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Sea and Sea announces housing for Nikon D600
Sea & Sea has announced the release of a housing for the Nikon D600 SLR camera. The MSX-D600 is a compact, lightweight design with access to all the camera’s essential controls. It has two fiber optic ports, as well as two additional bulkheads for the possible installation of electronic flash triggering, HDMI or other bulkheads. It is supplied with a leak detector as standard and is compatible with Sea $ Sea’s NX series lens ports.
The MDX-D600 will be shipping from mid-January at an US retail price of $3,399.00 or $3,499.00 with a 2 pin wiring harness (for electronic strobe triggering).
Instagram updates its terms of service
Instagram has recently updated its terms of service for its photo sharing site. The new terms of service allow it to: “To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” This gives the company the right to sell a user’s images, without them receiving any of the monies generated. Many commentators, including the Guardian, surmise that this is as a result of social media giant Facebook’s purchase of Instagram, and a need to monetize the business. Practically, it means that if you want any of your images to generate any revenue for you, you need to remove them from Instagram at present.
Retra announces the eZoom
Retra, in conjunction with Italian photographer Michele Davino, has created an underwater motorized zoom system. The eZoom is an aluminum structure that contains an electric motor and power supply which meshes with a lens’ zoom ring. The motor can be controlled with push buttons on the device. This can create images wherein zoom lenses are zoomed out while the shutter is open, creating a motion blur around the outside of the frame, but typically leaving the center in focus, similar to what can be achieved with Fresnel lenses. This technique has been used for some time, but the practicalities of zooming whilst maintaining camera focus and steadiness with one hand has limited its use.
Price and availability of the eZoom are still to be announced.
Dive center creates Gangnam Style parody
Oceans Below has created a humorous parody of the Gangnam Style music video which they describe (in relation to its inspiration) as: “Everybody knows that small islands sometime have strange effects on their inhabitants. well, what can we say…..we are no exception!”. It was filmed at the Celebes dive resort on Pom Pom Island, Sipadan, Malaysia. The film features dive center staff performing the music’s distinctive dance moves whilst wearing scuba gear under and above the water!
The video can be viewed on YouTube.
Final call for entries: Ocean Views 2012
Ocean Views 2012, of which Wetpixel is the online media partner is making a final call for entries. The contest will hand out many prizes, including a Grand Prize of two live-aboard dive holidays, one on the Thailand Aggressor, and the other on the Carib Dancer. In addition, there are many other significant prizes for those in the competition’s placings, including great dive holidays and shiny scuba gear. The contest is open at all, with no specific categories, but with prizes for the top 12 placings and 5 honorable mentions. Entries may be of life below, above or around the ocean’s surface and for a one-off $25 US entry fee, you can submit up to 20 images.
The deadline for entries is 18 December 2012, and full rules and procedures are listed on the Nature’s Best Photography website.
Adobe announces holiday specials
Adobe has announced special holiday pricing for the following products: Lightroom 4 is available now for $129.99 (originally $149), Photoshop Elements 11 is available now for $79.99, Premiere Elements 11 is $79.99 and a bundle consisting of both Photoshop and Premiere Element 11 is now $99.99.
The specials are available now from the Discount Software page of the Adobe website and will be running until 6 January 2013.
Gizmodo rates action cams
Gizmodo has published a comparative review of four new action cams that have hit the market recently namely: The Drift Ghost, Sony Action Cam, Contour+2 and GoPro HERO3 Black. The testers found that the Ghost seemed somewhat unfinished and had a poor image quality, the Sony also did not deliver great footage, and seems to suffer from a poor build quality. The Contour was reliable, but lacked color accuracy. The HERO3 was, predictably, the leading product with only a limited battery life letting it down.
The testing was carried out with the cameras mounted on a surfboard, static shots were taken from a rooftop and then all three were strapped to a cyclists helmet while he pedaled around Brooklyn. The full test results are available on Gizmodo.
Nauticam releases housing for Sony NEX-5R
Nauticam has announced the release of their housing for the Sony NEX-5R EVIL camera. The NA-NEX5R shares many of the features of its predecessor, as well as those of other EVIL housings in the Nauticam range. The new control dial on the NEX-5R is accessed on the housing via the left-hand thumb. This can give manual control of aperture and shutter speed. In addition the camera’s new programmable function (Fn) button can be accessed and hence used for manual while balance or focus mode control. Nauticam have re-designed their sealing o ring for this housing, and also modified the camera tray.
The NA-NEX5R housing is shipping now.