By Theano Nikitas

It’s the summer of compact interchangeable lens cameras, or so it seems with a cluster of recent announcements including the late-breaking news this morning of a trio of new Olympus PEN cameras.

At the head of the Olympus compact system camera (CSC) pack is the 12.3-megapixel E-P3, with several under-the hood improvements including a new image sensor and a new processing engine.

Faster performance—yes, it’s true—and full HD movie capture are only a few of the camera’s new features. Other highlights include a new 3-inch OLED semi-touch screen (more about this later), native ISO up to 12,800 for easier low light shooting and additional flexibility for Olympus’ trademark creative Art Filters.

Olympus’ middle-of-the-night product announcement —1am Eastern Standard Time—also included the unveiling of new lenses and accessories as well as two additional PEN cameras: the PEN Lite E-PL3 and the sweet, petite PEN mini E-PM1.

But it’s the higher-end E-P3, which will retail for $899 with a kit lens when it goes on sale in August, that interested us the most. PDN was able to get its hands on a fully functional, test sample of the E-P3 and we filed the following review of the new camera to coincide with its launch.

Read the full review of the Olympus PEN E-P3 by clicking here. Full-resolution sample images shot with the E-P3 are after the jump below.

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Peter Parker, who was arguably the most famous newspaper photojournalist (albeit a fictional one) and superhero, has died. The final installment in the “Death of Spider-Man” comic book series went on sale June 22, Marvel Comic announced last week. (Speculation that Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego, committed suicide after scathing reviews of his Broadway musical, “Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark,” are currently unfounded.)

Longtime fans of the web-slinger needn’t fear, though. The Spider-Man killed in this month’s Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160 is a re-imagined version created in 2000 under Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Marvel imprint as part of an effort to appeal to a younger audience. One recent storyline involved Parker being fired from the Daily Bugle for doctoring photos.

While the Ultimate Marvel version was being published, the original Spider-Man was having his own adventures in several series that were published concurrently. The more seasoned Spider-Man, created in 1962 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, will continue to grace his own monthly titles.

Somehow we knew the real Peter Parker would never Photoshop photos meant for publication.

The following video by photographers/filmmakers Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton of Four Corners Media profiles four young women who participated in the 2011 Egyptian revolution: a student, a cancer researcher, an art curator and a journalist advocate. Garen and Carleton are currently working on a longer documentary titled If, a coming-of-age story about young women and their experiences during the revolution. (If, which Garen and Carleton hope to debut this Fall, will include some scenes and characters from this video. (Garen and Carleton have also launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com to continue filming in Egypt as their characters stories unfold.)

The Aftermath Project, a non-profit organization that gives grants that help photographers tell stories about countries and communities affected by war and other armed conflict, has created a special, one-time $20,000 grant for conflict photographers.

The grant will be awarded to a photographer interested in telling a personal story of how their work covering war has affected their own life. The deadline for the grant is October 1, 2011.

“The subject can be approached in any way—portraits, landscapes, reportage, collaboration with a family of someone who has been killed, anything that explores the personal aftermath of covering war, whether that be PTSD, the aftermath of sexual assault, the aftermath of being wounded,” writes Aftermath Project director Sara Terry her announcement of the grant “This is a very open and fluid call for proposals on this subject, and we welcome any and all approaches.”

The grant was initiated by Terry in response to the “incredible sense of loss” in the photography community following the deaths of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya earlier this year.

The Aftermath Project will also award a $5,000 honorarium to a fixer who has worked with a conflict photographer and wants to tell a written or visual story about how their work has affected their life.

Photographers and fixers who apply for the grant together are eligible for the full $25,000 award.

Download the grant application here:

http://www.theaftermathproject.org/pdf/conflictgrantapplication.pdf

© The Tiziano Project

The Tiziano Project of Los Angeles, which supports online storytelling by citizen journalists in conflict, post conflict and underreported regions of the globe, has won a $200,000 Knight News Challenge grant to improve its award-winning 360 Kurdistan web site. The Tiziano Project was one of 16 winners splitting $4.7 million in grants from the Knight News Challenge, which supports new uses of web-based journalism. The Knight Foundation announced the winners on June 22.

The mission of 360 Kurdistan is to offer “a robust and complete understanding of life, culture and news in present-day Kurdistan.” Its site currently features slide shows and videos by several Iraqi journalists and Western mentors, including executive director and photographer Jon Vidar. The 360 Kurdistan team will use its Knight News Challenge grant to improve its web site using HTML5, and increase the sharing of its content on tablet and mobile devices. According to the Knight Foundation announcement, “The project will also build an interactive map to serve as a hub for projects developing similar sites in their communities and enable direct communication between these communities and their audiences.”

The full list of grant winners can be found here.

