The 2014 Festival Mondial de l’image Sous-Marin was held in Marseille from 30 October to 2 November. Wetpixel was fortunate to have their “roving reporter” Ellen Cuylaerts attend the show and she has kindly written a personal report of the show. For the full official results of the Festival’s winning still images and video, please see the event’s website
Darren Rice of Matafonua Lodge in Tonga has recently produced some impressive underwater and aerial footage of the Humpback Whales that visit the islands. The footage can only be described as spectacular and we caught up with him for an interview.
Amazon just announced today that prime members will have free unlimited photo storage on Amazon Cloud Drive. The new service is called Prime Photos and will allow users to store original resolution photos from any device including Mac computers, Windows PCs, and iOS, Android and Fire phones and tablets.
Ikelite has announced their housing for the Nikon D750 SLR camera. Manufactured from the company’s trademark clear acrylic, it features TTL strobe triggering (with compatible strobes) and flash output adjustment via a control on the rear of the housing.
The 2015 Underwater Photographer of the Year (UPY) contest is now open and calling for entries. The contest will award a best of show prize called “Underwater Photographer of the Year” as well as a prize for the “British Underwater Photographer of the Year” and the “Most Promising British Underwater Photographer of the Year”. The closing date for entries is 5 January 2015, with category winners announced and prizes handed out on the PhotoZone stage at the London International Dive Show on 14 February 2015.
DxO has announced an upgrade to their OpticsPro image processing software. Version 10 features a “haze reduction” tool called ClearView, which could be an interesting tool underwater, as well as an upgraded version of their PRIME noise reduction process. OpticsPro 10 has improved its boot speed and will now also support DNG files, enhancing compatibility with Adobe’s products.
Underwater photographer Elena Kalis has put together a selection of images she’s taken of her daughter Sacha Kalis. The images are meant to show Sacha’s connection and comfort to the underwater environment.
All Sony E-Mount cameras (apart from the a7S) are fitted with a 2 piece plastic and metal mount, which wears over time, causing “wobble” in lenses. Photodiode has recently released an aftermarket metal mount that can be fitted to Sony cameras. Fstoppers has published comprehensive review and guide to both the replacement of the stock mount with the Fotodiox one and to its subsequent performance. (Image from Fstoppers).
The Anilao Underwater Photo Festival on Facebookis being held from 27 to 30 November at Aiyanar Beach and Diver Resort. There is a full schedule of events including seminars, dinners and a 3 day shootout contest.
short animated video made by the University of Queensland explaining the life cycle of the rainbow parrot fish (Scarus guacamaia) has been posted on YouTube by Catlin Seaview Survey. For those of us wondering what is the difference between initial and terminal phase or what polychromatism is, this is an excellent tutorial!