Friday, April 15th, 2011

First images of Nauticam housing for XZ-1

Nauticam has released images of their housing for the Olympus XZ-1 compact camera. Edward Lai, owner of Nauticam, mentioned this housing at the recent LIDS show. The XZ-1 is acknowledged as one of the key recent compact camera releases for underwater use and so the addition of non-Olympus housings is an important step in ensuring its popularity. Specifications on the Nauticam NA XZ-1 have not yet been released, but it is likely that the housing will accept third-party wet lenses, unlike the current Olympus housing.

Prices and release dates are to be announced.

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Losing Nemo: IUCN highlights the effects of climate change

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released a series of fact sheets highlighting the effects of global warming on individual species. Amongst these, they have highlighted how the combination of increasing sea temperatures and ocean acidification will affect coral reefs and their inhabitants, using the clownfish as an exemplar of a species that will decline.

The study suggests that increasingly acidic water disrupts the clownfishes sense of smell which will then impair their ability to find specific host sea anemones. There is some possibility that clownfish may adapt to these changes by changing their behavior or the places they inhabit but their inability to move long distances and the rate at which their habitat is being degraded makes such an occurrence unlikely.

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Blackmagic Design releases Hyperdeck Shuttle disk recorder

Blackmagic Design has launched a disk recorder at the NAB show in Las Vegas. The Hyperdeck Shuttle will capture uncompressed 10 bit SDI or HDMI onto a solid state disk (SSD). It is machined from a solid block of aircraft grade aluminum, is very compact and battery powered, so should fit easily into underwater housings.

It will be available from May this year, at a price of $345.

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

NAB 2011 show coverage

Eric Cheng reports from NAB Show 2011, including information about Del Mar Housing Projects, GoPro, Ikonoskop (RAW video FTW!), RED, Sony, Singular Software, and more. There weren’ many booths from companies specifically focused on underwater imaging, but there were a few underwater folks roaming the halls.

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Apple announces Final Cut Pro X for $299

Apple announced Final Cut Pro X today at FCPUG SuperMeet in Las Vegas. The new version of FCP has been long-awaited, and its feature set seems to deliver on what modern video professionals have been asking for. Randy Ubillos (an avid diver) took the stage and showed off a demo version of the product. Reports form livebloggers indicate that the audience went crazy when certain features were announced…

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

External-mounted Magic Filter available

Magic Filters has announced the release of a new version of their Auto-Magic filter designed for external mounting on digital underwater cameras. The new filter uses their proprietary formula making it available for the first time as a solid filter that can be added or removed from the lens underwater. The filter is suitable for both still and video shooting in blue waters. They are currently on sale in a variety of screw thread filters, with more shapes and sizes planned.

The filters are available to order now.

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Adobe announces Creative Suite version 5.5

Adobe has announced the release of Creative Suite version 5.5. This marks a change from the previous update path, and Adobe now plans to introduce new Creative Suite products now at 24 month intervals, with major mid-cycle releases in between. The major changes in this version relate to the introduction of tools for adding content onto mobile devices, for using the Creative Suits with tablet devices and an expansion of the supported devices with the Mercury playback engine in Premier Pro. Adobe has also introduced a subscription plan to allow for month-by-month or yearly usage.

This is a paid upgrade, and the new software will ship by the end of May.

Sunday, April 10th, 2011

Review: Digital Film Tools Photocopy plug-in

Wetpixel moderator Drew Wohl presents his impressions of Digital Film Tools Photocopy plug-in. This integrates into most popular photographic and video editing platforms, and provides over 200 preset style or looks. These have been derived from a study of popular movies, paintings. photographs and processes. Drew concludes:

“I quickly found many favorites that I would use for photos and video. The ease and interface of PhotoCopy make it a pleasure to work with and ultimately it is a nice plug-in to have on hand.”

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

Call for entries: Cairns Underwater Film Festival

The 2011 Cairns Underwater Film Festival is due to be held on 12 August at the Cairns Civic Theatre. The organisers are calling for entries of short films by local residents for the film festival, and for entries to the photographic competition that will run alongside it. The latter has five categories, namely: Wide-angle nature, macro, compact, young photographer, diver(s) and there is an additional prize for “Best in Show”.

Deadline for entries to the photographic competition is 16 July.

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

Canon announces EOS Movie plug-in version 1.2

Canon has announced the imminent release of a new version of the EOS E1 plug-in. This is designed to allow quicker editing of EOS captured footage into ProRes 422 for editing in Apple Final Cut Pro. Version 1.2 will allow users to transfer files from any folder, unlike the current version which forces users to mirror the folder structure on the camera and will now also allow footage to be imported without the camera-generated THM file. Canon claim that the EI plug-in converts footage at twice the speed of the native Final Cut Pro conversion.

The new version will be available as a free download from 25 April.

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