Zoom Launches Q3HD Handy Video Recorder – The Only Point and Shoot to Record HD Video & HD Audio

Zoom, makers of award-winning stereo recorders, has launched a new Q3HD Handy Video Recorder – the only handheld to record both HD video and HD audio (24-bit/96kHz). The Q3HD takes Zoom’s renowned audio technology and combines it with crystal clear 1080p video that will make home movies, live musical performances, sporting events or travel videos into truly immersive movies that look and sound so realistic the audience will relive every moment.

This point-and-shoot features both full HD 1080p at 30 fps (frames per second) and 720p at 30 or 60 fps. A 4x digital zoom and a larger, redesigned aperture is paired with three lighting settings ensuring the perfect amount of light in every shot. Zoom’s exclusive “Concert Lighting” setting allows the camera to capture clear, detailed videos even in light intensive environments that would cause most camcorders to wash out.

The Q3HD uses the same microphone capsules as Zoom’s industry-leading H4n recorder, configured in a wide 120° X/Y pattern, for stereo recordings of unsurpassed quality and depth. Setting audio levels is easy using the onboard level meters and mic gain switch with auto gain control.

“To shoot a great movie you’ve got to have both great video and great audio,” says Scott Goodman, President of Samson Technologies, U.S. distributor for Zoom. “Because the Zoom Q3HD is the only handheld video camera that allows users to do both, we believe it will revolutionize the way home movies are shot and set new industry standards for quality and usability.“

A new, icon-based user interface makes the Q3HD easy and intuitive. Turn it on its side to watch videos in 16:9 format on its color LCD screen. Or, use the built-in HDMI port to view on your HDTV. The Q3HD also has a built-in USB 2.0 cable to transfer, view and edit your movies on your PC or Mac.

The Q3HD comes with a 2GB SD card that gives you up to 45 minutes of HD video and accepts up to a 32GB SDHC card for up to 7 hours of HD video. Zoom also includes HandyShare editing software and two AA batteries. A Q3HD accessory package (APQ-3HD), that includes a soft shell case, windscreen, AC adapter, HDMI cable, AV cable and tripod, will be sold separately.

The Zoom Q3HD will go on sale this Fall and will be widely available at major retailers.

Specification

Top 11 iPhone Photography Magazines

Well, as you know we recently ran a feature with the top photography magazines to view on your iPad, well now we are doing the same with the iPhone. Many of the photography magazines are not universal apps, so they are on either/or device. Here are the best ones you can read on your iPhone right now but it is certainly more difficult to find magazines for iPhone over the iPad, but I guess that is not too surprising.

Nature Photo Magazine

Nature Photo Magazine is a magazine only for iPhone/iPod Touch. The contents include amazing nature landscape wallpaper and more about photographic articles by experts.

- Just pay only one time, Update always FREE
- Every three weeks for updating
- This app includes a lovable function: Banner Free MobileSafari.

Price: $0.99/Download

Distill Magazine - photography from the best fashion & style magazines

Distill Magazine is a digest of the best photography and design from the international style and fashion press (including: A Magazine, Acne Paper, Big Man, Dansk, Exit, Fashion Tale, Hercules, Huge, Interview, Lemon, Man about town, Men’s File, Muse, Numero, Please, Ponytail, The Room, Rubbish, S Mag, Sang Bleu, Sleek, Slurp, Soon, Swallow, Tokion, V, Volt, Vice, WAD, Wound, Zink and many others).

Distill showcases the most original, innovative and accomplished fashion, style and visual arts shoots currently being created anywhere in the world. Distill is a magazine application developed for the iPhone & iPod Touch.

Price: $4.99/Download

Digital Camera Essentials Magazine

The UK’s premier Digital Camera Essentials’ guide, Digital Camera Essentials is the magazine for all your shopping and shooting needs. Every issue, Digital Camera Essentials is packed full of essential news for the beginner or enthusiast photographer. From how to shoot your best ever shots and perfect them in post-production, to in-depth and honest reviews of all the latest compacts, DSLRs, lenses, peripherals and more. Plus, all the current digital cameras are listed in our comprehensive, 25-page buyers’ guide, helping to ensure you pick the right camera for your needs.

