It’s safe to say that we are more than a little excited (make it ecstatic!) to share an incredible football image with you today.

(C) Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

It’s courtesy of our Loweprofessional friend, Sports Illustrated staff photographer and all-around great guy Robert Beck.

Robert covered the playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and the New Orleans Saints last Saturday, January 14.

He captured this stunning shot of the 49er Vernon Davis making the game-winning “grab” at the goal line during the last nine seconds. And he landed the cover of the January 23 issue of the magazine.

This Sunday, January 22 (3:30 pm PST) is the NFC Championship game and Robert will be on the sidelines in Candlestick Park again.

(C) Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

He even told us to share this with you: “I’ll be there waving to any Lowepro-wearing fans.” That’s a cool promise.

Check out Robert’s cover shot in Sports Illustrated and see more of his thrilling, jaw-dropping and intimate sports images on his web site.

Thank you for being so generous, Robert. And Go Niners (with respect to all New York Giants fans that are Lowepro fans, too.)!

Today we want to send out a big thank you to Ed Heaton for educating us on Creating the Extraordinary during our webinar co-hosted with Nik Software. Here’s a short recap in case you could not attend. You’re invited to check back in a few days and watch Ed’s webinar in its entirety at your leisure. Just check our Ask the Pro page for postings of past webinars and sign-ups for upcoming events.

As Ed told us, choosing a solid, dual-purpose photo backpack for an outdoor shoot is a critical starting point. His choice: the Pro Trekker 400 AW. You’ll find out how he equips for a day out shooting landscapes and the beauty of nature when you tune into the webinar. He also likes slings and shoulder bags for his street shoots.

Other highlights include: shooting RAW using auto focus and manual exposure modes; getting the maximum depth of field with Ed’s ideal ISO setting; why one of his favorite tools is a tripod; and Ed’s hallmark topic: the fundamentals of good light.

Ed Heaton specializes in landscape, nature and travel photography and is based in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

To learn more about his work, please visit his site.

A demonstration of Lowepro's patented weather cover by our colleague Dan at Imaging USA

Our photo specialty colleague Dan demonstrates the built-in All Weather AW Cover™ feature on our new Pro Messenger AW series at the Imaging USA show in New Orleans this week.

Is this a man who knows his Lowepro gear? Yes, as you can see by the other pro products (like a full S&F Series modular set-up) he’s demo-ing at this annual show. If you’re there, please stop by and say hello. We’re at booth 1211.

Follow us on Twitter to get quick news on show highlights.

Here’s our quick video recap of CES 2012 highlights. We cover the cool, the new, the classic and the next-gen of camera and video hardware and accessories that CES attendees get to see up close.

Our colleague Tim gives a great overview of the flavor of this show and our new booth.

Lowepro at CES 2012 from Lowepro on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Lowepro designs for compact system cameras

It’s day two at CES and we are thrilled to be in Las Vegas with our new gear and some cool tools for sharing info on our products.

Here’s a quick look at some photo highlights. You can see a bigger collection, posted by our Photo Evangelist Derrick Story, on our Flickr page.

Helping customers learn more with a QR code

We love meeting so many of you and appreciate you seeking us out (at this amazing show that’s 35 footfall fields large!).

If you haven’t dropped by yet, we’re at booth #5019. If you can’t get to Las Vegas, visit our Facebook and Flickr pages as fresh content is served up often.

And please stay tuned to lowepro.com. We’ll have our CES video recap ready for your viewing enjoyment real soon.

Editor’s note: Our worldwide photographer relations manager, Suzanne Caballero Knowlton, just sent us these images and event highlights from our first Lowepro Photography Workshop in San Francisco. Great instructors. Creative students. Fabulous prizes. And ideal weather. Sounds like everything aligned for a perfect day. Stay tuned for more special events from Lowepro. Thanks for the recap, Suzanne.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better day in the city by the bay to kick off the first of our very own Lowepro Photography Workshops. Today we hosted 25 friends from our photography community and lead a full day of instruction on Environmental Portraiture—guided by Lowepro’s own Derrick Story—and Action Photography taught by none other than Andy Kuno, the San Francisco Giants’ Staff Photographer.

This morning attendees were greeted with coffee and two, one-hour lectures by each instructor (this is also when we gave away four fabulous Lowepro bags, two each of the SlingShot 202 AW and the DSLR Video Fastpack 250 AW). During lunch there was plenty of opportunity for casual conversation among instructors and fellow shooters.

After lunch, we headed into the beautiful sunshine of San Francisco’s Embarcadero neighborhood to put to the test what we just learned from Derrick and Andy. Each attendee spent one hour with each instructor doing hands-on shooting using the tips and tools they discovered earlier in the day.

Of course, we had more prizes to give away in the afternoon from Joby, and each attendee headed out with (we hope) more knowledge about photography, plus a coupon for Fireside Camera, located just down the road.

What a great way to spend a day in San Francisco with some new friends from the Lowepro Preferred Photographer program and our old friends Derrick and Andy. Thank you all!”

You still have time to sign up for our first Lowepro Photography Workshop with professional photographers Derrick Story and Andy Kuno. The workshop takes place in San Francisco on Wednesday, December 28 from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm.