With our yearly waterproof compact group test nearing completion, and we put out a call on our new underwater photography forum asking readers to showcase their best photos from the deep. The responses were impressive - take a look at a few of our favorites. And if you're inspired to dive in and take some photos of your own, rest assured our waterproof group test is just around the corner. See gallery

The iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) has announced the winners of its 7th annual Photographers of the Year contest, along with top photos in many individual categories. Entries to the 2014 competition came from photographers in in seventeen countries, and naturally, all were taken with an Apple iPhone, iPod or iPad. Click through to take a look at the winning photos. See gallery

Polish photographer Sebastian Luczywo takes an unusual approach to family photos. His clever and mood-filled photos depict his wife, their two children and family pets in the countryside, often with a touch of the surreal. The resulting images are anything but your standard family portraits. Take a look at his work. See gallery

With the T (Typ 701) Leica debuted a brand new mirrorless lens mount. Built around a 16MP APS-C CMOS sensor, the T has an ISO range of 100-12500 and offers 5fps continuous shooting and Full HD movie recording with stereo sound. We've been waiting for a Leica T to arrive in the dpreview office since it was announced back in April, and today our wish finally came true. To mark the grand occasion (and to immortalize the characteristically lavish packaging) we've created an unboxing slideshow. Click through to feast your eyes. And yes - since you ask, it is a slow news day.

Canon USA has released a video explaining how to take care of your camera gear. In the video, hosted by Holly Groder of Canon's call center, Canon gives a series of recommendations for things to avoid, and things to get into the habit of doing, to keep your gear clean and fully functional. If you mentally delete the word 'Canon' from every other sentence there's plenty of sensible advice for caring for your gear - whatever the manufacturer. Click through to see the video.

The AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G is Nikon's latest moderate wideangle prime, designed for full frame SLRs like the D610. It sits in the lineup between the budget, DX-only AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G and the premium, half-stop faster AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.4G. It also faces stiff competition from the highly-regarded Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM. So how does it measure up in terms of optical quality? See the lens test data and our analysis

Samsung has launched two new high-end tablets. The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 have very similar specifications and mainly differ in screen size. Both devices offer high-resolution SuperAMOLED displays with 2560x1600 pixels. Samsung's earlier Tab Pro models came with the same resolution, but this is the first time Samsung combines such dense displays with SuperAMOLED technology. Learn more at connect.dpreview.com

Benjamin Von Wong isn't afraid of a little drama. His work incorporates elements of fantasy, turning models into otherworldly creatures and fire-breathers. So who else might you expect to find at the helm of an underwater shoot with two models, a team of divers and a shipwreck? Yep, he went there. Take a look at some of the photos and watch a behind the scenes video to see how he pulled it off. See gallery

The Galaxy S5 is Samsung's latest flagship smartphone and successor to the Galaxy S4. It comes with a 16MP BSI CMOS sensor, an F2.2 maximum aperture, 4K video capture and phase detection AF, but has to make do without an optical image stabilization system. That doesn't hold it back much - DxOMark's Mobile report gives its image quality full marks, making it a joint leader in their rankings with the Sony Xperia Z2. Learn more

Since its arrival in our office, the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 has hardly had a moment's rest. The superzoom with a 25-400mm equivalent lens and 1"-type sensor is truly one-of-a-kind. We've put it through the paces of a first impressions review and taken it outside in some very un-Seattle-like weather for extensive shooting. In the process, we've assembled some hands-on photos of the camera so you can get better acquainted with the FZ1000. See slideshow

Superzoom cameras offer DSLR-style ergonomics and enormous zoom ranges, which make them very popular among novice photographers and enthusiasts looking for a 'take everywhere' option for travel and day-to-day shooting. They have not, traditionally, impressed us with their image quality. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 is a very different beast though, and has impressed us with its specification, performance and price. In this short article, editor Barnaby Britton explains why the FZ1000 is definitely not 'just another superzoom'. Read more

Sigma UK has revealed pricing and availability for its dp2 Quattro, along with much more information about the camera than we got when it was announced in February. The latest, 45mm-equivalent, model features dramatic styling and a fundamental re-think of the company's Foveon multi-layer sensor design. It will be available in early July with a suggested retail price of £899.99 including VAT. In the USA availability is estimated as early August and the street price will be $999. Learn more

Up until now, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 was the only game in town for those seeking a big zoom camera with a larger-than-average sensor. Panasonic has thrown its hat into the ring with the Lumix DMC-FZ1000, which offers a 1"-type, 20.1MP CMOS sensor, plus a longer (but slightly slower) zoom lens. The FZ1000 is also the first compact camera to support 4K video recording. Perhaps the biggest story is the price: $899. We've gotten our mitts on a product model and have some initial thoughts to share. Find out more

Panasonic has announced its Lumix DMC-FZ1000 superzoom camera, which features a 1"-type CMOS sensor and F2.8-4.0, 25-400mm equivalent lens. The sensor is not only the same size as on Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 - it's also the same resolution (20.1MP). The FZ1000 features both a fully articulating LCD as well as a high resolution OLED viewfinder. The FZ1000 is also capable of recording 4K video at a bit rate of 100Mbps, from which 8MP stills can be grabbed. The camera will be priced at $899 / £749.99.

