Photographer Douglas Seifert has landed what might possibly be the first cover image taken with the INON Underwater Micro Semi-Fisheye Relay Lens UFL-MR130 EFS60 (commonly known as the “insect-eye” or “bug-eye,” although Douglas always refers to it as the “WAM,” for wide-angle macro). DIVE Magazine’s November 2010 cover is a shot of a clownfish in an anemone, which was taken with the unusual lens.

Douglas has a history of using new and crazy gear to capture images destined for covers; he also secured the first digital DIVE cover back in the Canon D60 days.

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The results of the 2010 Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year has been announced at a gala awards ceremony held at the Natural History Museum, London. It is great to see so many Wetpixel members achieving awards from such a prestigious competition. Tony Wu is the winner in the Underwater World category, with his image of four sperm whales from Dominica and Marcelo Krause’s image of a yacare caiman achieved a Highly Commended. In the One Earth category, Jordi Chias is the winner with an image of a turtle trapped in fishing net, and Brian Skerry and Thomas Haider also received Highly Commended awards for their images of shark finning.

The winning images will be on display at the Natural History Museum from 22 October. For those of us who didn’t make it this year, the 2011 competition will be open for entries from 12 January.

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Filmed by Wetpixel moderator and DiveFilm HD host, Mary Lynn Price in the Erebus Bay region of Antarctica’s Ross Sea, the Weddell Seal population dynamics research field team gets to work. This involves flagging safe routes, surveying, weighing, and identifying Weddell seals in the study area as the 2010 field season gets underway.

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The Save Our Seas Foundation has received a Panda award in the category Best environmental Campaign for its short film “Save Our Sharks”. The Panda awards are given out at the annual Wildscreen Film Festival, and are widely regarded as the highest accolade for wildlife film makers. This year the three finalists were: The Bottom Line produced by Greenpeace; Yao Ming: Shark Fin Soup PSA produced by Wildaid and Save Our Sharks produced by the Save Our Seas Foundation.

The Campaign award is given to the best production, not commissioned by a broadcaster, that covers an environmental campaign. This award is especially significant as it was directed, filmed, produced and edited by an in-house team. Save Our Sharks is a 6 minute film which aims to educate the public about the barbaric practice of shark finning and it’s link to shark fin soup.

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Sterling Zumbrunn has published a comprehensive review of the Canon T2i on Backscatter, including a review of the current housing choices. He identifies the camera as being the “most exciting SLR offered from Canon this year,” and the testing was carried out on it by a total of eight individuals in a variety of environments worlwide.

To summarize his findings: The camera gives exceptional performance and amazing value. Positioned as an entry-level SLR, it’s performance and feature set are anything but entry-level, and it provides an ideal step-up from a compact camera. It’s small size and weight make it also very suitable for traveling or blue water divers, at the expense of some compromises in “performance, ergonomics and construction,” when compared against the Canon 7D.

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