Congratulations to all 4 of the Britain iS competition winners.

Culture category winner and OVERALL COMPETITION WINNER: The Western Ranger, by Aaron Yeandle.
Landscape category winner: Saltburn beach, by Glenn Humphrey.
Stock category winner: Field, by Christopher Rutter.
Urban category winner: London summer, by Luca di Filippo.

You can see all of the winning entries over at the Guardian’s microsite.

guardian.co.uk/istock-britain-is

In celebration of iStockphoto’s 10th year in business The Guardian is launching a new photography competition, celebrating Britain in 2010. There are four categories, each offering a £500 prize – plus a grand prize of £1,500 for the best overall image. What are you waiting for? It’s time to get snapping …

Enter the Britain iS competition here

Please all sign this petition against proposed UK government plans to amend copyright protection for photographers. This could enable anyone to use your images without paying you a penny if there is no IPTC metadata embedded in the file. You can read more about the issue in these articles from the British Journal of Photographers:

UK Government to tackle Orphan Works

Government unveils plans to reshape UK’s copyright law

Here is the petition to sign:

Petition to: Abandon plans to amend copyright protection for photographers.

If you want to create lighting diagrams for your own reference or to show others how you did a shot, check out lightingdiagrams.com

Alexey & Julia Ivanov of Studioxil.com have produced a series of excellent guides on how to achieve their look, both in terms of lighting and makeup.

There’s something for everyone, no matter if you’re new to studio lighting or an expert… Jump in and enjoy !

http://www.studioxil.com

Awesome to see Canon announce this firmware upgrade coming on June 2nd.

It will allow the following manual controls when shooting HD video:

• Full aperture selection
• ISO speed: Auto, 100 – 6400 and H1
• Shutter speed: 1/30th – 1/4000th second

The one thing in the original firmware that was inhibiting really creative video’s was the automatic exposure. Read more about it on DPReview:

Canon announces update for EOS 5D Mark II: Digital Photography Review.

Hopefully this won’t impeed the efforts to create the ‘5D Free firmware‘ or maybe this is a sign that Canon will release offical versions that mean it’s not needed ? Time wil tell.

New iPhone App from onOne software is coming soon… It’s exciting to see a company thinking outside the box yet again with the iPhone.  Coming to the iPhone appstore soon is a DSLR remote (Canon only at first) that will let you adjust settings, see liveview, and take shots remotely. Your camera needs to be hooked up to a laptop and your iPhone on the same wifi connection for this to work.

I can see a load of instances this would be of great use to stock shooters. There will be an introductory price of $9.99 on appstore release.

Read more about it here.

Video of it in us here.

Pre-release FAQ’s here.

iStockphoto is now accepting submissions for iStockvideo. Submit your video clips, animations, and stock footage today to sell at the world’s most popular royalty-free image market. Clips go on sale September 5th, 2006 at iStockvideo, so get the camera out of the box and start shooting. Become an iStock Videographer today by clicking here.

Be sure to check out the hilarious video of Mr. The Jerk and a dancing bear.

BuyRequest™
Put the iStock community to work finding and creating exactly the images you need. You can either spend a few credits on a Finder’s Fee and let someone else search the library for you. Or post an Open Offer and get custom artwork on-demand: outline what you want, then sit back and watch the submissions roll in. For the most control, Hire On Spec allows to hire specific artists (up to three).

Extended Licenses
Getting a royalty free stock license agreement tailored to your needs is now as simple as clicking some buttons before you download a file. Contributors define specifically which license extensions they will allow for each image. Clients download images with the specific amendments they want. If the extension hasn’t been defined by the artist, a request is made for the artist’s approval. Options include increased print runs, multi-seat licenses, physical items for sale (e.g. mugs, mousemats, t-shirts, physical prints) and electronic items for resale (e.g. e-cards, templates for web development, powerpoint and keynote templates, screensaver, e-mail or brochure templates)

Royalty-free has never been this easy.

Visit iStockphoto.com

iStockphoto.com has launched the latest version of the site, version 8. It’s more than just a site redesign, with a load of new or improved features for uploaders and downloaders alike.

There’s improvements to the file closeup pages, designer spotlight & lightboxes. As well as an overhaul of the profile pages, upload procedure and control panel. Also thousands upon thousands of new categories have been added to really help define an image. This has all been wrapped up in a slick modern website design with a load of super cool AJAX coding to cut down on page reloads.

You can read more about the changes in the article ‘Welcome to V8′ and you can start to browse iStock V8 by clicking the screenshot above or here.