Price: $1.99/Download

foto news now

Foto news now combines Photography Monthly and Professional Photographer magazines in one great app. Browse through the daily updated photo news from the world of photography, read features from the latest issues, watch videos and listen to podcasts by industry professionals. Access hundreds of high-quality photos in the gallery and portfolio sections, share content with friends and enter competitions. This is a great app for anyone who is passionate about photography, from the enthusiast to the professional.

Price: $2.99/Download

Digital Artist Magazine

Digital Artist is the perfect magazine for anyone who uses their computer as a canvas. It is the only community-focussed magazine to cover all art styles and all art software, making each issue a medley of breathtaking images to inspire you to create your own.

Price: $1.99/Download

Photoshop® Creative Magazine

Photoshop® Creative is the perfect magazine for learning more about Adobe’s outstanding application. Each issue is packed with inspirational tutorials covering the whole scope of the software, from creative projects, to practical guides to using tools and techniques. Readers also benefit from a collectable CD-ROM each issue. Whatever you use Photoshop for, Photoshop creative will help you become a better digital artist.

Price: $1.99/Download

Digital Photographer Magazine

Launched in 2002, Digital Photographer is the ultimate monthly photography magazine, delivering indispensable, practical and hands-on shooting advice. Aimed at digital enthusiasts and professional photographers, Digital Photographer features the latest high-end kit reviews, expert interviews, practical shooting advice and image-editing tutorials to help you become a better photographer. Also showcasing a selection of images from DP readers every month.

Price: $1.99/Download

Vanity Fair Magazine

Vanity Fair’s high-profile interviews, stunning photography, and thought-provoking features on the world’s most engaging people, places, and scandals are available on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch NOW! In addition to the complete October issue, you’ll get bonus photographs and video extras. Plus, find previous months’ issues available for sale in your in-app Store. Best of all, you can use the app two ways: turn it horizontally to swipe through a digital replica of the entire print version, or hold it vertically for an interactive reading experience.

Price: $4.99/Download

GQ Magazine

Look Sharp. Live Smart. Right now. Download the latest issue of GQ + app-exclusive photos and videos you won’t find in the magazine. This app download includes your handy reader, a library feature, AND the complete current issue (October). And best of all, you'll experience it in two ways: Hold it vertically for an iPhone-friendly reading experience, or turn it horizontally and swipe through a digital replica of the entire print version just like you’re used to.

Price: $4.99/Download

Wired Product Reviews

Feed your gadget lust on the go with the Wired Product Reviews app. Get Wired.com's daily reviews of the latest consumer electronics, gadgets, cars, gaming gear and more.

Each hands-on review includes detailed product information, key specs, Wired's rating and the list price -- all with top-quality photos. Download now to effortlessly navigate hundreds of reviews, from laptops to Lamborghinis.

Free/Download

Architect Magazine Mobile Reader

ARCHITECT speaks to today's architects with coverage of the most significant developments in architectural design, technology, and business. Each issue includes photography and drawings of major building projects, peer-to-peer advice on professional practice, and emerging trends in materials and products.

Free/Download

Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 - Part Two

We couldn't resist adding some more glimpses of five more Highly Commended images in this years Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 for you. To view our earlier post of five additional highly commended images, go here. Take a look at these...

Now in its 46th year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is an international showcase for the very best nature photography. The competition is owned by two UK institutions that pride themselves on revealing and championing the diversity of life on Earth - the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Being accepted into this competition is something that wildlife photographers, worldwide, aspire to. Professionals win many of the prizes, but amateurs succeed, too. And that's because achieving the perfect picture is down to a mixture of skill, vision, originality, knowledge of nature and luck.

