Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Norbert Wu on oceanic whitetip sharks

Norbert Wu has posted a comprehensive illustrated report of a recent expedition that he has undertaken to Cat Island, Bahamas in search of oceanic whitetip sharks (Carcharhinus longimanus) on to his blog. During the trip, Norbert and his party were “buzzed” by a 800lb (363kg) marlin whose arrival provoked the whitetips into a feeding behavior, with one actually tasting Norb’s strobe. He concludes:

“Our second and final day of diving with the sharks was a tremendous success. We had six hours of diving with sharks until we called it a day. Being able to dive in clear, blue, oceanic water like this is always a treat, but being able to dive in this oceanic water with oceanic whitetip sharks (not to mention a blue marlin and silky sharks) was a rare present.”

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Brian Skerry to talk at WildPhotos 2012

WildPhotos has announced that the keynote speaker for the 2012 event will be underwater photographer and photojournalist Brian Skerry. His talk is entitled “Creativity, Communication and Conservation, an Underwater View”. The event is being held at the Royal Geographical Society, London, UK on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 October 2012. Other speakers include wildlife photographers Pete Cairns, Tui de Roy, Jasper Doest and Vincent Munier, amongst others.

Tickets to WildPhotos 2012 are on sale now.

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Late availability: Wetpixel Ultimate Whale Sharks

Due to late cancellations, we now have three slots available for the Wetpixel Ultimate Whale Sharks Expedition from July 31 to Aug 4 this year. The trip is based around Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Mexico, and is being led by Alex Mustard. If you have ever wanted to see whale sharks, this is your opportunity. To quote Wetpixel Publisher Eric Cheng:

“There’s no other way to put it: Our first day of photographing the whale shark aggregation was absolutely epic. Within an hour of leaving port, we found a group of over 300 whale sharks”.

If that sounds like something you would like to do, these last-minute spaces may be just the thing for you. Please contact Dan Baldocchi via email

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Deep water remote video camera footage published

The Shark Research and Conservation Program at the Cape Eluthera Institute in collaboration with Dr Edith Widder from the Ocean Research and Conservation Association has posted some amazing footage of sharpnose sevengill sharks and other creatures taken by a deep water baited video camera known as The Medusa in the Exuma Sound, Bahama. The Medusa is designed for in-situ non-invasive video documentation of creatures and water quality parameters, at a depth of 2000m. It records video in ultra-low light conditions with a highly sensitive camera and DVR recording system, lit by epoxy encapsulated LED arrays that give “far red” illumination at a wavelength of 690 nanometers. At the same time, the unit’s data logger records conductivity, salinity, temperature, pressure, depth, and photosynthetically active radiation. Upon completion of its 72 hour filming operation, a weight is dropped via acoustic release and the Medusa returns to the surface.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Wetpixel Ultimate Indonesia 2012

Wetpixel is returning to Indonesia for a series of ultimate expeditions aboard MSY Damai in 2012. Three back-to-back trips will be staged between 25 November and 2 January 2013, with itineraries from Ambon to Kaimana, Kaimana to Sorong and Sorong returning to Sorong. All three of these will visit some of the world’s most healthy reefs, teeming with fascinating critters and fish life and located amidst some amazing topside scenery. Damai II is an up-to-date and super comfortable liveaboard and each trip is limited to 8-10 divers (plus trip leader) to ensure that there is no crowding on dive sites.

The first trip, from 25 November to 7 December is being led by Wetpixel Publisher, Eric Cheng, with the trips from 8 to 19 December and then from 21 December to 2 January being led by underwater photographer and journalist, Douglas Seifert. Spaces are already limited, so if you would like more information or to book a place, please contact Dan Baldocchi via email, or on +1-773-564-9579 soon.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Adobe releases Lightroom and Camera RAW updates

As expected, Adobe has today released updates for Lightroom 4 and Camera RAW. There has been release candidate versions of both these updates in existence for some time. Version 4.1 of Lightroom has added support for the Nikon D4/D800/D800E, Canon 5D Mark III and Olympus OM-D-M5 amongst others. Perhaps most critically, the updates add support for new defringeing controls in the edit menu. Camera RAW 7.1 adds similar camera support and controls.

Lightroom 4.1 (for mac) and (for Windows)and Camera RAW 7.1 (for Mac) and (for Windows) are all available from the Adobe download site.

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Nikon releases firmware update for D4 and D800

Nikon has announced firmware updates for the D4 (v.1.01), D800 (B v.1.01) and D800E (B v.1.01) SLRs. In the former case, the updates fixes: Camera hangs when a still image was captured while viewing existing images in playback mode, an issue that occurred when sending JPEG images via a network, the camera sent RAW images too and lastly, when an option that utilized the main command dial was selected for Custom Setting f15: Playback zoom, and an image was zoomed in or out with playback with certain settings applied, shooting shutter speed, aperture, and exposure compensation settings were sometimes changed.

In the case of the D800, the updates fixes the camera hang issue as above, and also the network issue when the camera is used with a wireless transmitter. It also fixes the problem of a dark shadow sometimes appearing at the bottom edge of images captured with Active D-Lighting set to any option other than Off with Image area set to 5:4 (30x24). The firmware update for the D800E fixes the same issue. The updates are free for camera owners and full details are on the Nikon Europe support site.

Monday, May 28th, 2012

Underwater extendable monopod for GoPro cameras

I get asked every couple weeks about the underwater monopod / polecam pole I use with GoPro HERO cameras while SCUBA diving. There are probably quite a few options out there, but the monopod I’ve been using for over a year now is the Quik Pod DSLR Monopod, a $36 telescoping monopod made of aluminum and plastic. The Quick Pod is 18 inches when retracted and 53 inches when fully extended. At the tip is a quick-release camera mount with a universal 1/4-20 mounting screw.

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Howard Hall interviewed about filming sharks

Filmmaker Howard Hall has shared his experiences filming great white sharks, sea lions, leafy sea dragons and cuttlefish in South Australia in an interview carried out by One World One Ocean and posted on their YouTube channel. The interview also features footage from his trip.

Howard has been featured by the organization as one of their “Ocean Heroes” as he:

“…has been capturing amazing underwater images since the 1970’s, inspiring millions with his work.”

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Inon announces LE-700-S light

Inon has announced the release of the LE-700-S LED torch which is being marketed as a “serious lighting device for underwater imaging with its wide variety of filters as well as powerful dive light”. It is powered by 3 x AA batteries which give it a burn time of 110 minutes. It is supplied with a set of filters and is constructed of aluminum with a rotary switch that cannot be completely unscrewed. There is also a variety of mounting options available for the light.

The LE-700-S is available now and local retail prices are still to be confirmed.

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