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Olympus introduces PEN E-PL1 Micro Four Thirds camera - At first glance it looks interesting...

 Olympus introduces the PEN E-PL1, a new Micro 4/3 digital camera positioned as the entry-level model of the PEN Series. The E-PL1 features a new Live Guide user interface for easy, intuitive adjustment of brightness, hue, background defocusing, and other image parameters. Furthermore, the camera offers with a dedicated Movie mode button for seamless access to movie shooting, and six Art Filters for enhanced creativity, All that comes in a light, compact body with built-in flash and image stabilisation...

 OLYMPUS E-PL1 PRESS RELEASE SUMMARY

Capture the outside world, release the artist within - Great pictures for everyone

In today's world you've got to give the people what they want. And they're going to want the new Olympus E-PL1. Not only does it deliver extraordinary digital images, it's the perfect tool for anyone who hesitated to buy SLRs because they find them too complicated. The possibilities are virtually endless with this easy to use retro-cool model. With great features like HD movie shooting and impressive Art Filters, you too can take exceptional pictures. Its 100% stabilised body even lets you shoot blur-free with all lenses. Combining SLR performance and a lightweight design, PEN lets you   create exciting, innovative shots, preserving those moments in life you want captured forever. The ultimate democratising force in quality photography, the E-PL1 is available from March 2010.

The high-tech mirrorless construction of the PEN means it's small and handy to use, yet it produces ‘big camera' results. That's the genius of the E-PL1, now fine-tuned with these new features:

• Easy to understand, non-technical Live Guide

• 4 bold colours to choose from: black, white, champagne, red

Click the link below to launch the whole article...

Mediterranean / Greek Island photography holidays and workshops on the Greek island of Kefalonia 2010 - We have a little bonus for course attendees joining us in February, March and April this year......

Click the picture to launch the February 2010 magazine advert in a new window.

For our readers, stumblers and Google search results visitors, I'm making this advert available early so that you can, should you wish to, take the opportunity of the offer before it goes out to the masses in the February edition of a number of photography magazines.

Basically, if you join us on one of our workshops and would like to bring your partner to share your room, we are waiving the standard additional £200 for accompanying non-attendees until the end off April. In other words, there is no additional cost from us to bring your other half or child etc.

Whilst they are not attending the workshops, we have no issues whatsoever with them accompanying you whenever they wish during the week. All we do ask is you don't try to pull a fast one and angle for a freebie workshop place.

If your partner would like to attend the workshops with you and they will be sharing the room with you, there is only an additional cost of £350 for the week anyway. And what's more, that price is the same throughout the year.

So, if you'd like take advantage of this offer, drop us a line or give us a call to discuss and find out more. You can find our contact details on the Ginkgo Studios Workshops website.

"Love me Tender" - Boys... Don't be an arse and forget valentines........

Agent Provocateur - "Love Me Tender" in HD from Greg Williams on Vimeo.

Short film written and directed by Greg Williams as a web based viral ad for the Lingerie firm Agent Provocateur. 

The model is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

Not a new film by a long way, but a timely reminder that it really is worth your while remembering which side your bread is buttered in a couple of weeks ;-)

Our Mediterranean / Greek Island photography workshops and holidays in Kefalonia 2010 have a little bonus for course attendees joining us in February, March and April 2010 can have a little bonus...

Click the picture to launch the February 2010 magazine advert in a new window.

For our readers I'm making this advert available early so that you can, should you wish to, take the opportunity of the offer before it goes out to the masses in the February edition of a number of photography magazines.

Basically, if you join us on one of our workshops and would like to bring your partner to share your room, we are waiving the standard additional £200 for accompanying non-attendees until the end off April. In other words, there is no additional cost from us to bring your other half or child etc.

Whilst they are not attending the workshops, we have no issues whatsoever with them accompanying you whenever they wish during the week. All we do ask is you don't try to pull a fast one and angle for a freebie workshop place.

If your partner would like to attend the workshops with you and they will be sharing the room with you, there is only an additional cost of £350 for the week anyway. And what's more, that price is the same throughout the year.