Each year thousands of entries are received and judged by a specially selected expert panel. The winners are announced at an awards ceremony that takes place each October at the Natural History Museum, London

A miracle of monarchs by Axel Gomille

Behavior: All Other Animals - Highly Commended

Millions of monarch butterflies migrate from North America to spend the winter in the El Rosario forest, high in the mountains of central Mexico. "The sheer density is unbelievable," says Axel Gomille. "I had never seen anything like this before. It was breathtaking. They landed on my fingers, my cap, my camera - everywhere." In March, as the temperature increases, the monarchs start to become more active and the migration northward begins. After warming up in the first rays of the early morning sun, the roosting monarchs fly down to drink: they need water to make use of their tiny fat reserves. Gomille's aim was to capture the butterflies movement and their rich colors lit up against the dark forest backdrop. To do this he lay almost in the puddle, so that the sun lit the butterflies from the side, highlighting the ones in the air. When they take off, it sounds like wind

The hidden plague by Joel Sartore

One Earth Award - Highly Commended

This is a crime scene in a remote corner of California, high in the Sixty Lakes basin area of the Sierra Nevada: mountain yellow-legged frog corpses lie belly-up. The culprit is a chytrid fungus, which causes the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, implicated in the decline or rapid extinction of at least 200 species of frogs and other amphibians worldwide. The disease was first seen in frogs in the Sierra Nevada in 2004, since then it has reduced the population of mountain yellow-legged frogs from tens of thousands to just a few hundred. The death of the frogs is emblematic of a global amphibian decline.
It is believed that the fungus is being spread in part by the international trade in amphibians for display, food and laboratory use, its effects enhanced by global warming.
Its impact on frogs has resulted in the biggest loss of vertebrate life due to disease ever recorded

Lookout by Ken Dyball

Nature in Black and White - Highly Commended

Ken Dybal got to know this caracal well. Living in Kenya's Masai Mara, the young male's mother appeared to be trying to encourage him to become independent. She would leave him alone for long periods of time, says Dyball, presumably hoping he would learn to fend for himself. He slept in a den in the ground during the day, emerging in the evening to wait for her. Early one morning, as Dyball explored the spot where he had last seen the caracal, he heard the thunder of hooves. As a herd of wildebeest galloped past, pursued by hyenas, the terrified young caracal shot out of the grass and up the nearest tree. He did the right thing. They stampeded straight over his den, says Dyball

The drop by Andrew Parkinson

Animals in their Environment - Highly Commended

With his legs dangling over the edge, Andrew Parkinson tried to avoid any foreground showing in the picture by leaning right into the gale-force westerly. "Like so many people with a fear of heights, I am almost hypnotically drawn to drops, and I was determined to show the fulmar as part of this spectacularly precipitous landscape though if the wind had stopped, I might have had a problem. The fulmar is such an aerodynamic bird that the splayed tail feathers and legs seem comically incongruous. But the bird was, in fact, coping perfectly well with the winds surging up the cliff face. Indeed, it seemed to be just enjoying riding the swells."

Dawn Call by Pierre Vernay

Animals in their Environment - Highly Commended

The roar of a red deer stag carries an unmistakable message: the more powerful the roar, the stronger the stag. The sound is designed to carry in a forest, leaving both hinds and competitors in no doubt about the caller's physical superiority. To catch the action of the rut, Pierre Vernay stationed himself in Dyrehaven forest, an ancient deer park north of Copenhagen in Denmark. Going out at dawn, he planned to photograph the deer backlit against the rising sun. Just as the very first beams of sunshine lit up the grass, a stag emerged from below a huge oak tree to challenge a rival that had strayed too close. One set of bellowing was enough - the rival got the message, loud and clear, and vanished.

