The Italian-made Easydive Leo II housing has attracted a great deal of attention as its USB camera control offers the ability to host a variety of different cameras and also allows the user to upgrade to newer camera bodies without needing to invest in a new housing at the same time. In this article, Rico Besserdich, who is sponsored by Easydive, provides his impressions of the housing’s performance.
A petition has been created to attempt to force Canon to address issues with its 5D Mark III SLR. The fault is that it freezes after capturing a video up to the time limit. This issue seems to occur with certain Compact Flash (CF) cards once the camera reaches the 30 minute mark. As the 5D Mark III records to a FAT32 file system on CF cards, the maximum file size for each clip can only be 4GB, which corresponds to about 12 minutes of footage. The bug seems to make the camera lock-up and lose the previous 12 minute clip in the process.
Canon’s current position is that it is a card issue, particularly with SanDisk cards. The petition has been created to ask or force the company to look at the problem more comprehensively.
Shark Savers has announced that the decree that created the Raja Ampat Shark and Ray Sanctuary has been written into provincial law by the Raja Ampat parliament. The sanctuary was originally created in September 2010 by use of a local Bupati decree, after the council was presented with an 8,500 strong petition. Since then, Shark Savers, Conservation International, the Nature Conservancy, WildAid, CORAL, Papua Diving and Misool Eco Resort have campaigned to get it enshrined in a more permanent and enforceable law. The resulting legal framework is the first of its kind in Indonesia and the Coral Triangle.
Nikon has announced that they will release a successor to the popular D7000 SX SLR. The D7100 uses a new 24.1-megapixel DX-format CMOS sensor, and is supplied without an optical low pass filter (OLPF). The camera uses Nikon’s proven EXPEED 3 image processing engine, and features a native SO range of 100 to 6400. It has a new 51-point AF system and a new Multi-CAM 3500DX AF module. For metering, it uses Nikon’s 3D Color Matrix Metering II 2,016-pixel RGB sensor and Scene Recognition System. Uniquely and of interest for macro shooters, the camera offers a 1.3 x crop mode which gives an extra telephoto boost (2X) with 15.4 megapixel resolution. In addition, in 1.3 x mode, the 51-point AF array covers more of the frame.
Sony has released details of its new NEX-3N EVIL camera. It has a 16.1 megapixel APS-C sized CMOS sensor with an ISO range of 200 to 16000. It’s form factor is similar to that of a compact camera with dimensions of 109.9 x 62.0 x 34.6 mm, a weight of 269g and a built-in flash. It will also shoot HD movies at AVCHD 50i/25p.
The NEX-3N will be available from March, with prices still to be announced
The Italian underwater photography community, H2O Phototribe is calling for entries for its 2013 international underwater art competition. This has 14 categories, including separate ones for compact and SLR/mirrorless in tropical macro, tropical wide-angle, Mediterranean macro, Mediterranean wide-angle and behavior. There is also a category for portfolio and three more for books and publications.
Full entry details and rules are on the contest’s website. The deadline for entries is 10 March.
Wetpixel Associate Editor Alex Mustard presents a personal report about the items of photographic interest on display at the EUDI (European Diving) Show, which was held at the Fiera Milano, Milan, Italy over the weekend of 16 and 17 February. He points out that Italian photographers are always well represented in the prize lists of competitions, and that there is a long and proud heritage of underwater image making in the country. As you might expect therefore, photography was definitely well catered for at the show. During his brief visit, Alex found time to visit the stands of Nauticam Italy, F.M. Foto and Video, Fraco Sub, Isotechnic, Seacam and Easydive.
Wetpixel member, Alert Diver publisher and Seacam USA owner, Stephen Frink, has been named as Beneath the Sea’s Diver of the Year for 2013. This is in recognition of “his outstanding service to the scuba diving industry”. Stephen is a former member of the DAN Board of Directors and his images have appeared in a large number of both diving and non-diving publications. The award will be presented to him on 23 March at a VIP banquet during the Beneath the Sea show. I’m sure that the Wetpixel community will join me in extending many congratulations to Stephen.
Wetpixel interviews underwater photographer David Fleetham, one of the most published underwater photographers in the world. David’s photographs have been published around the globe, with over two hundred magazine covers to date. In 1991 his photograph of a sandbar shark appeared on the cover of LIFE. It is the only underwater image to ever be published on the cover.
Peter Hughes has been synonymous with dive travel for over 25 years. The Peter Hughes/Dancer fleet has offered live-aboard diving to a huge number of people, and is one of the most recognized brands within the scuba travel marketplace. What is perhaps less well known is that Peter sold the company in 2008, and is now the head of a new entity, the DivEncounters Alliance (DE). This was set up to bring a variety of individually owned but philosophically similar live-aboard vessels together under one “roof”. Peter’s history is, in many ways the history of dive travel, in which most of the Wetpixel community are a part of too. Wetpixel caught up to him to ask about how he views the dive travel market, and how he sees underwater inmate makers fitting in to it.