Articles
BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners for 2009 announced
The winning images of the 2009 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year award have been announced and are online at the British Natural History Museum’s website. This year’s winner in The Underwater World is Michel Loup, who photographed a pike reflected in the glassy underside of a Jura Mountains lake. Other underwater winners this year include Paul Nicklen, Doug Perrine, Nano Cordovilla, Kevin Schafer, Christopher Guglielmo, and Daniel Selmeczi. Congratulations!
Changes due to spammers on Wetpixel
Spammers have recently started using Wetpixel as a destination for marketing links by putting unrelated content in newly created users’ forum profile pages. This means that a spam message blasted out in an email somewhere out there might contain a link to Wetpixel, which would unwittingly have become a host for spam content.
Note that none of this affects you, the Wetpixel user, the content you have posted on Wetpixel, or your private information. The only issue here is that spammers are using their profiles to host spam content. I have a plan to try to combat this new form of spam, and I made some changes tonight that will hopefully help us to win the battle in the long run. Continue reading, if you’re interested in how we’re fighting it.
Canon announces 1D Mark IV digital SLR
Canon has announced their new 1D Mark IV digital SLR, a 16-megapixel, 10 frames-per-second professional SLR body. From the first images release, the body looks to be identical to the older Mark III cameras—good news for underwater photographers. However, we won’t know for sure until someone actually gets their hands on one. Especially exciting is the inclusion of HD video capture in the new camera. The 1D Mark IV will capture both HD and SD video. HD video support includes 1920x1080 capture @ 24p, 25p and 30p, and 1280x720 capture at 50p/60p.
Canon has posted a press release and an article explaining what’s new. Rob Galbraith has also published an article with more information bout the camera.
The 1D Mark IV is priced as $4,999.00 and ships in late December 2009.
Petition: continue to protect goliath groupers
Goliath groupers, which were listed until 2006 as a critically endangered species by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), may soon lose their protection from fishing due to recovering population levels and pressure from fisherman. Divers have long enjoyed the company of these, huge, friendly fish, and if taking goliath groupers becomes legal once again, population levels may fall quickly.
Please help us to keep goliath groupers in the list of protected species by signing our petition!
Wetpixel sperm whale expedition, update 3
Those of you reading these updates might think that it’s easy to find and photograph a sperm whale underwater. I assure you that it is not. During this expedition, we spent days on the ocean looking for miniscule signs of life above the surface. Noticing a single blow in the huge expanse of ocean extending out to the horizon can mean the difference between success and failure. The crew of Sea-Tac’s Dancing Whale work hard, stopping regularly to listen to the ocean via hydrophone. Everything has to be right in order for a photographer to capture a good shot: weather, equipment, positioning, and above all, the presence of the animal(s)!
The three days since the last web update have been rather slow, but the action was so good for the first few days that I consider anything more to be a bonus…
Wetpixel sperm whale expedition, update 2
The typhoon to the east continued to throw huge swells into Ogasawara, resulting in extremely difficult conditions during our next couple of days out at sea. On day 3, we decided that the weather was too bad to make it out to the sperm whale area, so we turned around and stayed in the protection of the island’s lee. Luckily, we found a school of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in the bay.
Swimming with these dolphins are one of the reasons Japanese tourists flock to Ogasawara by the hundreds in high season, and when we jumped in, we could immediately see why…
Beneath The Sea 2010 Image Contest
Beneath the Sea 2010 is pleased to invite all Photographers and Videographers from around the world to enter the Beneath the Sea International Imaging Competition. For the first time this competition is now open to both amateurs and professional image makers. The contest deadline is 31st December 2009.
In addition to spectacular prizes, BTS also awards the David Doubilet award for excellence in underwater photography, the Stan Waterman award for excellence in underwater video, and the Jim Church award for excellence in creative underwater photography.
Wetpixel sperm whale expedition, update 1
"There's another typhoon coming, and it's supposed to hit tomorrow..."