Fujitsu entrusted with Sony CMOS fabrication

Sony is to delegate production of CMOS sensors used in digital cameras to chip-maker Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd. According to The Japan Times, Fujitsu doesn't compete directly with Sony in sensor manufacturing, but didn't want to divest its proprietary technology with rivals (Sanyo, Sharp and Toshiba amongst others). Final assembly will remain firmly behind closed doors at Sony's own fabrication facilities.

The debate about who makes Nikon's sensors continues to be a point of discussion on various forums around the web. Although Nikon designs sensors for use in their DSLRs, such as the hybrid LBCAST sensor used in the D2H of 2003 (which was made by Sony), production is outsourced. However, while the D3x sensor is also made by Sony, a fact confirmed to me and other journalists by a senior Nikon executive at the time of the launch, there remains some controversy over who makes the 12-megapixel sensor in the D3, D700, and D3s. It's still most likely to be Sony, in my opinion, but built to Nikon's own designs.

With Fujitsu producing certain components of of Sony's CMOS sensors, purportedly for reduced production costs, I wonder if it might also have a second purpose, to allow customization of the final finishing for ad-hoc designs from Sony's clients; rival camera makers, not only Nikon, but Pentax too. You have to remember that the Sony camera manufacturing business is separate from its semiconductor business (there are no duplicated manufacturing operations), and that Sony will be buying sensors from its own semiconductor business, much in the same way that Nikon and Pentax do.

Source.

Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 highly commended images

The world’s most prestigious wildlife photography competition, Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, has revealed some of the commended images from this year’s competition.

There's five listed here, these are among the selection that will join more than 100 other prize-winning photographs, including the overall winning images, when the exhibition debuts at the Natural History Museum, London on 22 October 2010. It will then tour nationally and internationally after its launch in the capital. More than one million visitors are expected to have seen the exhibition once the tour is complete.

A carcass-eye view by Juergen Ross (Germany). Category: Behaviour: Mammals - Highly Commended. A feeding lioness is framed by the carcass of a giraffe at South Africa's Kruger National Park

Picture: Jürgen Ross / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The thoughtful baboon by Adrian Bailey (South Africa). Category: Behaviour: Mammals - Highly Commended. Each morning, thousands of Cape turtle doves flock to a trickling seep at Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, the only source of water for miles around. Birds of prey, meanwhile, line up in trees on nearby cliffs and pick off the drinking doves. This young male baboon finds one of the victims on the ground.
Picture: Adrian Bailey / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Fishing frenzy by Tomasz Racznyski (Poland). Category: Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife - Highly Commended. A black-browed albatross has just surfaced after diving for the discarded horse mackerel and is being set upon by a rabble of other birds. On a trawler in the South Pacific, fish falling from the nets as they are pulled up are an irresistible lure.
Picture: Tomasz Racznyski / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Sunset moment by Olivier Puccia (France). Category: Urban Wildlife - Highly Commended. Overlooking Ramtek in Maharashtra, western India, Hanuman langurs find the highest point from which to admire the sunset. Squeezed out of their forest homes by deforestation and the spread of human habitation, Hanuman langurs have become part of urban life in many parts of India.
Picture: Olivier Puccia / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The ant-shepherd and its little flock by Matt Cole (UK). Category: Behaviour: All Other Animals - Highly Commended. A Black Ant (Lasius niger) herding Black Bean Aphids (Aphis fabae), to 'milk' their honeydew (an ant stroking the aphids with its feelers to encourage them to excrete drops of honeydew). Taken in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire.
Picture: Matt Cole / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year


The 2010 search has now been completed, and the winning and commended images will be on show in the exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, from 22 October 2010. As a photographer I have strongly recommend you visit this exhibition, I make a point in my schedule to visit it every year and it never disappoints. You will love it. To book tickets, please follow the link here

The winning and commended images from 2009 have been published as a hardcover book;  Wildlife Photographer of Year: Portfolio 19  (Amazon US).