Sigma has announced US pricing and availability for its latest camera the dp2 Quattro. Featuring a newly-developed ~19.6 million pixel APS-C Foveon sensor and a completely new body design, the dp2 Quattro has a 30mm F2.8 lens (45mm equivalent) and will be available in the USA in early August at a street price of $999. Click through for the press release.

As Lytro prepares for the launch of its second generation light field camera, the Lytro Illum, the company faces a challenge: how does one easily display and share the 'living pictures' their cameras produce? Today the company announced plans to open-source its Living Picture Player - a viewer for its light field images. The WebGL-based player can be integrated into any website or social media platform, thereby allowing for easy sharing of Lytro's living pictures. 500px will be the first to host an image gallery based on this player.

Adobe has released a video sneak-peek of a new feature due to be introduced into Creative Cloud which the company is calling 'Focus masks'. In the video, Zorana Gee, senior Photoshop product manager explains that with focus masks, Adobe is 'adding a new way to make an automatic selection based [on] pixels that are in focus versus out of focus'. Click through to watch the video and learn more. 

Alien Skin Software has launched an update to its popular photography effects software, Exposure. Announced in April, Exposure 6 has a new processing engine for instant image effect previews, a new user interface for a faster workflow and tools for 'Bokeh.' It's available for download now at $149 for new users and as a $69 upgrade for existing users. Read more

The Olympus Tough TG-3 is a slightly more enthusiast-focused rugged compact, offering a 25-100mm equiv. F2.0-4.9 lens, 16 megapixel sensor, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi. It's waterproof to 15m/50 ft, shockproof to 2.1m/7 ft and freezeproof to -10° C/14° F. Like its peers it records 1080p HD video. We put its waterproof claims to the test - find out how it did in the real-world. See gallery

The Ricoh WG-4 offers a 16 megapixel sensor and a 25-100mm equivalent F2.0-4.9 lens. Identical to its WG-4 GPS sibling in almost every way except for the obvious (one has GPS and a front-facing display, one doesn't) the WG-4 is waterproof to 14m/45 feet, freezeproof to -10° C/14° F and shockproof to 2m/6.6 feet. Take a look at our real-world samples. See gallery

Nikon's Coolpix AW120 features a 16 megapixel sensor and is waterproof to 18m/59 ft. It offers a 24-120mm equiv. lens, along with built-in Wi-Fi and GPS. The AW120 will withstand a drop from 2m/6.6 ft and is freezeproof to -10° C/ 14° F. Among nearly all of its peers it offers the widest lens, though at F2.8-4.9 not as fast at the wide end as the Olympus TG-3's or Ricoh WG-4's. Take a look at what the AW120 is capable of in the real-world. See gallery

Waterproof to 25m/82 ft, the Canon PowerShot D30 is capable of diving deeper than its current competitors. The 12.1 megapixel D30 also features a 28-140mm equiv. lens and built-in GPS. In addition to its impressive waterproof specification, it's coldproof to -10° C/14° F and shockproof to 2m/ 6.5 ft. See how it performs in the real world, both on land and under the waves. See gallery

Location-based search for restaurants, taxis or other services, as offered by Yelp, Uber and a multitude of other apps, have been around for a quite a while. Now, a new service called Picquest wants to apply the same concept to photography. The Android and iOS app allows you to find photographers on a map or get notified of photographers in your geographical proximity. It's an interesting potential social networking and business tool for phtoographers. Learn more

Nikon has issued a firmware update for the Coolpix A. Version 1.11 decreases minimum focus distance (in normal focus mode) and boasts improvements to autofocus acquisition. Other improvements are minor, including better battery performance during interval shooting. Get the update

As soon as it arrived we wasted no time getting out with the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III, and in the past few days we've also added a lot to our first-impressions review, including a movie page, shooting experience and studio comparison images. This weekend presented an opportunity to update our gallery of real-world sample images too, bringing our gallery to 87 images, including a handful of raw conversions. See more.

