Possibly in response to the criticism of its proposed upgrade policy for users wishing to upgrade to Creative Suite (CS) 6 when it is released later in 2012, Adobe has announced that it will offer a special upgrade offer for licensed owners of CS3 and CS4 until 31 December. The details of the offer will be confirmed when the new version is released. Adobe’s announcement suggests that this will take place in the first half of 2012.
The 2012 Our World Underwater (OWU) contest is calling for video and photo entries. Run in conjunction with DEEP Indonesia by Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide, the contest offers over $60,000 in prizes. This year, OWU has an earlier deadline for entries, so please make sure you get your entries in by 23 January.
Full details of the competition, as well as rules and entry procedures are available on the UnderwaterCompetition.com website.
Wetpixel will be attending and reporting from the BOOT show 2012. The show will be held from 21 to 29 January in Düsseldorf, Germany and a total of 320 exhibitors are expected at what the organizers bill as the world’s biggest consumer show for diving. The specific underwater imaging zone, Underwater Pixel World is occupying an area of 2,500 square meters and features 25 exhibitors from the diving and photography industry. Along with the exhibitors’ presentations, there is a program of lectures, seminars and workshop.
For those that can’t attend, full coverage of the first three days will be right here on Wetpixel.
Nauticam has announced the release of the NA-V1 housing for the Nikon V1 EVIL camera. It features a switch that allows the user to swap between the camera’s electronic viewfinder and the LCD display, and a raised housing body that can incorporate the optional Nikon SB-N5 Speedlight. As this is positioned some distance above the lens, it is effective for use underwater. An optional diffuser will be available for those that chose to do this. Nauticam are currently offering lens ports for the Nikkor 10-30mm and 10mm lenses and are also offering a flip macro close-up lens holder that will attach to the 67mm threads on the ports. Lastly, the housing also has optical connections for external strobes.
The NA-VI will be available from 31 January at a retail price of $1650.
Wetpixel member Roger Munns of Scubazoo has posted a short video documenting the release of “Tony”, a (female) pygmy killer whale (Feresa attenuata). She was found stranded on Tanjung Aru beach, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia by a member of the Shangri-la Resort’s security team early on the morning of 10 January and was moved to the swimming enclosure at the hotel in order to let her recuperate in safety.
Volunteers worked for 36 hours to keep her afloat, monitor her vital signs and to get her to feed. Once her condition was improved, Tony was lifted onboard Borneo Dream’s dive boat and released into deep water off the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park.
JVC has announced the release of the GY-HMQ10 camcorder. Based around the GY-HM150 ProHD camcorder, the new camera’s Falconbrid LSI processing takes raw image data from the camera’s CMOS device and dematrixes (deBayers) it in real-time. This means that it can output 3840 × 2160 footage at 24p, 50p, or 60p directly from capture onto a monitor with little latency.
It has a built-in F2.8 10x zoom lens with optical image stabilizer, as well as a color viewfinder, 3.5-inch touch LCD monitor and manual level controls for audio, with audio metering in the LCD and viewfinder displays. A microphone holder and two balanced XLR connectors with phantom power are also provided.
The new camera will be available from March at a retail price of (just) $4,995.
Sandisk has released two new SDXC cards of 64GB and 128GB capacities. Both feature an ultra high-speed (UHS-1) architecture giving 45MB/s read and write speeds. The company cites an expected growth in “user-generated video from digital cameras and flash memory-equipped camcorders will increase more than 50 percent, from 4 exabytes in 2011 to 6.8 exabytes in 2014.” The new cards’ speed should allow the capture of 3D HD video.
The 64GB and 128GB SanDisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I cards are shipping worldwide with MSRPs of $199.99 and $399.99 respectively.
Panasonic has announced a series of converter lenses that attach to its EVIL kit lenses. The range includes a wide-angle converter, a macro converter and a fisheye converter, each of which is compatible with both the 14mm F2.5 prime lens and the Lumix X 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 power zoom. The DMW-GWC1 wide-angle added to the 14mm lens gives the field of view of an 11mm lens (22mm equivalent). The DMW-GMC1 macro reduces the minimum focusing distance of the lenses to about 14cm while the DMW-GFC1 fisheye converter gives a 120° angle-of-view.
Prices and availability are not yet confirmed.
Wetpixel member Simon Spear’s short film about diving with basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) in Scotland has been featured as a podcast on DiveFilm HD. Simon describes the film:
“Winter fades, Spring dawns and the seasons inevitably move on towards Midsummer, where an encounter with one of Nature’s true giants awaits. For once all the planets had aligned and after a decade long quest I finally found Basking sharks in both huge numbers and in ideal conditions. It was a spectacular and awe-inspiring experience and ranks right up there with my most memorable of wildlife encounters.”
Solstice is available as a free download from DiveFilm HD on iTunes.
Adobe has made a beta version of Lightroom 4 available to download on Adobe Labs. The new version adds new basic tonal adjustments to extract additional tonal detail and some new local controls, including noise reduction, moire and white balance. It also add additional native support for basic video editing, including trimming and many of the traditional image adjustment controls. Lastly, it adds new exports options including email and (at long last) the ability to soft proof images in preparation for printing.
The beta is free to download and is available now through until March, when there will either be another beta, or the full new version will be available.