Top 10 iPad Photography Magazines

I have to confess, I love photography magazines, not least because I have written for the majority of them but because I love to read the content and gain inspiration from the phenomenal photographs in many of them. Now that it is so easy to read magazines on your iPad it is an even greater experience, no more searching and queuing in newsagents.

I have created a list of ten of the very best photography magazines you can currently download to read on your iPad. Of course, I had to include National Geographic for the images too and you won't be disappointed when you view them on your magical device.

This is the first photography magazine list for the iPad of its kind, so take a look and perhaps download one or two. As always, your feedback is always desired. Enjoy!

Popular Photography+

Popular Photography+ is the new digital version of the Popular Photography magazine, more beautiful, more immersive and more fun to read than ever. It's all the content from the print issue, complete re-imagined and redesigned for the iPad, with an easy navigation for exploring the issue.

October issue highlights:
Canon’s Next Star First Look at the EOS 60D: We spent a few days shooting with a pre-release version of this hot new DSLR and got the lowdown on some surprising features.
Animal Scenics Shooting wildlife doesn’t have to mean just close-ups—sometimes the landscape tells the bigger story.
The Future of Technology Edible cameras, Focus that changes after you shoot. What’s really in store for imaging technology?
Tests and Reviews The Popular Photography Test Lab gives you the goods on the newest gear. This month: Sony's Alpha 390, plus zoom lenses from Canon and Pentax.
How-Tos Find a new take on fall foliage, use a ring light for astonishingly close portraits, create easier HDR images in Adobe Photoshop CS5, and catch migrating monarchs.
Plus: In the dugout with a Major League Baseball photographer, documenting a disappearing way of life, how to pick an SD card, the essentials of sensor size, and more.

Special limited time introductory price of $2.99/Download

Digital Photographer Magazine

Launched in 2002, Digital Photographer is a monthly photography magazine, delivering indispensable, practical and hands-on shooting advice. Aimed at digital enthusiasts and professional photographers, Digital Photographer features the latest high-end kit reviews, expert interviews, practical shooting advice and image-editing tutorials to help you become a better photographer. They also showcase a selection of images from DP readers every month.

Price: $1.99/Download

Digital Camera Essentials Magazine

One of the UK’s premier Digital Camera Essentials’ guide, Digital Camera Essentials is the magazine for all your shopping and shooting needs. Every issue, Digital Camera Essentials is packed full of essential news for the beginner or enthusiast photographer. From how to shoot your best ever shots and perfect them in post-production, to in-depth and honest reviews of all the latest compacts, DSLRs, lenses, peripherals and more. Plus, all the current digital cameras are listed in our comprehensive, 25-page buyers’ guide, helping to ensure you pick the right camera for your needs.

Price: $1.99/Download

Advanced Photoshop Magazine

Advanced Photoshop is the perfect magazine for honing already great Photoshop skills. Each issue is packed full of inspiring interviews and challenging tutorials, tailor-made for the more advanced digital artist. Readers also benefit from an essential CD-ROM each issue. Whether you’re a Photoshop professional or simply aspiring to be one, Advanced Photoshop will help you perfect your art.

Price: $1.99/Download

Interview Magazine - The Calvin Klein Issue

Interview’s Fall Fashion issue boldly demonstrates that the magazine that is known for just as many other things in addition to fashion is more than capable of holding its own as a directional and authoritative voice for fashion in the international arena. With a star cast of contributors relating to fashion - including photographer Steven Meisel and designer extraordinaire Nicolas Ghesquière to name but two – the issue elaborates its vision for the coming seasons for the oh-so-important September issue. And, this vision permeates pretty much every level of the meaty content. For example, Ben Affleck’s interview with cover girl Blake Lively, is accompanied by a shoot by Craig McDean styled by Karl Templer in which Ms Lively sizzles in the latest looks by hot labels as we voyeuristically watch through the eye of a surveillance camera. The confident or attorney or the primes suspect? We may never know.

