Data Robotics has launched its online Drobo Store into Europe. Business and consumer customers from more than a dozen European countries can now visit www.drobostore.com/eu to purchase the company’s DroboPro, Drobo and DroboShare storage solutions. roboPro and Drobo, respectively eight- and four-drive storage arrays, provide small and medium businesses, creative professionals, and consumers with a hugely simplified storage experience, enhanced by advanced self-monitoring and self-healing features that ensure the highest levels of data protection. DroboShare turns the four-drive Drobo into a network attached storage appliance. All orders taken through the new online store will be fulfilled by Digital River, a leading European online reseller.

Website: Drobo Europe Onliine Store

Fujitsu has introduced the 12.2-megapixel docomo PRIME Series F-01B water and dust resistant camera phone. To make the most of its onboard camera, the new phone utilises Fujitsu’s Milbeaut Mobile image-processing engine, and incorporates face recognition, smile detection, tracking focus, a 3.4” touch-sensitive screen and a 28mm equivalent lens. In addition to these, Fujitsu claims a maximum sensitivity of ISO 6,400/39° for full-resolution stills and an incredible (for a camera phone anyway) ISO 25,600/45° for 1920x1080-pixel images. The Fujitsu F-01B will be available from NTT DOCOMO, INC. as of 20 November 2009. Pricing to be confirmed.

Website: Fujitsu

Pentax has announced a “Focus on Savings’ rebate that offers a $100 prepaid card on a choice of over 20 Pentax lenses. From now until January 15, 2010, K-7 buyers may select from more than 20 lenses and receive a $100 VISA prepaid card rebate for each and every qualifying lens purchased at the same time. Lenses must be purchased at the same time on the same receipt as the Pentax K-7 digital SLR. The offer is valid for US customers only. Click through / read on for the full list of qualifying lenses.

Website: Pentax Special Offers

Photographer’s Guide to the Leica D-Lux 4: Getting the Most from Leica’s Compact Digital Camera is a new book by Alexander White. The book is a trade-sized paperback, 227 pages long, with more than 100 colour photographs or illustrations. It includes clearly written explanations of all of the camera’s features, controls, and menus. It also covers topics such as the use of flash (both built-in and external), infrared photography, macro photography, and accessories. The book also may be of interest to owners of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 camera, because the D-Lux 4 is very similar to the LX3, and the operations of the two cameras are almost identical. Published by White Knight Press, Photographer’s Guide to the Leica D-Lux 4 is available for $19.95 plus shipping.

Website White Knight Press

The ioSafe Solo, billed as the world’s first high-capacity fireproof and waterproof external hard drive, now offers up to two terabytes of storage space. “The 2 TB ioSafe Solo is a great product for anyone looking to buy a desktop external hard drive who needs the high capacity and single drive simplicity. When used as a backup device, the ioSafe can protect against data loss from primary hard drive failure, accidental deletions as well as fires, floods and other forms of physical disasters,” said ioSafe CEO, Robb Moore. The 2 TB ioSafe Solo is available now from resellers as well as HDDFireSafe.com, Newegg.com, Amazon.com, Buy.com and Provantage.com. Suggested retail pricing is $399.

Leica Camera AG today announced a very special limited edition of its classic 35mm rangefinder system camera: the LEICA M7 Edition ‘Hermès’. The strictly limited LEICA M7 Edition ‘Hermès’ comes in silver chrome with a choice of two striking calfskin leather finishes – orange and étoupe – supplied by Hermès, a Paris-based company renowned throughout the world for its exclusive products. To complement the design of the camera, the special LEICA M7 Edition ‘Hermès’ set includes a silver anodised LEICA SUMMILUX-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH. wide-angle lens, a matching classic round lens hood in silver anodised metal – manufactured specifically for these models – and a LEICAVIT M rapid winder in silver chrome.  A leather carrying strap, handcrafted by Atelier Hermès to match the colour of each camera, provides the finishing touch. Each set is delivered in a linen-covered, silk-lined box. The LEICA M7 Edition ‘Hermès’ will be available in the UK from December 2009 from authorised Leica dealers, at a suggested retail price of £8,550.

Transcend has introduced the new Transcend CompactFlash Card 400X Series, offering read/write speeds of 90MB/s and 60MB/s, respectively. The 400x series consists of the TS16GCF400, TS32GCF400, and TS64GCF400 cards, with capacities of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. All of these new Transcend CompactFlash cards come with hardware ECC (error correction code), wear-levelling technology for consistent long-life operation, and a lifetime warranty. They conform to CF Type I standards and support UDMA. Their durable connectors are claimed to withstand over 10,000 insertions and removals. Pricing to be confirmaed.

Website: Transcend

The winners of the Hahnemühle’s Anniversary Collection awards competition have been selected from 7,100 entries. The competition, part of Hahnemühle’s 425th Anniversary celebration, featured entries from all over the world and was judged by a distinguished panel of international experts. Three winners were selected in each of the three open categories: People & Portrait; Landscape & Nature and Architecture & Still Life as well as three winners in the Student category. The winners were notified and asked to submit their original digital files, but were not told what place they had been awarded. These will be announced at a special Photokina preview presentation in November. The Hahnemühle Anniversary Collection will be touring major photo capitals of the world during 2010.  For exact dates and locations for the entire international tour, visit the website below.

Website: Hahnemühle

The PhotoImaging Manufacturers and Distributors Association (PMDA) announced today that Michio Kariya, President, CEO and COO of Nikon Corporation, will receive the association’s 2010 Person of the Year Award. Michio Kanya has worked for Nikon since 1967 (when the company was still called Nippon Kogaku), and as an engineer, he was personally responsible for the successful development of Nikon’s first ED lens. He was promoted to Director, member of the board and President of the Nikon Imaging Company in 1999. His vision and leadership skills have led to his present position at the helm of Nikon Corporation. The award will be presented at the annual PMDA awards dinner on February 20, 2010 in Anaheim, California, prior to the opening of the 2010 PMA show.