So, if you'd like take advantage of this offer, drop us a line or give us a call to discuss and find out more. You can find our contact details on the Ginkgo Studios Workshops website.

Year round photography workshops and holidays on the utterly stunning Mediterranean Greek island of Kefalonia (Cephalonia, Kefilinia - take your pick) from Ginkgo Studios...

It has been a long time in the making (3 years to be precise), but at last, we are really proud to announce that today, we are launching Ginkgo Studios Photography Workshops for 2010 out of our 6 modern and amazingly located villas in Trapezaki, Kefalonia - located with the small group of Greek islands in the Ionian sea just off the West coast of the Greek mainland.

Whether you're a beginner, intermediate or advanced enthusiast photographer our on hand professionals will be available to help you to take your photography skills to a whole new level. And what's more, have an amazing time too!

We operate our photography workshops and holidays throughout the year, averaging 2 to 3 slots available per month. So whenever you fancy joining us we are likely to have a series of dates that best suit you.

Not only can you attend one of our week long workshops, but you can bring your partners or families along if we have the availability and then stay on for an extra week or two in one of our three 3 bedroom villas and two 2 bedroom villas.

And, as the weather is pretty nice the whole year round you can catch some winter, spring and autumn sun too. 

During the second week of January here in the UK, the average temperature barely crept above zero and often significantly below. In Kefalonia during this same week, the temperature climbed up to 19'C with clear bright skies. And January is the coldest month of the year there too!

 
  
Pop along to our new site to see what we have on offer. In addition over the next two weeks we will be adding a lot of additional content around our bespoke trips, extras and specials as well as additional information about the island, flights, car hire etc...

So, fingers crossed, we hope to hear from you soon!

Stunning satellite image of the UK caught in the middle of the 2010 deep freeze from the BBC...

 
 A quite stunning and rather striking image taken by NASA's Terra satellite on January 7th 2010. A very clear picture of how the UK is seeing winter weather only previously seen in the 70's and 40's. 

 

Notice the 30'ish year cycle there? You might want to Google that - you might be quite surprised by what you find...

Hasselblad Now Offering Phocus 2.0 Software as Free Download - And it looks sweet too!

Along with announcing the new H4D medium-format digital camera system last September, Hasselblad unveiled its revamped Phocus 2.0 companion software. That software finally became available today as a free download.

We operate the older (but utterly amazing) 503CW & 903CW's here using the digital CFV back (and occasionally film too) from Hasselblad and for this combination, Phocus is excellent - So fingers crossed, Phocus 2 will be even better... As soon as I have had the opportunity to give it a good trashing, I'll be sure to let you know what I think.

Here are some of the highlights of Phocus 2.0, as reported by PDN Gear Guide correspondent Theano Nikitas back in September.

• Customizable (and shareable) layouts for individual workflows.

• Tethered shooting.

• An improved highlight and shadow tool.

• The ability to upgrade camera firmware. 

• While any of the major image-editing programs can handle Hasselblad files, Phocus 2.0 provides the optimum color and lens corrections since Hasselblad has the data to support those features. 

More information and a free download of Phocus 2.0 can be found at this link. 

There's also more info in Hasselblad's press release below.

PRESS RELEASE

Hasselblad's Phocus 2.0 Software Available Now 

Phocus 2.0 boasts a range of new features, such as an improved user interface that drastically reduces the learning curve for high-end imaging. Even the most inexperienced photographer can be up and running with Phocus in no time, with the average photographer able to be up to speed in less than 15 minutes.

Phocus 2.0 features increased speed, increased functionality, and provides the ultimate processing quality for Hasselblad digital images. With Phocus you can reap the full benefits of the precision optics in Hasselblad lenses, providing automatic digital lens corrections for color aberration, distortion and vignetting, the Hasselblad Natural Color Solution (HNCS) for outstanding and faithful colors, and automatic moiré removal directly upon raw data, preserving image detail.

Phocus can be seen as yet another step in Hasselblad's efforts to provide the most advanced technology and the most uncompromising image quality in a format that is simple to learn and to use. So that you can concentrate on what's really important - your photography.

