A bunch of news have accumulated over the past weeks. Each one deserves a full article, but I'm lacking the time right now. Before they slip out of my mind, here are the quickies:

2009 HDR All-Stars

Shortlist of the hottest new cameras by Jack Howard. Sitting right at the source, Jack gets his HDR-savvy hands on pretty much every new model. Great read. Very tempting to forward this list to Santa Claus.

HDR Darkroom 1.0

Yet another HDR software is out. The feature set is pretty solid for a version 1, albeit I wouldn't call it revolutionary. Very slick workflow-oriented interface, RAW import, 2 image alignment methods, 2 Local and 1 Global Tonemapper. No sign of 360 panorama compensation, and it can't save in EXR format (although it can load it just fine). Haven't run it through all its paces yet, but HDR Darkroom might be something to keep an eye on.

HDR Thumbnail Browser: Bracket

Managing HDR files used to be the biggest workflow gap ever. Lightroom ignores everything HDR, XNView and Adobe Bridge support some formats but have poor display capabilities. To the rescue comes Bracket. Shows about every flavor of HDR imagery, properly gamma-adjusted so you can actually see something, on PC, Mac and Linux. On top of that it's free, hence highly recommended download!

Photomatix Tonemapping PS Plugin v2.0 beta

Has caught up feature-wise with the standalone version, and is even available in 64-bit. I use it now regularly, and it looks very awesome. (Note: Make sure to flatten the image before running this plugin!)

SpheroCam HDR wins Award

Gerhard Bonnet received the Robert-Luther-Award from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) for changing the game with his SperoCamHDR. Conratulations, Gerhard!

Monthly Site Updates

As you've come to expect, there is a brand new sIBL-of-the-month out, this time from beautiful Barcelona. The Hot-on-Flickr gallery now finds the most interesting December submissions, and looks better than ever. I sweetened the lightbox style and added a slideshow feature.
Most revolutionary are the feature additions in the Community Forum: Attaching images automatically generates zoomable thumbnails, and putting the URL to an equirectangular pano in-between [pano] [/pano] tags will automatically embed the krpano viewer in your message. Pretty slick, huh?