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Live manta birth in captivity
A 1.9 meter baby female manta ray was born at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan on Saturday, June 16, 2007, and the event was captured on video. The aquarium reported that the gestation period was 374 days - a little over a year - and believe it to be the first manta born in captivity.
Underwater photographer Tony Wu has posted one version of the video on his blog, and there are a few more cuts floating around on YouTube. The newborn “emerges rolled up like a tube” before unfurling her wings and beginning to swim.
Digital Shootout Bonaire 2007 Day 2
Just in! : a bunch of images submitted by our participants. In previous years, we found that it was nearly impossible to get more than a dozen images submitted for the evening slideshow/critique after the first day of diving. Today, we received over 100 from our eager crowd of 40-50 still shooters. We even received video submissions. Given the difficulty of getting images together and putting together short video vignettes in such a short amount of time, we’re very impressed.
Digital Shootout Bonaire 2007 Day 1
Today is the official start of the Digital Shootout 2007! By late this morning, nearly all of the participants had arrived, and most had already started diving in earnest. At 10am, Berkely, Jim, and Russ ran another gear setup workshop in the classroom while Dan and Mary Lynn prepared the Capture offices for the week’s video workshops.
At 2pm, photography and video seminars commenced…
SS Thorfinn dive boat aground in Pohnpei
A few days ago, Wetpixel received an anonymous email with a rumor that the SS Thorfinn dive boat had run aground in Pohnpei:
The Thorfinn has an engine room filling up with water. It came into Pohnpei and loaded up 70,000 gallons of used oil from PUC and there were not enough pilots to have one come aboard on the way out. A pilot was on each of the two ships leading the way and the Thorfinn was following the two lead ships and went on the reef yesterday.
The email was confirmed in the forums by a series of photos taken by Pohnpei resident Michael J. Sipos. Recently, an oil boom was placed around the vessel, but repairs have not yet proceeded on an estimated 12” gash in the hull. Continue reading for the images, or discuss the environmental impact...
Digital Shootout Bonaire 2007 Day 0
Most of the staff arrived today and yesterday on flights from various parts of the United States along with an intrepid group of early-bird participants eager to get in the water with their cameras. Although the shootout doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, more than half the guests are already here. Serge, the manager of the dive shop at our host resort (the Divi Flamingo), gave a morning briefing on local dive policies and logistics, and by noon some of our participants had already spent a couple of hours in the water…
Digital Shootout Bonaire 2007 Daily Webcast
Welcome to daily coverage for the Digital Shootout Bonaire 2007. The Digital Shootout 2007 is being held in Bonaire, a small island in the southern Caribbean. Because nearly the entire island has been designed for access to easy shore diving, Bonaire is frequently referred to as a diver’s paradise; because of its fantastic diving and classroom-friendly resorts, this year is the Digital Shootout’s third year on the island, featuring 60 participants and 10 staff members…
Complementary filters and wide-angle underwater photography
On a recent trip to Little Cayman, Wetpixel administrator James Wiseman decided to try the technique of complementary filters. With a magenta filter on the camera lens and green filters on his strobes, James found that foreground lighting could appear normal while enriching the blue water background, and that the typical cyan ring around ‘sun-balls’ or ‘sunbursts’ was reduced or eliminated altogether.
James wrote an article about the results, and includes photos to provide a comparison of each filter/strobe/ambient light combination. “Complementary filter photography at first sounds pretty complicated, but it’s really easy to get started…after trying it one just one trip, I am completely hooked…”
Continue for all of his observations…
Adam Powell featured in Bali exhibition
Wetpixel member Adam Powell will be featured in an underwater photography exhibition at the Harris Resort on Kuta Beach in Bali, Indonesia. Hosted by Reef Check Indonesia, the ‘Go Blue Beyond the Reef’ display will run for a month, starting June 14, 2007, and will seek to “show the public the beauty of coral reef ecosystems” and draw attention to the importance of marine conservation.
Powell will be donating 10% of 2007 sales to the Reef Check Indonesia effort, and the event is supported by the Indonesian Culture and Tourism Department. Continue reading for the full press release…