Saturday, August 6th, 2011

Earth-Touch sardine run 2011 round-up

Earth-Touch cameraman Barry Skinstad presents a round-up of the Sardine Run 2011 on YouTube. He states that the sardines were not in evidence this year, with there only being small bait balls of red eye. Floods inland led to silt running four to five kilometers out to sea during the early part of the traditional sardine run season, and then up to six meter swells with the associated difficulties for boats coupled with associated degradation of the visibility plagued the end. Despite having been in Port St. Johns for a month and a half, he observes that he has not been in the water with a camera.

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Oregon bans shark fin

The Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research and Education (COARE) reports that Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber signed House Bill 2838 into law yesterday, making it an offense to possess, sell, trade, or distribute shark fins in Oregon. Oregon’s ban complements similar legislation signed into law on 12 May 2011 by Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, as well as pending legislation in California, which passed California’s State Assembly, and is currently being heard in the Senate. Oregon’s new ban is also preceded by legislative bans already adopted by the State of Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Fiji, and the Bahamas.

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Diving with crocodiles

Graeme Duane of Earth-Touch writes about his personal experiences of diving with crocodiles in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. He writes:

“The idea of SCUBA diving with a Nile crocodile didn’t seem like a good one, even with the added value of retrospect. Particularly since the animal in question was wild, and not the only toothy predator lurking around our boat. Jumping overboard in Botswana’s Okavango Delta with full wet suit, tank, fins and mask was just the beginning of this adventure, and my own well-honed sense of self-preservation was on high alert.”

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

F.I.T + 16 wet diopter available

F.I.T has announced that it has released a +16 version of their wet diopter. THe ACU +16 is a single grouped, dual element diopter and claims to give excellent results even when stacked. The diopter has a 46mm thread, but is supplied with a 67mm step-up ring for attachment to macro ports. One is being supplied by for the forthcoming Wetpixel diopter test, so please check back for the results.

The F.I.T ACU +16 is available now at a retail price of $315.

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Micronesia shark sanctuary proposed

Underwater Times has reported that at last week’s 15th Micronesian Chief Executive Summit, the leaders have passed a resolution to begin creating a regional sanctuary where shark fishing would be prohibited. The proposal also bans possession, sale and trade of shark fins and covers the waters of the Federated States of Micronesia and its four member States: The Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, the Territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands.

The total area in the sanctuary would be two million square mile and crucially, this is the first time that such a co-operative agreement has been reached between regional governments.

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Gates releases REDMOTE controller housing

Gates Underwater Products has announced the release of a housing for the REDMOTE controller for use with the Deep Atom 3D and Deep Epic camera systems. The REDMOTE housing allows full access to all camera and remote control functions, and employs magnets to align the unit within the housing. Lastly, it has handles to allow the user to maintain control of the camera whilst using the remote at the same time.

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

The history of Canon digital SLRs on YouTube

Canon Australia has posted a short video entitled “Canon EOS-The History of Canon’s Digital SLR Cameras”onto YouTube. It traces the evolution of their SLR cameras from the Canon Flex in 1959, through to the release of the 5D MkII in 2008. The video was released as a part of Canon’s 50 year celebrations in 2008/9, but was only relatively recently added to YouTube.

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Media Converter re-wraps AVCHD clips

A new Mac app has been released that re-wraps AVCHD clips to h.264 QuickTime format. Media Converter has a downloadable preset option that allows a lossless conversion with either uncompressed or no audio options. These additional presets are accessed via the preferences tab within the app. The app will also convert files to PAL or NTSC video, iPhone/iPod, MP3, DivX and many other formats.

Media Converter is available in a 64 bit version and it and any additional presets are free to download and use.

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Review: BS Kinetics Takla Makan Housing with Canon XF100

Wetpixel member Peter Walker has used the only two housings currently available for the Canon XF100 camera. In this review, he describes his findings using the camera with the BS Kinetics Takla Markan housing.

“… the rich colors, quality codec, light sensitivity and manual controls of the XF100 put it into a different league.”

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Underwaterphotography.com announces contest winners

Underwaterphotography.com has announced the winners of its 2010/11 contest. Aleksandr Marinicev has been awarded the Grand Master title, and Wetpixel member Brian Mayes is the 2010/11 World Champion. There were 799 images shortlisted for the competition, in 17 categories. Brian’s images are somewhat unique in that they were taken with a Canon G9 compact camera in a Canon housing using only the camera’s internal flash.

Full details of the award winners can be found on the contest pages, as well as a full listing of all the images shortlisted. Many congratulations to the winners and to all the Wetpixel members in the results.

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