News

PhotoShelter Inc., an online destination where more than 30,000 professional and
amateur photographers find tools and opportunities for selling their work, today
announced that it will participate as a technology sponsor for the New York Photo
Awards, the official awards of the New York Photo Festival. Honoring talented
photographers from all over the world whose work breaks new ground visually, intellectually
and aesthetically, the New York Photo Awards is a celebration of outstanding achievements
in the world of contemporary photography. As part of PhotoShelter's sponsorship
of the event, the PhotoShelter Personal Archive will be used to store each photographer's
images, distribute galleries to jury members, support the process of filtering
and the ultimate selection of winning images. The Personal Archive is PhotoShelter's
solution that allows photographers to archive, organize, distribute and sell their
images online with powerful tools including slideshows, lightboxes, ecommerce
capabilities, and website customization.



The awards ceremony will take place on May 16, 2008, in the St. Ann's Theater
space in DUMBO, Brooklyn and will feature guest speakers and the presentation
of awards to sixteen category winners and thirty-two honorable mentions. The winners
will be selected by the New York Photo Festival jury, which includes PhotoShelter
Director of Photography Meagan Ziegler-Haynes among several distinguished photo
industry veterans. Winners will be publicly recognized before an audience of peers
and industry luminaries.



Founded by Daniel Power and Frank Evers, and a joint initiative of powerHouse
Books and VII Photo Agency, the New York Photo Festival will be the first international-level
photography festival based in the U.S. For the inaugural edition of this annual
event, to be held May 14 through18, 2008, a group of internationally respected
curators have been selected to deliver their personal vision of the newest and
most important trends in contemporary photography. These curators include Magnum
photographer Martin Parr, The New York Times Magazine picture editor Kathy Ryan,
Lesley A. Martin of the Aperture Foundation, and Tim Barber of tinyvices.com.
In addition to the curated pavilions, the Festival will offer visitors an extensive
range of activities that will generate dialogue and buzz among all the communities
of photo professionals, amateurs, students and aficionados of art and culture,
including seminars, portfolio reviews, slide shows, book signings, photographic
workshops, live performances and events and a gallery row. More info about the
event can be found at www.nyphotofestival.com.
...

Kingston Technology Company, Inc. announced it has posted answers to a new series
of questions submitted by professional and aspiring photographers on its Ask the
Icon interactive feature on the `Icons of Photography' microsite at
www.kingston.com/iop.



"Kingston's `Icons of Photography' continues to generate
interest from photographers worldwide who have specific questions to ask of some
of the world's most-respected photographers," said Jaja Lin, Flash
memory marketing manager, Kingston. "Providing a platform for sharing thoughts
and ideas was the impetus for creating the `Icons of Photography'
program and we're pleased to see that consumers and pros alike are utilizing
this resource to forward their own careers and creative interests," added
Lin.



Questions submitted by photographers from Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Europe and the U.S.
were addressed by Kingston's Icons including Harry Benson, Colin Finlay,
Gerd Ludwig and Peter Read Miller. The Icons offered sage advice on topics including
shooting in extreme conditions, how a publication captures events from multiple
angles and finding work as a photographer.



"It is encouraging to see how many people who really want to learn more
about photography and take their work to the next level," said Peter Read
Miller, Sports Illustrated photographer who recently photographed the Super Bowl
and is preparing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. "Consumers are looking at
their photography as a form of personal expression and that is always a good thing,"
Miller added.



In April, Kingston will publish the next round of Critique My Image. Visitors
are encouraged to submit any photographs they would like to have critiqued by
Kingston's Icons. Submissions can be made through www.Kingston.com/iop.

Mamiya has announced a new addition to their professional line of medium format
film/digital cameras -- the Mamiya 645AFDIII.

Sekonic has announced the release of new Data Transfer Software for the L-758DR
exposure meter. The software is used to create and edit camera exposure profiles
and then transfer them to the L-758DR for extremely accurate control of exposure.
Along with the sensor's dynamic range, it records the unique variations of your
digital camera, such as the effects of shutter speed and aperture mechanisms
as well as the characteristics of the lens in use.

...

The following was posted recently on the Adobe blog page site:



The Lightroom 1.4 update for Mac and Windows has been temporarily removed from
the Adobe.com web site. Those Lightroom users who have installed Lightroom 1.4
should uninstall the update and install Lightroom 1.3.1.(Mac, Win) until a further
update can be provided. For those not in immediate need of the updated camera
support available in Camera Raw 4.4 or the DNG 4.4 Converter, it's recommended
that you also continue working with the 4.3.1 versions. (Mac, Win) This decision
is based on the following errors that have been discovered with the recent update:



EXIF Time Stamp Error: There is an error in the EXIF time stamp
update technology that causes Lightroom to believe that the files are out of
sync with the correct time stamp as displayed in Lightroom. Any ensuing metadata
update will attempt to incorrectly modify the EXIF time stamp in the original
raw file itself. This is the only metadata field that Lightroom will write to
an original proprietary raw file. This error will not impact the integrity of
your image data. The Camera Raw plug-in also will incorrectly change the EXIF
time stamp in files converted by the plug-in. The information written to the
XMP sidecar files or XMP metadata in the converted files will remain correct.



DNG Conversion Error(Windows Only): With the latest version
of the Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 applications, Adobe has included technology
to verify that the image data in a DNG file is unchanged from when it was originally
converted to DNG. Unfortunately, when converting to DNG using Lightroom 1.4
on Windows, the application will write an incorrect verification tag to describe
the image data. When Lightroom attempts to work with those files in the Develop
module, the application reads that incorrect tag, believes that there is something
wrong with the raw data and will present an error. Rest assured, there is nothing
wrong with the integrity of your image data or metadata. For those that have
already converted their files to DNG using Lightroom 1.4(Windows only) we recommend
using the DNG 4.3.1 converter to convert the DNG files you've created
with Lightroom 1.4.



Olympus Conversion Error: There is an error in converting Olympus
JPEG files to other formats in Lightroom 1.4 and the Camera Raw 4.4 plug-in.




To uninstall Lightroom 1.4 please see the instructions per your platform: Mac:
Delete the Lightroom application in the Application folder(Mac) and Delete the
following file: Library/Receipts/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.pkg Windows: Choose
the Uninstall Lightroom 1.4 menu item from the Windows start menu. The Add/Remove
Program utility on Windows will also achieve the same result.

Buffs of infrared photography often go to great lengths to get the ethereal effects that define their images. Now that Kodak has served notice that their high-speed black and white IR film is on the endangered species list, there will be IR film shooters everywhere looking for a way to continue their exploration of that fascinating world. In the past year we have reviewed two Fuji...