Monday, February 21st, 2005

Underwater Photo News From PMA

This year, the PMA ( Photo Marketing Association Annual Show ) is in Orlando FL, Feb 20th - 23rd. You can find fantastic coverage of the digital photography products announced at PMA by following PMA reports from Steve's Digicams and DPReview.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2005

Sigma 150mm Macro - Test Photo Mini Review Posted

Sigma just released a new macro lens called the 150mm f2.8 APO DG HSM (it's quite a mouthful) at a price of $600. I purchased this macro lens based on advice from Wetpixel moderator Craig Jones. It uses an ultrasonic motor for focusing, so FTMF is possible, and it's also an internal focusing lens, so the front doesn't rack out. I believe it is the fastest macro lens at this focal length and working distance. Since I have two 8 megapixel cameras, one with a 1.25x cropped sensor, and one with a 1.6x cropped sensor, I decided to take some test photos to see what the lens is cabable of.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2005

Sigma 150mm f2.8 APO DG EX

Sigma just released a new macro lens called the 150mm f2.8 APO DG HSM (it's quite a mouthful) at a price of $600. I purchased this macro lens based on advice from Wetpixel moderator Craig Jones. It uses an ultrasonic motor for focusing, so FTMF is possible, and it's also an internal focusing lens, so the front doesn't rack out. I believe it is the fastest macro lens at this focal length and working distance. Since I have two 8 megapixel cameras, one with a 1.25x cropped sensor, and one with a 1.6x cropped sensor, I decided to take some test photos to see what the lens is cabable of.

Monday, February 14th, 2005

Ocean Images: Dolphin Housings

Thanks to Jim Bullit from OceanBrite for letting us know that Ocean Images has just released the new Dolphin Housing for the PANASONIC GS150, GS200, GS250 & GS400 3-Chip MagicWire Camcorders. The Dolphin Panasonic Housing brings electronic controls and a wide open LCD screen to the Panasonic Housing market for the first time!!! The Camcorder fits snugly in the Housing, reducing excess space and keeping the Housing size and weight to a minimum. This Housing allows the user full use of the LCD display on the Camcorder. The clear acrylic rear closure plate provides a full view of the Housing interior and the Camcorder' LCD display.

Sunday, February 13th, 2005

Ikelite 20D Housing with eTTL2 Converter

This review is a concise test of the Ikelite eTTL2 conversion circuitry in a real-world dive scenario. The equipment used was a Canon 20D with 100mm macro lens, an Ikelite housing for the 20D, maunal focus capable flat port, and dual DS125's with a dual eTTL sync cord.

Sunday, February 13th, 2005

Big Blue Squid - Contest

Big Blue Squid, Ireland's first dedicated underwater camera shop has put up a reward of over £500 worth of camera equipment and prizes for the ‘capture’ of the killer of the rare White Dolphin...

Saturday, February 12th, 2005

Proper Dome Size and Placement

Hi eveready, following a tread on dome optic/clown fish in the gallery section, Jean Bruneau and CeeDave aka Chris came up with this diagram. His textual approach to this complex phenomenom is one of the best, so I have contributed my illustration talent to his talentuous text. hope you enjoy,.

Friday, February 11th, 2005

Beneath the Sea 2005 Winners Posted.

Congratulations to Wetpixel members Kasey Kanton, Linda Cline, Larry Oberlander, Rand McMeins, Istvan Juhasz and James Wiseman for their winning entries in the Sea 2005 Photo and Video competetion (apologies if I've left any members out). The winners of the Beneath the Sea 2005 Worldwide Photo/Video Competition will be shown at the Saturday Night Film Festival during the weekend of Beneath the Sea's Ocean Adventure and Travel Exposition, March 18th, 19th, and 20th , 2005, at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, New Jersey. I have received an email from Robert Schrager with the winners - click on this item to view the full results.

Thursday, February 10th, 2005

Wetpixel Redesign

Hello all. Wetpixel will migrate to a new server and design in a matter of weeks (goals: speed, simplicity, and scalability). All content will migrate over except for forum attachments, private messages, and (probably) avatars. It is unfortunate that forum attachments will be lost, but I will get the old Wetpixel running on a subdomain so you can retrieve them if you need them.

Because we have changed the way logins work, everyone will be required to go through the new "Lost Password" procedure on the new server. In order to make sure this all goes smoothly, please take the time now to make sure the e-mail address in your Wetpixel profile is accurate!

Stay tuned! You'll have a few days notice once we kick off the server migration.

Wednesday, February 9th, 2005

Ikelite Housing and Ports - Mini-Review Posted

When the small Ikelite SLR housings for the Digital Rebel and the Nikon D100 came out, I was pleased to see that Ikelite had moved away from their 20 year old design SLR-MD housing with something new. Ike sent me a housing to try out, but due to travel plans, I never got a chance to post a full review. Since last year, I have been receiving requests from Wetpixel users for some sample photos taken using this setup with the Nikon 12-24DX lens. I've put all that I have together for a short article - really a photo presentation - showing how the new system fits together.

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