 edition theme is all about “how-to” with some great tutorials and photography techniques to get your photographic creative juices flowing. This month examines some basic macro photography tips, keeping wildlife (and yourself) safe during nature photography sessions, and a new “Evolution of an Image” series where the creation of a photograph is examined from start to finish. The issue also looks at the ins and outs of the Library Module in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta. Finally, the Photography Around the World feature takes readers to Cabo San Lucas, which lies in the southern tip of Baja California Sur, a province of Mexico. PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website.

Website: PhotographyBB Magazine

Apple has just updated its photo management software, iPhoto. Version 8.1.1 addresses issues affecting face recognition performance and accuracy. It also fixes minor bugs in the areas of book ordering and iPod touch support. Important: If you imported photos of people while using iPhoto 8.1, there’s an extra step you should take after installing the 8.1.1 update. Select all those photos, Control-click to open the contextual menu, and then choose Detect Missing Faces. This will re-detect the faces in those photos and correct any face recognition issues introduced in iPhoto 8.1. You should not quit iPhoto during the Detect Missing Faces process.

Website: About the iPhoto 8.1.1 Update

By visiting California Sunbounce’s website every day from 1 to 24 December, professional photographers and semi-pros are giving themselves the exciting opportunity to win a bundle of prizes consisting of the famous Sunbounce reflectors or Sniper-strap camera straps. California Sunbounce will open a new door on its virtual calendar every day in December making a new offer available. The promotion idea is taken from the Lutheran tradition of the advent calendar, which is used to count or celebrate the days of advent in anticipation of Christmas. You will find the virtual advent calendar from 1 December at the website below.

Website: California Sunbounce

muvee has announced version 8 of muvee Reveal, its home movie-making software. muvee Reveal version 8 boasts features including music trimming on multiple music tracks, direct YouTube and Facebook upload options, and personal branding through logo insertion on your movies.  It is also optimised for NVIDIA CUDA Graphics Processor Units (GPUs), enabling up to 8X faster saving times and superior video preview performance, the company says. muvee Reveal version 8 comes complete with 10 styles, including a new Kinetic style. Styles allow the user to enhance the mood of their home movies with special effects and transitions. Additional stylePacks can be purchased at the manufacturer’s website. muvee Reveal version 8 is available for $79.95.

Website: muvee

Engineering students in the Newcastle and Kidsgrove District have been asked to design, produce and market a photography-related product. Once complete, the products will be assessed by Newcastle-under-Lyme College and JP Service Solutions (JPSS) for their engineering and commercial viability. JPSS have extended their support to the students by setting up a dedicated email address that the students can contact the team on should they have any queries during their time on the course.

Panasonic has released firmware updates for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 camera and five Micro Four Thirds lenses. Version 1.1 of the GF1 firmware enables the use of the manual focus assist feature by pressing the rear dial when an MF-only third-party lens is attached to the camera via an adapter, improves autofocus performance during video capture, improves high-ISO image quality, auto white balance accuracy, and autoexposure accuracy in a couple of scene modes. The lens firmware updates, which concern the Lumix G VARIO 7-14mm, 14-45mm & 45-200mm, Lumix G VARIO HD 14-140mm and Lumix G 20mm lenses, improve AF performance in movie recording, and enable AF in full HD mode on lenses that had previously not had this feature.

Website: Joint Update Service