Monday, March 1st, 2010

Backscatter’s best point and shoot systems for 2010

Our friends Berkley White and Jim Decker over at Backscatter have again come up with an excellent article on their recommendations for the best underwater point and shoot systems for 2010.

This evaluation is a terrific resource if you’re deciding on your very first underwater camera system, upgrading to the latest and greatest, or searching for a back-up. Evaluation criteria in the list includes wide-angle lens compatibility, manual exposure control, highlight warnings and histograms, as well as slave TTL strobe capability. Read the full article at the Backscatter website here.

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Barry Guimbellot designs DIY small dome port for CFWA

Close-focus wide angle photography and the limitations of large dome ports has been a hot topic of late. Wetpixel member Barry Guimbellot (Dupsbear) explores what it takes to build a small dome port for his Nexus housing:

After reading on Wetpixel about the luck Alex Mustard and some others were having with the Tokina lens and a 1.4X teleconverter, I decided to give the combination a try as well.

Frustration quickly set in as I found my large dome port would not let me get as close as I wanted for shooting close focus wide angle. Even more frustrating was the price of a small dome port for my lens, so I decided to build a small port for my Nexus housing…

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Sea & Sea MDX-D300s housing is now available at dealers.

Sea & Sea’s MDX-D300s housing is now available. The new housing has many improvements including 2 fiber optic ports for using the built-in strobe on the camera. The housing is bigger than the older D300 due to the accommodation of the extended built-in strobe. However this will enable the user to use Nikon’s iTTL without a converter. The specifications for weight is about the same as the D300 housing.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Sea & Sea announces MDX-7D housing for the Canon EOS 7D

Sea & Sea announces their latest housing on Facebook, the MDX-7D for the Canon EOS 7D. The new housing has a depth rating of 100m/330ft and includes 2 optical strobe ports for fiber optic compatible strobes. It is estimated to be available in March. They also announced their Spring promotion, where discounts of up to $800 are available for housing and ports purchased together. More details are available from their dealers.

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Ocean Views Photography Awards 2010 final call for entries

Nature’s Best Photography and Divers Alert Network (DAN) are proud to announce a new alliance to host the third annual Ocean Views Photography Awards, open to all levels of photographers from around the world. Share your passion for the ocean to help inspire a global audience to learn about and protect this fragile realm. A selection of winning images will appear in upcoming editions of Nature’s Best Photography and Alert Divers magazines, and will be featured as Internet presentations on Pixcetera, MSNBC, Discovery Network International, and other online galleries. Cash, trips, and equipment are also being awarded to contest winners.

Deadline for entry is this coming Monday, March 1, 2010.

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Watershot Inc releases housing for the Canon 5D MKII

Watershot Inc has just announced the expansion of its underwater photographic system to include a complete product line for the Canon EOS 5D MKII DSLR.

The housing has a sleek and compact design and is billet machined out of grade 6061 T6 aluminum with a 80 meter depth rating. Watershot¹s continuing attention to detail has been applied to both the ergonomics of still and video shooting. A comprehensive range of ports and accessories supports the housing. More information and a list of dealers is available through the Watershot website.

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Our World Underwater 2010 show coverage

Our friends over at DivePhotoGuide have posted online coverage of Our World Underwater 2010, and have included photos of the OWU 2010 Photo Contest print gallery and underwater photo/video-related booths.

Also included is a photo of Keri Wilk posing in front of some of his images. Keri placed *six* times in the OWU 2010 photo contest. Please, readers—let’s give Keri some competition next year! ;)

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

ADEX: Asia Dive Expo 2010, April 9-11

Asian Diver has acquired the Asian Dive Expo (ADEX) and will take over from TMX Productions in 2010. It seems the publication has come full circle, since it was the magazine that started ADEX in 1994. ADEX 2010 will feature 100+ exhibition booths, presentations from inspiring dive professionals and industry leaders, fascinating underwater videos, marine-themed photography and art displays, plus prizes to be won in our special underwater competitions.

Speakers at ADEX include Stan Waterman, Shawn Heinrichs, Todd Essick, Chip Scarlett, Diego Garcia, Aaron Wong, Mathieu Meur, Richard Ng, and others.

The brand new Asia Dive Expo, organised “by divers, for divers”, will now take place at Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore from 9-11 April 2010.

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

INON announces X-2 underwater housing for Panasonic GF1

At the Diving Festival in Tokyo last week, INON announced several products, including a compact new underwater housing for the Panasonic GF1. The new X-2 housing features controls for almost every feature on the GF1, plus fiber optic bulkheads for external strobe sync. INON plans to support INON 45mm macro, 14-45mm, 7-14mm and 8mm fisheye lenses.

INON also announced a new MRS100 UIII macro port for the new Canon 100mm IS macro lens (on X-2 for Canon 50D), a camera base for 67mm lens adapters, and a camera/video base for INON underwater lights.

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Sony announces roadmap for ultra-compact APS-C cameras

Sony has unveiled a new ultra-compact camera featuring APS-C sensor size and interchangeable lenses. The camera should feature a low-noise Exmor APS sensor and have 1080P AVCHD video capture capability. Sony has also been aggressive about introducing interesting technology into their compact cameras like panorama sweep, low-light imaging modes that reduce noise and blur, and GPS, which hopefully will make it into this new line. If Sony releases super wide-angle lenses, the new camera will compete very well with Micro Four Thirds cameras, which have smaller sensors than does the new Sony series.

Sony says that the camera will be released this year.

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