Hasselblad will announce new lenses, software, digital back and camera on September 22 at Photokina, Cologne, Germany.

The medium format camera maker says in a press invite that the press conference will be hosted by Hasselblad’s CEO and chairman Dr Larry Hansen. Others at the PC will Chris Russell-Fish (Global Sales & Marketing Director), Peter Stig-Nielsen (Director of Product Management) and Uwe Moebus (Managing Director Hasselblad Germany).

There would also be a the official launch of the “Hasselblad Masters book Vol. 2 – Emotion” on September 21.

This is what you get from a 100mm dedicated macro lens and a Raynox DCR-250 super macro conversion lens. The Raynox 250 is an 8-diopter lens and fit nicely withe smc Pentax D FA 100mm f2.8 Macro WR. The picture is cropped to amplify the magnification ratio but obviously, this is still not close enough.

Need for diopter

I guess, the most ideal conversion lens for a 100mm macro lens is the Raynox MSN-202 super macro conversion lens, which is a 25-diopter lens. Only than can the picture be taken at an extreme close up.

Photo-editing can be an arduous task especially if you are a beginner and have little idea of what to do and how to do it, even on a “straight-forward” photo-editing software like Lightroom.

You can adjust all the sliders, configure all the colours till the crows roost home, but without some form of “purposeful editing”, you’ll end up second-guessing most of the thing.

You may or may not achieve the perfect picture, at least from your point of view, and when you do, you wouldn’t know how did you get there in the first place.

New York Times tech writer Ric Fairlie has just posted “Ten Photo-Editing Tips From a Pro“, tips which I find useful, especially in editing outdoor photographs. Read it and be done with all the second guessing.

The disuse 120-year-old Pudu Jail in the heart of Kuala Lumpur is currently in the process of being torn down. I’ve been trying to enter and photograph the inner sanctum where the hardest of criminals had been kept, but to no avail.

So I was left with little option but to photograph just the outer prison wall. Recently, members of a lomography club in Kuala Lumpur pasted hundreds of photographs and attracted attention from passers-by, including the media.

I came there the next day to see what the fuss was all about but many of the lomos had been torn down; except for some.

But my model was reluctant to pose, and I became too self-conscious, with people staring, to be able to take any decent shot.

If the colour looks a bit different, it was because I shot these pictures with in-camera digital filters applied.

Ok, that is a mightily unreasonably long title; might as well put the whole entry there

But these are special times, crazy times in fact, in its strangely pleasant way that you feel like wanting to go a bit out of convention. There are three convention-defying cameras announced this month, the first being Nikon D3100, the first DSLR to incorporate a full time AF in Live View.

Then Sony announced the SLT A55 and A33, the first two pellicle-mirror cameras, bringing the term SLT or Single Lens Translucent into the camera world. And last but not certainly the least, Canon announcing the 60D, also with a new feature — a vari-angle LCD screen — a first for a Canon DSLR.

August was a heavy month, sings Sir Bob Geldof… “I’ll take another photograph, Before the old one fades, It reminds me of those things that past, And quickly passed away” goes the lyrics.

Is there still a room for another crazy announcement in the run-up to or during Photokina? Is the “distinct” mirrorless EVIL Pentax has hinted it might manufacture can be a truly distinct camera, something as distinct as the SLTs of Sony? Time will tell…

If the spec sheet and PR write-up are anything to go by, the new Nikon D3100, despite its “entry level” tag, is Nikon’s most capable DSLR video shooters to date with the incorporation of full time AF for video shooting in Live View.

Nikon says, “Using contrast based AF, the D3100 automatically focuses on subjects when Live View is activated to aid shooting when using the LCD.”

It also also uses Face Detection technology to lock focus on up to 35 human faces in video shooting, dedicated Live View switch, dedicated HD video button. Sample video below:

Two National Geographic veterans, Bob Caputo and Cary Wolinsky, have launched PixBoomBa, a website where they share tips — in text, photographs and videos — on how to shoot better photographs.

Using humor and a self-deprecating style, Wolinsky and Caputo share insights gleaned from decades at the top of their field.

They said in a press release that PixBoomBa “is aimed at all those with a passion for picture taking and transcends the myriad photography blogs and camera review sites by making the technical and aesthetic elements of good photography accessible to anyone who wants to make better images, no matter their skill level, equipment, or budget.”

“We learned early on to take our work seriously, but not take ourselves too seriously,” says Caputo. “If we can make pretty good pictures, anyone can,” Wolinsky adds. “Sometimes people just need a few tips to get them going.” Here are some of the tips:

Tips on photographing strangers:

What is white balance?

Tips on shooting wildlife:

Shooting “informal” portraits?

Leica has refuted reports by Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun which quoted Leica Camera AG owner Andreas Kaufmann as saying that it had ceased production of film cameras, reports Amateur Photography UK.

“Although the demand for analogue Leica camera models is not high, it is stable, and we are still producing cameras on a daily basis as always,” Leica told Amateur Photography UK.

Aerial photography and medium format cameras. What a potent combination that is. Hasselblad Masters Awards Winner 2001 Bernhard Edmaier has published 200 of his most stunning photographs of volcanoes and volcanic landscapes taken with Hasselblad analog and digital medium format cameras over a period of 10 years.

Titled “Earth On Fire: How Volcanoes Shape Our Planet“, the book contains his most spectacular photographs of volcanic activities in their powerful details.

If Edmaier provides the picture, geologist and co-author Angelika Jung-Hüttl provides the write-ups, explaining the phenomena seen in the pictures.

Hasselblad says, “All of the images in ‘Earth on Fire’ – which were taken over a period of ten years – were photographed with Hasselblad analog and digital cameras.”

“Edmaier personally digitized the analog shots using a Hasselblad Imacon Flextight 949 scanner.”

Sony’s Sweep Panorama technology, the feature it first introduced on the HX1 back in March 2009, has now become a standard feature in almost all Sony cameras be they compact, DSLR, EVIL or SLT cameras.

Yesterday, Sony announced four cameras — five if you count the A55 variant — namely the SLT A55, SLT A55V, SLT A33 and the DSLRs A580 and A560. The A55 and A55V are the same camera except that the A55V has a built-in GPS.

SLT or DSLR?

A quick note on the numbering convention of cameras announced yesterday: cameras with three digits in the names are traditional DSLRs while those with two digits are Sony’s newer breed of SLT cameras or “Single Lens Translucent” cameras, meaning, instead of using a mirror that reflexes light, these cameras use translucent mirror that allows light to pass through the mirror to reach the sensor.

Sony says: “Translucent Mirror Technology uses a fixed, translucent mirror that ‘splits’ the optical pathway between the main image sensor and a separate phase-detection autofocus sensor”. It’s most important use will be in allowing the camera to use phase-detection focusing while shooting videos as well as in shooting rapid-moving objects in stills.

For more information on these cameras and the technology behind it, 1001NoisyCameras has compiled a comprehensive resources on where you can start looking.

Back to the Sweep Panorama, the only question left now is whether the technology will make its way further upward into Sony’s future full frame cameras, which, going by the trend, is very likely.

Back in August last year, we speculated about the possibility of the Sweep Panorama technology making its way upward and eventually become a standard feature in Sony DSLR.

It didn’t take very long for the speculation to come true; and better still, it’s not just the old Sweep Panorama, but a 3D Sweep Panorama. Here is a sample image of the Sweep Panorama taken with Sony SLT A55.