Free/Download

V Magazine for iPad – The New York Issue

The experience starts with the two covers. Shot by Mario Testino in an amusing take on the glamour within, they feature Lady Gaga with Marc Jacobs and Marina Abramovic with Tyson Ballou. Dan Colen and Aaron Young provide the artistic renditions of the signature ‘V’. World-renowned art, celebrity, music, fashion and photography; the best that NYC offers today, are all encapsulated into these two powerful images.

Inside, the star-spangled magic continues, right from the beautiful credits sequence incorporating a witty fashion shoot of amazing shoes, through to the last word on this season’s hot accessories. The issue is one that genuinely gives a 360 degree image of the city without ever lulling into being formulaic. Top superstar talent, uptown power women and the creative kids of the art and music scenes that keep the city’s creative blood oxygenated all get a turn and are all presented in fresh and inspired ways. In fact, inspiration oozes from this issue and, sadly, there’s not nearly enough space here to go into the details that would do it justice. In the arena of fashion alone, just two amazing examples include supermodel Natasha Poly shot by the maestro of Mexican psychedelic surrealism, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Karl Lagerfeld’s re-enactment of a moment of fashion history with Baptiste Giabiconi, Javier de Miguel and Lara Stone cast as Juan Ramos, Antonio Lopez and Jerry Hall, respectively. This is the September issue as something that pulses with the uplifting feel-good confidence of Odyssey’s 1977 classic ‘Native New Yorker’.

Price: $0.99/Download

Latitude Magazine

Latitude magazine is a historical record of the world as it exists on one day. On the 20th of March 2010, 41 world-class photographers located in 36 countries around the world, all photographed their immediate surrounds, capturing the daily lives of individuals, communities and workplaces in a manner that expands our understanding of the world. Now updated!

Price: $1.99/Download

National Geographic Traveler Magazine

National Geographic Traveler is the world's most widely read travel magazine. It championed sustainable travel before it was cool and, eight times annually, celebrates journeys that are about place, experience, culture, authenticity, living like the locals, and great photography. It makes a distinction between tourism and travel, and stresses inquisitive not acquisitive trips. It employs storytelling and you-are-there photography to inspire readers to pick up and go. And, with the theme of "All Travel, All the Time," it eschews fashion and fluff in favor of articles that offer a strong sense of place, inspiring narratives that make readers take trips, and solid service information to help them plan those trips.

National Geographic Traveler magazine on the iPad takes the coverage of travel to a new level. Without the limitations of print, National Geographic Traveler magazine brings readers to destinations without leaving their living rooms.

Free/Download

National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic magazine has covered “The world and all that is in it” since 1888. From ground-breaking photography to in-depth reporting of the environment, cultures, natural sciences, archaeology, geography, and much more, the monthly magazine has expanded horizons for generations. The National Geographic magazine iPad App expands this tradition with the power of digital publishing. Now, NG’s iPad App delivers the content from the print edition—enhanced with unique interactive elements in a re-designed layout optimized for reading on the iPad.

Notes
- Users will need to create a Zinio account through this application or at www.zinio.com to purchase single issues or an annual subscription.
- Featured: Allows users to preview an article from current or back issues before buying.

Free/Download

NPPA

Keep up on the latest news in news photography and visual journalism from the National Press Photographers Association, the professional organization for visual journalists around the world. Founded in 1946, NPPA is the publisher of News Photographer magazine and hosts the world's second largest annual photography contest, the Best Of Photojournalism.

 

NPPA publishes daily news from the world of visual journalism and photography, and the NPPA iPhone and iPod Touch application is a quick and elegant RSS news reader of NPPA's exclusive stories as well as an interface to NPPA's Web site, www.nppa.org.

Free/Download

Photo Professional

Photo Professional - Canon Edition, only italian photographic monthly magazine dedicated to Canon users, is now available as an iPad App. You'll be able to browse and read all our reviews, hardware test, suggestions, tips and tricks to get beautiful pictures. Turn the pages using only your finger, zoom photos and texts, rotate the screen to view two pages side by side. Special launch offer: download now PhotoProfessional.it and start reading for FREE the first 6 numbers of Photo Professional - Canon Edition in your iPad.

