Rick Allen and his wife, Cindy Burnham, both of Nautilus Productions, have been injured by an exploding cylinder at their home. Rick is a well-known photographer and videographer, with multiple credits on both National Geographic and Discovery channels. Rick is still in a critical condition in UNC Hospitals’ Jaycee Burn Center, while Cindy has been released after having been treated for facial cuts.

I’m sure that the Wetpixel community will join in sending wishes for a speedy recovery to them.

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Lexar Media has announced that it plans to produce SDXC cards in 64GB and 128GB capacities. The 64GB and 128GB Class 10 SDXC cards “offer minimum guaranteed speeds of 133x (20MB per second),” and ship with a limited lifetime warranty.

They should ship in the first quarter of 2011.

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One of the most discussed items on the forums revolve around the simplest part of the underwater image maker’s arsenal; the o-ring. Steve Douglas takes a step-by-step look at the use and preparation of these simple yet vital components. His article provides hands-on guidance for the new housing owner, and a revision for the experienced shooter.

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The first RED EPIC camera to be released has been stolen in what appears to be a general burglary from a chalet in Meribel, France. EPIC camera number 0006, owned by Mark Pederson, CTO of Offhollywood studios, was stolen while he and his family slept, their front door having been forced open. Also stolen was cash and an Angenieux Optimo 15-40mm (s/n1591382) lens.

Jim Jannard, founder of RED, has offered a $100,000 reward for:

“The safe return of EPIC #00006 and the rest of the system including the media with Mark’s files… and the arrest and conviction of those that broke into Mark’s chalet in France.”

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The Panasonic 3DA1 is an ideal tool for underwater 3D film making. However, as the two “eyes” or lenses are fixed relative to each other, this brings about some challenges. Effectively, this means that it has a fairly narrow field of view and 8 foot minimum convergence for the eyes. Hence, wide shots are a problem, and subjects closer than 8 feet will be off the screen in the positive 3D space, and may not make for comfortable viewing.

Gates Underwater Products has attacked this by adding conversion lenses to the camera. The lenses are from Zunow with a front aluminum bezel, which actually replaces the camera’s own, machined by Gates. This makes the camera truly usable underwater (and above too) as the lens both increases the field of view dramatically and allows the 3DA1 to converge closer; down to 5 feet. The lenses are 0.6x magnification, and the Gates 3DA1 housing has been extended to accommodate them. Please contact Gates directly for price and availability information.

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