Philipp Paulus alleges that the S&M video image (left) is a rip-off of his photograph (right)

First David LaChapelle sued Rihanna for infringement, claiming she ripped off some of his photographs to create the video for her hit song S&M. Now a young Paris fashion photographer is threatening to sue on the grounds that Rihanna ripped off his work, too.

Photographer Philipp Paulus, 19, issued a press release claiming that a scene from the S&M video showing Rihanna pinned to a wall with plastic wrap and black tape is identical to the “set, staging and photographies” of Paulus’s “Paperworld” fashion series.

“The copyright laws of our client has been infringed and the worldwide million-wise exploitation of the video “S&M“ is unlawful,” Paulus’s lawyer says in a press release which was badly translated from the French before it was posted by the celebrity watch site Radar Online.com.

“Why a worldwide celebrity is not able to afford a creative director…is incomprehensible to me,” Paulus says, adding that Rihanna “stole ideas from a creative talent” rather than create her own work.

The press release also accuses Universal Music, Rihanna’s record label, of hypocrisy. Universal spends a lot of money and resources to locate and admonish those who infringe its copyrighted music, the press release points out. “It is even more astonishing that – how in this case – the major-label Universal Music does exactly what itself denounces and admonishes – namely the infringement of the copyright of others!!”

Where and when Paulus actually files suit remains to be seen, but if he follows through on his threat, he’ll have the same uphill legal battle that LaChapelle is having. That is, he’ll have to prove that Rihanna copied his photographic execution–including  elements such as lighting, styling, props, lenses, camera angles, etc–and not just his creative ideas.

Related:
David LaChapelle Sues Rihanna for Infringement
You Be the Judge: Did Rihanna Infringe David LaChapelle’s Work?
Rihanna’s Lawyers Give David LaChapelle a Spanking

Ever heard of the Leica Freedom Train? We hadn’t either until we saw this compelling video by that same name on YouTube.

Everyone now knows about “Schindler’s List” thanks to the Steven Speilberg movie but less have heard of Ernst Leitz II, heir to the founder of the Leica company, and his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz, who helped many German Jews get reassigned overseas after Hitler came to power. Some of Leitz’ Jewish employees were assigned to sales offices in New York City.

Fascinating stuff.  (Read more about the story here.)

Via Helen Oster’s Twitter feed.

A Florida state court judge has ordered the city of Ft. Lauderdale to quit barring photography in public places around a Hollywood film set. The emergency order, issued on Tuesday, was in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the the publisher of South Florida Gay News (SFGN). They sued the city because Ft. Lauderdale police, who were reportedly moonlighting as security guards for the production of the film “Rock of Ages,” starring Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin, were preventing photographers and citizens from taking pictures of the set from public sidewalks and streets nearby.

Broward County circuit court judge Michelle Towbin-Singer wrote in her order that the city and its police chief “shall not prohibit or inhibit the taking of photographs at or from any public area surrounding, near or adjacent to the film set…For purposes of this order, the term ‘public area’ shall include any area where members of the public have a right to be, but shall not include areas that have been lawfully closed to access by members of the public.”

The film production began June 6. Police had posted signs around the film set that said “Warning. No Trespassing. Photography of this area is strictly prohibited. Strictly enforced by FLPD. Violators subjet (sic) to arrest. City Ordinance 16-1.” The SPJ and SFGN sued on the grounds that the ban was a violation of first amendment rights. The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) subsequently joined the lawsuit, after the city failed to respond to its request to lift the ban.

Production for the movie ends today, but NPPA attorney Mickey Osterreicher says the plaintiffs will continue to press the lawsuit in order to get a declaratory judgment from the court, stating that such bans violate the constitution. “If we don’t get a declaratory judgment, this will happen all over again” the next time a Hollywood film production comes to town, Osterreicher says. A declaratory judgment by itself won’t prevent city officials from banning photography in the future, he explains, but it would deter such a ban by making it difficult for city officials to claim ignorance and by exposing the city to costly civil penalties.

Related: Ft. Lauderdale Photo Ban: Bought and Paid for by Hollywood?

STUCK from Joe Ayala on Vimeo.

Faced with a night stranded in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, auto racing photographers Joe Ayala and Larry Chen decided to put their photo equipment to good use. They created a video of themselves playing around in the empty airport—racing wheelchairs, raiding restaurant kitchens and surfing escalators—which became a viral hit, scored them a ton of free publicity, and drew the ire of cranky pants airport officials. The pair also spoke to Jalopnik about how they created the video.

How To Impress Females (In The Bird World) from Tim Laman on Vimeo.

This multimedia piece by wildlife photojournalist Tim Laman about the highly adapted mating rituals of Birds of Paradise and Bowerbirds, both of which live in the New Guinea region, was a hit when it premiered at the recent LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA. Laman, who is also a field biologist, is currently nearing completion on a major, cross-platform project about Birds of Paradise. To see more of his work visit timlaman.com.