Issue 44 of X-Ray Magazine is now available for download. The August/September issue focuses on Mozambique with mega fauna off East Africa with Don Silcock and Tofo and Zavora with Scott Bennett. Other articles include diving the islands of the Bahamas by Charles Stirling, diving diversity on Grand Bahama Island by Matthew Meier and tagging sharks on Palau with Georgina Wiersma and Peter Verhoog. The late Wes Skiles writes about deep diving motivation and Lawson Wood about natural light in underwater photography.

The magazine is available as a free download in pdf and iBook formats.

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Borut Furlan presents a comprehensive review of Oskar Marko Musić’s Light Shaping Device (LSD). This, used in conjunction with a strobe, allows for selective lighting of macro and wide-ange subjects, and provides for a wide variety of lighting effects. Amongst these are actual shapes, for example squares, rather than the conventional circular beam.

Borut and Oscar had been developing parallel similar projects, and hence Borut was asked to review the final product. The LSD is available to pre-order now for Seacam 250 and 150 strobes (with others in development) at 995 euros.

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Zen Underwater has released the results of their testing with the new Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye USM lens and new compatibility charts. In addition, Reef Photo and Video have done an interesting side-by-side comparison of the new lens vs. the Tokina 107 AT-X 107 AF DX. To summarise the findings:

“I think this lens makes a lot of sense for someone who is after the best fisheye image quality possible, or a Canon user with multiple sensor sizes in their arsenal. Tokina 10-17 is still a great value for someone getting started in underwater photography, or only using the EF-S sensor size.”

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Apple has released Camera RAW Compatibility update 3.8. This adds support for RAW files from the following cameras: Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200, Olympus PEN E-P3, Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G3, Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF3, Samsung NX11, Samsung NX100, Sony Alpha NEX-C3 and Sony Alpha SLT-A35.

Please see the Apple support site for a full list of supported cameras. The update is also available to download from the support site or via software update.

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Panasonic has announced the release of the HDC-Z10000 3D camcorder. It offers 3D via integrated twin lenses and boasts a macro focus point of 17.8” (45cm). In addition, it utilises the new AVCHD 3D Progressive standard, uses 2 3MOS sensors with a Crystal Engine Pro II processing engine, its LCD screen can deliver 3D to the naked eye and it records to dual SD cards. Lastly, it is equipped with a f1.5 lens and has built-in optical stabilization.

Expected delivery dates and prices for the HDC-Z10000 are still to be announced.

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