To download or get a free demo of this exciting new software or to simply read more about what's new in Phocus 2.0, click this link. 

iPhone 3G connected to network, but not seeming to use the WiFi network - A very simple, if a little strange solution...

This one has been perplexing me for ages - And yet it seems that the solution has been annoyingly simple and nothing to do with the iPhone at all (well, kind of...) Need a fix? - Well, here it is....

The symptom was that the iPhone 3G (running 3.1.2 for those that are interested) would happily connect to my home WiFi but would refuse to actually use it, thus rendering a fair bit of its functionality at home useless and a little frustrating.

Having reset god knows how many things on the iPhone, rebooted my AirPort Extreme, played with settings on it etc - the one thing I had not done was to do anything with my Netgear modem router (Only being used as a modem with wireless turned off and connected via ethernet cable to the AirPort Extreme). It was however the DHCP / DNS server.

It turns out that as these toys get a little long in the tooth, their DHCP functionality can get a little lazy as the time between reboots gets longer. What has actually been happening has that whilst the iPhone 3G has seen the network and connected to it via the AirPort Extreme, it has not been issued with a valid IP address and therefore the iPhone gives itself a default IP address of 169.254.139.179.

It is this IP address that points to the required solution to get your iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G back up and running on your network. This is because it is the one that phone will automatically give itself in the absence of being issued one by a DHCP server.

So, the solution... 

Unplug the router that assigns your IP addresses on your network (likely the modem router) from the mains, wait 10 seconds and then plug it back it. Give it a minute or so to reboot. That's it - Annoyingly simple or what?!

Credit to Lawrence Finch on the Apple Support forums for this one - Thanks Lawrence...

Need a studio or location lighting diagram tool for whenever you want it and wherever you may be? There's a App for that...

Another little potential gem of an application for the iPhone for those of you who just find pen and paper too old school, is Strobox.

An application that looks incredibly similar to the Photoshop file we shared quite some time back allowing you to create nice and slick lighting diagrams - Initially for all those Strobist peeps who would trash your post on Flickr if you didn't include your inside leg measurement in the lighting info.

I have downloaded and had a very quick play... It's nice, easy to use and will create very slick looking diagrams you can then email out from your phone. No doubt a great little way to kill some extra time on the train or plane.

Personally, I'll stick to my fountain pen and paper. But, that's just because I prefer the tactility, simplicity and end result of it. Not sure about the eco credentials of each of the two options to be honest. And unlikely to ever want to find out.

But, if this is your kind of thing. It really is a nice little App - Downloadable Here.

In addition, you can pop along to the developers website here. But there is less information there than there is on the App Store page.

Johnny Herbert Celebrity Karting Challenge 2009 - Photos from the day - Yet another great days racing and mingling...

 
This year, due to my email system being a total and utter pain in the arse, my seat for the race that I have done for the last 7 years was taken up by Martin from Brawn (or Mercedes depending on when you read this). A lovely chap, who still owes me a bacon roll and a coffee!

But, being a committed team member, myself and my neighbour (who introduced me to the event and team) set out on Sunday morning to show our support for the team and to get some pics of the day to add to the event gallery. Team Forum are our boys and girls and we have always taken very great pride in being there for fun and not getting silly about the whole thing. It's a charity event after all!

Plus the fact that it is pretty much a guarantee that our kart will be the most under powered and under steering of the fleet. But it is something that we just accept in the pursuit of fun.

 
 

Not expecting to participate, it was a great and welcomed surprise when I was offered a slot by Rooney - our boss...  Managing a best time of 44.2 seconds, with our best team time set by Andy at 44.1, with the best lap times of the day in the region of 41.1, it's pretty clear we were totally off the pace.

Now most would say we were just blaming the kart for our lack of lap time when it was in fact our lack of skill. But, given that lap time was set by Andy in a four driver shoot out before the race - oh and the fact that he is the European Karting Champion, I think we are justified in saying our kart was a very real piece of crap...

  

To see a selection of other pics from the race day, click below to open up the post  and have a good flick through.