Adobe’s Lightroom 5 is a powerful program, but that power comes at the expense of a learning curve that some find pretty steep. In this excellent video shot at B&H, Photographer Robert Rodriguez, Jr. walks photographers through the functions and features of Lightroom’s Develop module in an hour-long hands-on tutorial as he covers just about every panel and slider in the Develop module. Learn more

Chuck Westfall is the unassuming and authoritative head media liaison for Canon, USA. Fake Chuck Westfall is an invented anti-hero and the surly voice behind the Fake Chuck Westfall blog, a site that pokes fun at Canon, Nikon and the photo industry in general. After maintaining secrecy for six years the man behind the account has revealed his identity, announcing that he's moving on from the blog.

Our first impressions review of the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III just keeps growing. The latest aims to answer one of the most important questions potential owners ask about a camera - 'What's it like to use?' With promising specifications like a 20 megapixel 1"-type sensor, a fast 24-70mm equiv F1.8-2.8 Zeiss-branded lens and a pop-up EVF, the RX100 III looks excellent on paper. Does that hold up in real-world use? Read more

One of the most talked about new features of the HTC's latest flagship smartphone, the One M8, is the Duo Camera. Using the primary camera and a second sensor to create a shallow depth-of-field effect, the Duo Cam produced less-than-perfect results in our testing. But thanks to an update to the Gallery app, the effect can now be adjusted. Learn more

Nikon's 1 V3 is the newest model in the company's enthusiast mirrorless interchangeable lens camera system. The V3 is built around an 18.4 MP CX-format sensor, and uses a hybrid contrast (171 points) and phase detect (105 points) AF system. The V3 boasts a continuous shooting speed that outpaces DSLRs at 20 fps with full autofocus. The camera is also capable of 1080/60p Full HD video. Click through to see how it performs.

Their relative rarity makes the discovery of color images from the distant past perennially fascinating. In the final part (for now at least) of a three-part article, Barnaby Britton shows us a selection of images taken from a collection of 75 year-old color slides found in his grandmother's attic. Some better preserved than others, the photographs provide a unique glimpse into England in August 1939, on the eve of WWII. See photos and read more of the story...

Iceland, it seems, is extremely photogenic. Photographers traveling the country routinely emerge with stunning photos of mountains and waterfalls. Visiting for the first time, Andy Lee saw an opportunity to bring out even more of the drama in the country's already dramatic landscapes. He used a DSLR converted for infrared photography, capturing the scenery in deep blues and blacks. See gallery

We're looking for an editorial writer and a web developer to join our growing team based in Seattle, WA. Responsibilities for the editorial role include testing and producing reviews of digital system cameras, compact cameras and other photographic equipment. Successful applicants for the web developer role will have strong visual design skills to help us craft the look, feel and functionality of dpreview.com. Click though for more information

We've come to the end of another week here at dpreview, and as our thoughts drift to weekend shooting opportunities, it's time to take things a little less seriously. Aaron Johnson's comic strip ‘What the Duck’ is just the thing, taking a gently satirical look through the lens of a photographically inclined waterfowl. You can find it published here (and in our newsletter) every week; we hope you enjoy it, and your weekend.

Seventy years after the D-Day landings in Normandy, the Royal Air Force remembers June 6, 1944 by recreating some historic images from the day - though not the kind you might expect. As naval forces made landfall on D-Day, a II (AC) Squadron Mustang took to the sky above, bringing back some of the first images of the landings. The reconnaissance mission was recently mimicked by two Tornado GR4s carrying more sophisticated imaging equipment. Compare the photos and fly along with the modern jets in a behind-the-scenes video. See more

Canon has jumped into the crowded online image storage space with the launch of its new Irista image hosting and sharing site. The result of a several-year-long beta testing program, the new Irista website competes with online storage tools like those from Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Apple. Naturally, Irista caters to photographers with the ability to upload any standard photo file type including Raw. Though anyone can sign up for a free account, paid accounts are only available to residents of certain European countries. Read more

A collection of images, including 24 photographs taken the day after the bombing of Nagasaki, were up for auction this week at Bonhams. According to the auction house, these are the only thorough record from the scene of the August 9, 1945 destruction. Twelve of these photos are though to be prints from original negatives belonging to the photographer, Yosuke Yamahata. The album was expected to fetch between $25,000 and $35,000 at auction. Read more

It seems that Olympus might be planning to jump on the wearable camera bandwagon with a device that looks similar to Google's 'Glass'. A newly published Oly patent (JP2013/075623) describes a wearable device that comes with either one or two transparent screens in front of the wearer's eye. Click through for more information on connect.dpreview.com.

