Nikon

South by Southwest (SXSW), the festival that brings music lovers to Austin, TX every year starts today. Thanks to Nikon, even if you're stuck at home in the (still) cold and rainy weather, you can keep up with South by Southwest happenings!

Nikon is teaming up with yfrog and top bloggers at the South by Southwest Festival this year to produce the first of its kind photo and video gallery highlighting the parties, panels, premiers and more at the Festival!

How does it work? A group of dedicated bloggers armed with Nikon cameras will upload their photos from around Austin. Then, any images and videos uploaded through Twitter using the #SXSW, #SXSWpics or #SXSWpix hashtags will automatically be shared through the gallery. There will also be a live Twitter feed and "News from #SXSW" sections of the site, making it a destination for South by Southwest attendees and fans.Read more

Nikon just announced two new lenses for professional photographers, the highly anticipated 24mm f/1.4G ED lens that gives photographers a dramatic depth of field and versatile focal length; and the new 16-35mm f/4 VR, Nikon's widest angle FX zoom lens to date.

The AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4 G ED lens will be available in late March 2010 for $2199.95 and the wide angle AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR is scheduled to be available in late February 2010 for $1259.95.

Read the press release below for more information. Read more

PMA is coming up later this month and the new cameras announcements have already started rolling out. The latest is from Nikon. Today, Nikon introduced seven new COOLPIX digital cameras; the COOLPIX P100, S8000, S6000, S4000, S3000, COOLPIX L110 and L22.

The COOLPIX P100 is Nikon's first compact camera to offer full HD movie (1080p) recording with stereo sound. It also features a 3.0-inch Vari-Angle 460,000-dot Clear Color Display LCD and Electronic Viewfinder, 10.3 Megapixels, a 26x Optical Zoom-NIKKOR ED Glass Lens (27mm wide-angle to 678mm super-telephoto), HDMI connectivity, as well as a Backside illumination CMOS Sensor for high-speed continuous shooting at 10 frames per second (fps) at full resolution and beautiful pictures even in low light. Read more

The Nikon Festival Judges' $100K Award Winner is Marko Slavnic. His video submission entitled "Chicken vs. Penguin" is a unique short film that shows a funny, physical story of unexpected love brought to life through a fast food mascot rivalry between a boy and girl. It was shot over two days on Congress Street in Austin, TX.

Actor Rainn Wilson, photographer Chase Jarvis and Internet personality "iJustine" selected the 140-second video to win $100,000 from the top 50 finalists, which were narrowed down from more than 1,200 video submissions to www.NikonFestival.com. Read more

Nikon just announced the top 50 Nikon Festival finalists at www.NikonFestival.com, which means it's time to start voting! Since its launch on November 10, Nikon has received over 1,200 submissions to the Nikon Festival for the chance to win up to $100,000.

Check out these stats:

• 1,238 videos submitted to www.NikonFestival.com
• Currently at 1,429 Nikon Festival Facebook Fan Page fans
• Currently at 2,077 followers of @nikonfestival on Twitter
• +221,976 unique visits to www.NikonFestival.com

Visit www.NikonFestival.com to view and rate the top 50 finalists…after all, your vote matters - the finalist who receives the most audience votes wins $25,0000! Read more

In November, Nikon launched an online film festival open to consumers and aspiring filmmakers called the Nikon Festival. With a short video, entrants of the Nikon Festival have the opportunity to win cash prizes of $100,000 or $25,000. Recently, actor Rainn Wilson (The Office) and iJustine posted a Video Podcast with tips on creating and editing video that could snag the $100,000 judges prize for Nikon Festival! Rainn and Justine also talk about their experiences creating their videos, and the role the web plays for artists.

While the contest ends on December 15th, now is a good time to check out the creative submissions on www.nikonfestival.com. The audience voting period will begin soon for the Audience Award of $25,000 and the Judges will soon begin working on selecting the best overall video of the Nikon Festival ($100,000 prize). Keep up to date by following the Nikon Festival via Twitter and become a fan of the festival's Facebook page. Read more

The holiday season is here, and most of us will take photos to capture our holiday memories. If you want to get great results (and who doesn't?), here are some tips from Nikon for taking amazing holiday photos this winter season. Whether you are taking photos with a point-and-shoot or D-SLR camera, these tips are sure to deliver beautiful pictures.

Holiday Photo Tips

1. Keep your eyes on the camera and look at the lens, not the flash, to avoid red eye and blinking
2. Find a simple background; it's about the people not the holiday props (so lose the elf ears)!
3. Focus on what's important; faces! It's called a background for a reason. Nikon cameras also offer a great face detection feature to help you
4. Don't get too close when using a flash, because too much light overexposes faces
5. Lighten up on the flash! If you're shooting holiday lights try turning off your flash and holding your camera very steady for a more stunning photo
6. Try new angles for posing; once you have your family and background set, take pictures from different angles to add some creative variety
7. Take lots of pictures: The more pictures you snap, the greater chance you will capture a special holiday moment

With these tips, you'll be sure to get great results! For information on Nikon cameras, visit www.nikonusa.com.

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, and with that comes the holiday shopping season. If you are in the market for a new digital camera for someone on your gift list, one to consider is the Nikon COOLPIX S70.

Not only does the S70 feature 12.1 megapixels, it has a 3.5-inch OLED touchscreen display. OLED technology gives you excellent color reproduction, sharp contrast and the absence of afterimages. And the touchscreen? Thanks to it, there is only one button on the camera, the shutter release button. Using the Touch Shutter feature, you can take pictures completely "button-free" by just touching the camera's display. You can even retouch images, zoom in or out and switch between thumbnail and full screen views by using pinch and swipe movements, similar to using the touchscreen on the iPhone. The camera adds a couple of new touchscreen controls too, such as on-screen sliders to adjust the brightness, and the new Scene Effect Adjustment gives you controls specific to the scene mode you're using.Read more

Yesterday Nikon announced the new D3S digital SLR. A perfect addition to the camera is Nikon's new medium telephoto AF-S DX Micro 85mm F/3.5G ED VR lens. Designed for close-up photography to DX-format users, it features VR II for up to 4 stops of correction, a 1:1 life-size reproduction ratio, Internal focusing design, and the use of an ED glass element.

"Nikon is proud of its strong reputation for designing and producing some of the world's finest close-up lenses, delivering faithful and consistent color reproduction, stunning sharpness and beautifully balanced contrast," said Edward Fasano, general manager for marketing, SLR Systems Products at Nikon, Inc. "The introduction of the AF-S DX 85mm Micro lens further broadens the Micro NIKKOR family and answers a call from serious nature and portrait photographers, generalists and on-line auction specialists seeking superior close-up shooting performance, affordability and versatility."

Priced at $529.99, the new lens will be available in early December 2009.

For more information read the press release.