Free/Download

Face To Face - A New Exhibition From Brian Griffin

BJP have a great quote describing Brian Griffin, "Brian Griffin... the most unpredicable and influential British portrait photographer of the last three decades has had a profound effect on photography in the last 30 years... he creates works of art that leave the viewer mesmerised". That really sums up his work and his latest exhibition running from now until November 21, 2010 is not to be missed.

Self Portrait - Brian Griffin - 1988

The exhibition is outdoors and focues on his portraiture work. Located at Snow Hill Plaza in the heart of Birmingham's central business district. Griffin was born just a stones throw away at Birmingham Children's Hospital in 1948. The exhbition follows his journey into the world of photography: a journey of self-discovery and creative development.

The outdoor show is accompanied by two complimentary displays at a major new development, One Snow Hill. These present prints from two exhibitions originally shown at the international photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2009: The Water People (2006), which tells the mythic tale of an expedition across Iceland and Team (2007), which documents the people who built the high-speed rail link to St Pancras.

Brian May, Musician - London 1990

To go to the Face To Face exhibtion website, click here

HDRsoft reveals Photomatix Pro v4

HDRsoft the developer behind Photomatix Pro has released v4 for Windows (XP/Vista/7) and Macintosh (OS10.3.9/10.4/10.5/10.6) platforms. Photomatix Pro costs US$99, while the upgrade to Photomatix Pro version 4 is free of charge for licensed users of Photomatix Pro version 3.

HDRsoft have released Photomatix Pro version 4, the industry-leading standalone program for HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo processing, designed for professional photographers and advanced amateurs alike.

Photomatix Pro merges photographs taken at varying exposure levels into a single HDR image that simultaneously reveals highlight and shadow details, with options for automatically aligning hand-held photographs and reducing ghosting artifacts, noise and chromatic aberrations.

Merged images can then be adjusted by a range of options and settings to get the look that users want -- from natural-looking results using Exposure Fusion to painterly, surreal or ultra-realistic using the Tone Mapping mode. The program also includes a plug-in for Adobe Lightroom users who want to integrate Photomatix Pro into their Lightroom workflow.

The new version adds a selective deghosting tool for effective removal of artifacts caused by movement, improved noise reduction and visualization of presets, allowing users to quickly choose between built-in presets such as 'Painterly' or 'Grunge, as well as user defined presets.

Photomatix Pro is available for Windows (XP/Vista/7) and Macintosh (OS10.3.9/10.4/10.5/10.6) platforms. One license of Photomatix Pro costs US$99. The upgrade to Photomatix Pro version 4 is free of charge for licensed users of Photomatix Pro version 3.

Further details and a free trial of the software may be found at www.hdrsoft.com.

ClearCam 1.7 iPhone App

ClearCam 1.7 is a relatively new app that's been updated and now sports support for the 4th generation iPod Touch including faster and better algorithms. Current enhancements include:

✓ Increased capture rate
✓ 17 new EXIF fields stored to the Cam Roll
- Exposure Time
- Aperature Value
- Focal Length

Quick Mode Features Include

✓ Just point and shoot!
✓ Rapidly captures multiple images
✓ Keeps the best one to save you time
✓ Saves directly to the camera roll
✓ Retains GPS/EXIF/PLACES information

Enhanced Mode Features Include

✓ Create images with 2X resolution (up to 11MP)
✓ Produce sharper images with much less noise
✓ Save images with GPS/EXIF/PLACES support

Price: $1.99/Download

Canon G11 - iPhone App Training Video

A training video that explains the basic controls of the Canon G11. This video runs 1 hour and 20 minutes in length and can help new users become proficient with their camera in a short period of time.

Price: $24.99/Download