We're pleased to announce the creation of two new forums. 'DIY and Photo Experiments' is the place to show off your photography-related DIY projects, discuss homemade solutions to hardware problems and share photo experiments with other dpreview users. If it's safe, legal, and you figured it out yourself, this is the place to show it off. Meanwhile, 'Underwater Photography' is the place to share and discuss - yes, you guessed it - all things related to taking pictures underwater. Click though for more information

Offered in 160W ($70) or 300W ($100) power intensities, Adorama's Budget Studio Monolights are geared toward studio photographers who are just starting out and are constrained by modest budgets. At a fraction of the price of professional heads, can the Flashpoint Budget Studio lights do the job? Find out in our review

Amazon has scheduled a product launch for later this month at its headquarters in Seattle, WA. We are not being told what type of device we should expect but Amazon has started to tease the new model with a picture of one of its corners and a video showing users looking down at a device and reacting with statements like "It moved with me". The teaser seems to support rumors from late last year that Amazon could be planning a smartphone with a 3D eye-tracking user interface using multiple cameras. Click through for more information at connect.dpreview.com.

The inside of a dishwasher isn't the most likely place you'd think of putting a rugged action camera, but that's exactly what one GoPro Hero 3 owner has done. The camera, along with a couple of light sources and an assortment of dishes, made the trip through a full wash cycle. The resulting video is surprisingly entertaining. See video

Instagram is one of the most popular image filter and sharing apps for mobile devices but its feature set has remained almost unchanged since it was introduced, with a relatively small number of effects, and little control over them. The latest version 6 update to the Android and iOS versions of Instagram now offers control over filter strength and a range of new editing options, including brightness, contrast, warmth, saturation, highlights, shadows and vignette. Click through to read more at connect.dpreview.com

We wrote Monday about some of the imaging related changes that Apple announced with the latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 8, at its annual developers event WWDC. Now that users have had a day or so to play with the beta version of iOS 8, a few more photo features have been discovered that were not mentioned in the keynote. Here's a quick summary. Read more

A new firmware updated for the Ricoh GR adds a 'High Speed' AF mode and claims to improve operational performance for aperture preview. Other additions include a 'Shift Crop' effect mode designed to reduce perspective distortion by removing a portion of vertically-oriented images, and improved stability when connecting via USB to a Mac. Read more

If you've always wanted a Hasselblad camera, but found the real thing too bulky and the rebadged Sony cameras too ridiculous, smartphone manufacturer Vertu has just given you another option. Vertu's latest model, the Signature Touch, comes with a "Hasselblad-certified" camera. Despite a vague statement that Vertu has worked with Hasselblad to "perfect the image tuning of the camera onboard Signature Touch," it's almost certainly using a standard 1/3-inch CMOS sensor. Read more

Adobe has made Camera Raw and DNG Converter 8.5 release candidates available for download. A short list of cameras are added for ACR support including the Canon Powershot G1 X Mark II, Olympus OM-D E-M10 and the Panasonic GH4 (with preliminary support). Camera Raw 8 users with Photoshop CS6 will get new camera support, lens profiles and bug fixes, but a few new features are added for Photoshop CC subscribers. Read more

The Sony a6000 offers some considerable advantages over its Sony NEX-6 predecessor. It has a 24.3 megapixel APS-C sensor and an updated hybrid AF system with 179 phase-detect and 25 contrast-detect points. Also included is a built-in 1.44 million-dot EVF and a tilting 3.0-inch display with 921,600 dots. With an impressive AF system, fast 11 fps continuous shooting with subject tracking and lots of extras, the a6000 is poised very competitively in the mirrorless class. Read the review

If you like most things about HTC's current flagship smartphone, the One M8, but are, like ourselves, a little disappointed with its 4MP camera, HTC might just have launched the right phone for you. The HTC One E8 takes most of the M8's components, wraps them up in a polycarbonate unibody frame instead of the M8's brushed metal hull and provides a more conventional camera module. The E8 replaces the flagship's Duo Cam with a 13 megapixel, 1/3-inch BSI CMOS sensor and F2.2 maximum aperture lens. Read more

Nikon has revealed that it allocated ¥1.8bn (~ $17.6m / £10.5m) to cover the cost of warranty repairs and replacements for its D600 SLR in the last financial year. The camera has been plagued since its launch by a tendency to accumulate oil spots on its sensor, resulting in Nikon offering to replace the shutter mechanism or even the entire camera for free if necessary. In an investor relations statement on its website, the company says that it is taking the matter very seriously, and 'will be taking steps to restore confidence in the Nikon brand'.