From the audience’s point of view, every San Diego Undersea Film exhibition (SDUFEX) gets better and better. From a film maker’s point of view, every one gets tougher and tougher. That was the case for the 11th annual San Diego Undersea Film Exhibition, held last Friday and Saturday, September 17 and 18 at Qualcomm Hall. This exhibition has taken on a life of its own, as film makers and attendees alike have highlighted it on their annual to-do lists.
Nauticam has officially released their NA-NEX5 housing at the Photokina exhibition today. The housing, for the Sony NEX-5 EVIL camera, has already created a great deal of interest due to its ability to use Nikonos lenses via an adapter. The housing also features: A port locking system, super sensitive shutter release and connectors for optical TTL strobes. In addition, the housing has styling designed to be reminiscent of the Nikonos system and the cameras LCD monitor can be angled to allow easier viewing.
With the looming threat of a commercial shark finning operation being established in the Bahamas, filmmaker Joe Romeiro has chosen to use his skills to show sharks in a different light in his short film “Nina Salerosa”. In the film renowned dive master Christina Zenato interacts very closely with a group of sharks during a feeding session. The Caribbean reef sharks in the video appear as beautiful, graceful creatures and this image helps to overturn the perception of sharks as being aggressive, and to create sympathy with their possible plight.
Meanwhile, the Bahamas National Trust, in partnership with the Pew Environmental Group, has launched a campaign to create legislation that would ban finning, and nearly a dozen environmental groups have begun lobbying for the sharks. In addition, the online petition calling for legal protection of Bahamian sharks has attracted nearly 6000 signatures. If you haven’t added yours yet though, please do so now.
Eric Cheng has posted this shark footage shot on the recent Wetpixel Bahamas goliath grouper, sharks and dolphins expedition. It is raw, unmodified footage from a GoPro HERO camera, in a modified Eye of Mine housing.
I am currently on the M/V Shear Water anchored just outside of the famous Blue Heron Bridge critter dive in Palm Beach, Florida. Not long ago, we were surprised by a diver who burst out of the water onto our back deck – it was Shen, who works at Reef Photo & Video (and who, incidentally, is a critter expert at Blue Heron Bridge).
I noticed that Shen’s Subal rig had LocLine arms attached to the end of his Ikelite strobes. I looked inside the arms to see if they were painted white and discovered fiber optic cables!
Epson Red Sea has announced a competition open to both amateurs and professionals, for underwater images taken anytime and anywhere in the world. There are several entry categories available: Linked theme portfolio of 5 images, shark image, single color image, wreck image and environmental image.
Deadline for registration and receiving entries is 10 October 2010.
Berkley White has previewed a unique feature of the new Nauticam NA Nex-5 housing: the ability to use Nikonos lenses with a special adapter. Berkley highlights that Nikonos lenses are specifically designed for use underwater, are mechanically sealed and are still considered by many to be some of the sharpest optics available for underwater use. The ability to use them with the Sony NEX-5 camera will allow new creative effects, although the manual adjustment of these lenses will also present some challenges.
Nauticam will have the housing on display at the Photokina Exhibition, which starts on Monday.
Originally released by Earth Touch as a message for the decision makers at the UNEP Copenhagen summit in 2009, this powerful video still has great relevance today. Set in 2060, and narrated through the voice of a child, the footage relates to a future without the marine creatures that are shown, due to climate change and ocean acidification.
Nikon has announced the release of a new mid range DSLR: The D7000. The new DX format camera has a 16.2 million pixel sensor, with an ISO range of 100 through to 25600, 1080p at 24fps HD video, and “subject tracking” or full-time 3D AF in video mode. In addition, it has a new EXPEED 2 image processing engine, a new metering sensor and 39 focus point AF system. Lastly, it has a glass pentaprism, giving 100% coverage of the picture area, and dual SD memory card slots. Many of these features will make this a very interesting camera for underwater use.
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The Aquatica AT2i housing for the Canon T2i/550 has undergone its complete field testing cycle and has now started shipping. Among modifications made from the pre-production prototype are a new retractable focus/zoom gear rack/lens release lever and the control layout has been ergonomically positioned with vital functions (for both still and video) all now being more accessible. The housing has a knob that allows the built in flash of the camera to be lowered for doing ambient light images and a push button to raise it when the user wishes to return to strobe illumination via fiber optic TTL.
Also recently introduced by Aquatica are two new ports, the 4” mini dome 100 and a low profile macro port designed for the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens.