The World Festival of Underwater Images, held annually in Marseilles, France, is calling for entries. The Festival, now in its thirty-eighth year, will be held from 26 to 30 October and, as usual, will feature categories for stills, video, web sites, magazine articles, music and books.
The competition is open for entries now with a deadline of 15 September.
Panasonic has released the LUMIX GF3 EVIL camera. It features a 12.1 megapixel sensor with a Venus VII HD processor that is designed for give performance in low-light situations. It also has 1080i HD video at 25fps, in AVCHD format with full-time AF and AF tracking. Although the camera features touch screen controls, it also features for the first time on the LUMIX series, a touch-wheel to access key camera functions.
The Panasonic LUMIX GF3 will be available for a suggested retail prices of $699.99 with the 14mm lens kit system starting in July 2011, and $599.99 with the 14-42mm lens kit system starting in late August 2011.
The 2011 Diving, Resort and Travel Expo will be held from 8-10 July at the Hong Kong Exhibition Center. The event will host 130 exhibitors, and it is expected to have over 30,000 visitors. The event will be hosting an underwater photography competition with categories for behavior, reefscapes and conservation. In addition, the show plans to highlight the issues facing the conservation of the marine ecosystem, via professional seminars and promoting public dialog.
The deadline for entries to the competition is 18 June.
Wetpixel member Chris East has posted a demo showreel of visual effects (VFX) onto the forums. The sequence includes some underwater footage and also shows what software went into creating each shot. It highlights several uses of post production VFX compositing, from match-moves and 2D camera solves, through to 3D modelling and placement. Chris reckons that it took about an afternoon to actually cut together, but the total time to acquire the footage was about a month.
As trailed earlier this week, Steve Fish and the Critters@Lembeh/Lembeh Resort team have released a video highlighting good practices for muck diving onto YouTube. The idea is that this video will be used by many of the dive centers in the area to promote responsible environmental practices among their visitors.
The video also highlights issues like photographic etiquette and using too much strobe on a single subject.
In a surprise announcement, Ikelite has announced that due to unexpected delays it is suspending the development of housings for all current model EVIL cameras. The models listed that this affects are the Olympus PEN , Panasonic GF, Samsung NX and Sony NEX ranges. It was widely expected the Ikelite would introduce models for these cameras soon.
The company stress that this does not affect their ongoing development of new housings for popular models of conventional Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, Fuji, Kodak, Panasonic and JVC cameras.
DiveFilm HD Video podcast has just released the third in a series of video action highlights from this year’s Formula 3 freediving Grand Prix in Grand Cayman. These feature freedive scooter racing at its best in some fast-paced, well produced short videos directed and edited by Goh Iromoto, and filmed by Goh, Matt Charlton, & Ren Chapman. Much of the footage was shot on Canon 5D Mk2 and Canon 7D SLRs, with GoPro HDs used for POV shots.
Divefilm HD podcasts are produced in association with Wetpixel and are available as free downloads on iTunes.
Vincent Laforet is currently testing RED Epic number 308 and reporting his findings with the camera on his blog. His most recent article features still frame grabs of the footage he has shot at 5K resolution. He has also posted video footage, but notes that with the compression inherent in web hosted media, it is hard to see the difference between it and that of HD SLRs. He says:
“Shooting video at 5K is nothing short of an eye opener. The images you get are simply stunning. In fact it’s difficult to see the video stream on what is one of the cleanest players on the web (Vimeo’s.) No matter how good the compression – there’s no technology out there today that can do the footage justice.”
In comparison, the still frame grabs of the footage do show the level of details that is possible.
Underwater photographer, Wolcott Henry was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) at its annual leadership awards dinner held on 7 June in Washington, DC. He was presented with the award in recognition for his many contributions to ocean awareness and conservation, his efforts to start the marine funders workgroup and his founding of the Marine Photobank. The latter provides high quality visual images for use by non-profit organizations in over 100 counties to show the impact people are having on the oceans.
Sony has announced the new NEX-C3 EVIL camera, a new 30mm f2.8 lens and a firmware update for the NEX-3 and NEX-5. The new camera features an Exmor 16.2 megapixel APS sensor, image previews on-screen, multi-frame 3D Sweep Panorama, Auto HDR functions, Handheld Twilight and Anti-Motion Blur modes and 720p HD video. The new SEL30M35 30mm f3.5 macro lens is suitable for use with all Sony EVIL cameras. It has a 1:1 magnification ratio and minimum working distance of 2.4 cm. This will make it a significant choice for underwater use. Lastly, both NEX-3 and NEX-5 cameras will have a new firmware release on 20 June.
The NEX-C3 will be available from August with a 16-55 zoom for $650 or a 16mm lens for $600. The SEL30M35 30mm f3.5 macro lens will be available from October for around $250.