Website: PMDA

We attended the UK press launch of the new Olympus E-P2 earlier today, and can exclusively bring you a photographic comparison of the new Olympus EP2 and Panasonic GF1 Micro Four Thirds cameras. There are 26 photos in our Gallery showing off the new Olympus EP-2, a mixture of side-by-side shots with the GF1 and some showing off the E-P2 with its all new, all-serious black finish. The E-P2’s new viewfinder is particularly impressive - it may be bigger than the Panasonic GF1’s in term of size, but it certainly blows it out of the water in terms of visibility and resolution, coping easily with the dark indoor conference room. Carry on reading to view the Gallery…

Apple has released the Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update which, in addition to containing general operating system fixes, cures a number of problems experienced by Photoshop users. John Nack reports that “the Photoshop team has been helping Apple test these fixes”, which address software crashes, program errors, and various issues with images failing to open, cursors not displaying correctly etc. Some of the problems resolved in the Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update affect multiple versions of Photoshop, while others are specific to CS4.

Website: About the Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update

Via John Nack

Nikon Australia has announced the Nikon Ambassador Programme – a selection of Australia’s top professional photographers. To launch the Nikon Ambassador program, seven dedicated photographers have been selected based on their commitment to the art of photography and their allegiance to the Nikon brand.  Ranging from diverse backgrounds and specialities, the Ambassadors vary from Wedding and Sports to Photojournalism, Portraiture and Movie Stills. “The Ambassadors have been selected because they are experts, masters and innovators in their chosen field of photography. Their dedication and commitment to photography is not only Australian based but also respected globally. Our Ambassadors are dedicated Nikon users and leaders in their disciplines having been highly awarded and praised their services and contributions to the photographic community,” said Nick Segger, Senior Marketing Manager at Nikon Australia.

Kodak, through a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Miller’s Professional Imaging, is offering consumers an opportunity to purchase décor prints of rarely seen images from the newly published book, National Geographic Image Collection. This new book showcases the work of 204 celebrated photographers, with images culled from the Society’s library of 11.5 million images, dating from the late 19th century. Many of the photos are previously unpublished. Through the partnership, consumers will be able to purchase prints in sizes up to 20 x 30 inches, all printed by Mpix, a division of Miller’s, on Kodak professional paper. Information and pricing for the décor prints can be found at:the website below.

Website: National Geographic Image Collection

Bibble Labs have released a public preview version of their Bibble 5 raw image conversion and workflow solution. Improvements include support for 50 new cameras, the addition of on-demand and background printing features, “dramatically improved” selective editing, upgraded metadata handling and workflow automation. Supported operating systems include Linux Fedora Core 6 or later, Ubuntu 6.06 or later , Mac OSX 10.4 or greater, as well as Windows 7, Vista and XP. The company warns that while this preview does include many of the major features that Bibble 5.0 will be introducing, it is still in active development, some features have been disabled, and it still has stability issues.

Website: Introducing Bibble 5

Panasonic today announced the debut of its first audio system with iPod dock and photo frame - the MW-10. Boasting a 9-inch WVGA LCD, the Panasonic MW-10 can display photos from a CD, SD Memory Card and internal memory. The latter offers a generous 4GB of storage capacity. In addition to a full-screen photo slideshow, the MW-10 offers a versatile combination of screen options: clock and iPod track menu, calendar and photos, clock and photos, and audio and calendar. Other highlights include a built-in CD player and an FM/AM radio tuner that has 45-station preset memory. The Universal Dock for iPod plays music and video downloads. Panasonic’s MW-10 will be available in December 2009 with a suggested retail price of $299.95.

Flickr has announced it is partnering with Snapfish by HP to “provide Flickr members worldwide with a wider range of photo printing and gift creation options”. Snapfish will now enable Flickr members to quickly transfer, organise, and print photos, as well as create unique photo gifts using their existing Flickr photostream. Not only can members print photos from anywhere in the world, but they can also ship photos to anywhere in the world. Additionally, members in the U.S. have the option to pick up their prints locally at any of Snapfish’s retail partners’ stores, including Walmart, Walgreens, Staples, Duane Reade, and others.

Website: The Flickr Blog

The new DMW-TA1 Tripod Adaptor makes it possible to use a tripod when a large-diameter lens is attached to the Panasonic GF1. These lenses include the 45-200mm/F4.0-5.6 and 14-140mm/F4.0-5.8. There’s no word yet on price or availability of the DMW-TA1 Tripod Adaptor.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 camera has won a DIWA Gold Award. Kai Thon, test manager of DIWA Labs, concludes: “Our test results show that Panasonic has equipped the Venus Engine processor in the GF1 with exceptionally clever algorithms, delivering outstanding performance in virtually all respects. Combined with the qualities of the high speed and compact size G Lumix 20 mm f/1.7 lens, the Panasonic DMC-GF1 masters most shooting conditions with excellence”. DIWA Awards are based on test results carried out in the DIWA Labs, and evaluations on more than 200 different criteria carried out by DIWA members.

Canon USA have just published an in-depth white paper for the new EOS-1D Mark IV DSLR camera. The EOS-1D Mark IV is a high-speed camerar with a 16-megapixel Canon CMOS sensor, Dual DIGIC 4 Imaging Processors, and 14-bit A/D data conversion, all at 10 frames-per-second. The EOS-1D Mark IV white paper is available now as a free PDF download.

Website: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV White Paper