Aperture 3.0 is out. If you like playing around with your photos or even adjusting them to match your vision, Aperture 3.0 from Apple is one of the best tools to use.

Here are some of the features of Aperture 3.0

Faces - similar to iPhoto's faces feature which helps you instantly find photos of a particular person.

Places - GPS data on your photos.

Brushes - edge aware, non destructive precise touch up tool.

Skin smoothing - to apply gentle blur effect creating smoother-looking skin.

Video support - import HD video from your DSLR, point and shoot and digital camcorders.

Full details at Apple.com

Here are the winners of the Nikon Festival.

The Judges winner and $100,000 prize went to Chicken vs Penguin by Marko Slavic.

The audience winner and $25,000 prize goes to New York State of Mind by Josh Friedberg.

Sandisk is running a contest for the best ski or snowboard photo sequence. Related to the photo shoot Chase Jarvis did for Sandisk, each winner of the best photo sequence will win $5,000.

Go to Sandisk's website called Best Photo Sequence for details and to register for free and enter the contest.

Reading Bryan Peterson's book Understanding Exposure probably had the most influence on my understanding how a camera works. While browsing Youtube last night, I came upon a couple of videos he posted.

They're very short videos but informative for the beginner photographer.

Here's a couple that I find to be good for beginners, basically, talking about aperture and shutter speed.

Here's a bonus on taking night time shots.

I found this photo of Mt. Tungurahua erupting and thought I'd share it with everyone. Click on photo for full size.