Underwater Photography and Videography, News, Forums, Trips, Photo Contests :: Wetpixel.com

Aquatica has announced a new housing for the Nikon D300s, Nikon’s 12.3 megapixel SLR capable of 720p HD video. With the new housing, Aquatica introduces both optical fiber and regular Nikonos and Ikelite bulkheads for strobe sync. Aquatica also mentions that they provide fingertip access to all camera menus and video controls including both AF-ON activation and AE-AF lock buttons, which are accessible via a single lever.

The new D300s housing will be showcased next week at the DEMA show at booth #969.

Tony Wu, Douglas Seifert, and Julia Sumerling extended another 6 days of swimming with sperm whales after I left Ogasawara, Japan. I’ve just started receiving some images from their extension, and thought I would share one with Wetpixel’s readership.

Tony calls this image the “idiot’s guide to sushi.” We’ll leave it up to the reader to decide who the idiot is. ;)

Alert Diver, a publication sent free of charge to DAN North America members, has been massively redesigned and arrives in member mailboxes this week. I haven’t received mine yet, but I am looking forward to seeing the changes!

Publisher and friend of Wetpixel Stephen Frink is asking for feedback from Wetpixel members.  So far, I’ve been hearing great things. If you have received the first redesigned issue and have feedback for the Alert Diver staff, head on over to our forums!

Nauticam USA is a new company dedicated to bringing Nauticam underwater housings to North America. Nauticam USA have announced the availability of a new underwater housing for the Nikon D90 SLR. Designed by photographers, Nauticam emphasizes ergonomics and expandability, with port adapters available for other housing lines. The D90 housing also includes live view and ok/record buttons located near the right handle in a single control to improve ergonomics for shooting video, and includes optical bulkheads for strobes controlled by optical sync.

The NA-D90 housing will be on display at DEMA (booth 767) this coming November 4-7. Continue reading for photos and full specs.

Fujifilm UK has selected Fantasea’s Remora strobe as an underwater strobe in their line of underwater photography products. As a reminder, the Remora flash was named through an online competition hosted at Wetpixel and other sites.

The Fujifilm Remora flash kit includes strobe, flexible arm, base tray, and fiber optic cable, and is available now from Fujifilm Approved Dive stores for a retail price of £229.99.

We’re at it again! Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide will be hosting our DEMA 2009 Cocktail Party on Friday, November 6, 2009 at the DEMA Show in Orlando, Florida.

Date and Time: 8:30pm Friday, November 6, 2009
Location: TO BE DECIDED (tentatively, we’ll meet at the Rosen Centre bar)

Check the front page of Wetpixel or follow us on Twitter (@wetpixel) at the end of the Thursday the 5th for location change details, or drop by the Wetpixel /DivePhotoGuide booth #1068 for an invite card. Last year’s party in Las Vegas was packed full of photography and dive industry folks. This year, the gathering will probably be much more casual; we promise to make up for it in Vegas 2010

Last year, Dive Magazine’s Simon Rogerson and Wetpixel’s Eric Cheng and Matt Segal went to Seattle to dive with sixgill sharks. A team from Oregon Public Broadcasting joined our charter to gather footage for a sixgill shark segment for Oregon Field Guide.

Recreational divers and researchers lure sixgill sharks in for up close encounters. It’s believed Puget Sound is a sixgill shark nursery: a safe place to give birth and raise hundreds or perhaps a thousand or more young sharks.

The show has finally aired; you can see the segment on sixgill sharks embedded in this post.

The winning images of the 2009 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year award have been announced and are online at the British Natural History Museum’s website. This year’s winner in The Underwater World is Michel Loup, who photographed a pike reflected in the glassy underside of a Jura Mountains lake. Other underwater winners this year include Paul Nicklen, Doug Perrine, Nano Cordovilla, Kevin Schafer, Christopher Guglielmo, and Daniel Selmeczi. Congratulations!

Spammers have recently started using Wetpixel as a destination for marketing links by putting unrelated content in newly created users' forum profile pages. This means that a spam message blasted out in an email somewhere out there might contain a link to Wetpixel, which would unwittingly have become a host for spam content.

Note that none of this affects you, the Wetpixel user, the content you have posted on Wetpixel, or your private information. The only issue here is that spammers are using their profiles to host spam content. I have a plan to try to combat this new form of spam, and I made some changes tonight that will hopefully help us to win the battle in the long run. Continue reading, if you're interested in how we're fighting it.

Canon has announced their new 1D Mark IV digital SLR, a 16-megapixel, 10 frames-per-second professional SLR body. From the first images release, the body looks to be identical to the older Mark III cameras—good news for underwater photographers. However, we won’t know for sure until someone actually gets their hands on one. Especially exciting is the inclusion of HD video capture in the new camera. The 1D Mark IV will capture both HD and SD video. HD video support includes 1920x1080 capture @ 24p, 25p and 30p, and 1280x720 capture at 50p/60p.

Canon has posted a press release and an article explaining what’s new. Rob Galbraith has also published an article with more information bout the camera.

The 1D Mark IV is priced as $4,999.00 and ships in late December 2009.