Wetpixel & DivePhotoGuide are proud to announce the relaunch of our joint venture, UnderwaterCompetition.com, home of our series of international photo competitions, hosted collaboratively between our two popular underwater photo & video websites. In just 4 years, these competitions have become some of the most prestigious and widely supported international underwater photography & video competitions in the world. As our readers already know, the primary competitions are unique in the fact that they are held in association with two dive expos on opposite sides of the world simultaneously. Our World Underwater in Chicago, USA, and DEEP Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Not only did we give UnderwaterCompetition.com a facelift, including highlighting and ranking winning photographers, but we also automated the entire competition.  As a participant, you can now sign up for your own UnderwaterCompetition account, upload your submissions, and pay for your entries through this website.

We hope you enjoy the new website, which soft launched this week and will be open for registration and submission within the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for the official call for entries!

Conservation International, in cooperation with the Coral Reef Alliance and Wetpixel.com, are pleased to announce the winning photo for the 2009 Raja Ampat entrance tag design contest. 

After three weeks of public voting, Marcio Lisa won first place in the 2009 Raja Ampat Tourism Entry Tag Contest with his dramatic silhouette of a manta ray. In second place was Marli Wakeling’s portrait of a squid, and in third, a split image of a small island with a school of fish beneath the surface of the water.

Sharon Rainis, of Fantasea Line, is live on the floor covering the Photokina: World of Imaging exhibition in Cologne, Germany and looking for new underwater products:

Every two years some 160,000 visitors from 140 countries attend Photokina to fact-find the entire range of products and services in modern image communication.

This year’s show is a special one for all underwater photographers and underwater photography manufacturers. Visitors to the 2008 Photokina Show will be treated to the first-ever “Underwater Imaging World at Photokina”...

Continue reading for news from the show - updated with final coverage and concluding remarks!

When thinking about any large purchase, I’ve a tendency to “buy the good one first” rather than buying a lesser version only to upgrade later. Regardless of the expense of the initial item, it’s increased by having bought a “gap version” in the interim.

In this case, rather than buy a lesser camera in a modest housing which would need to be upgraded later, I decided to spend what was necessary to match my needs. Ideally, my skills could grow into the abilities of the rig and the rig would not limit (within reason) what I could do. I didn’t want to “under-buy”, but over-buying didn’t make sense either. (By the way, never do a “cost-per-dive” analysis unless you dive A LOT.) I was gonna “go big” right from the start…

Hello, readers! This is a last call to vote for the image that will be used on the 2009 Raja Ampat park tag, which will be attached to every visiting diver’s BCD. The voting deadline is on Thursday, September 25, 2008. It only takes a minute or two, so vote now!

On a serious note, we’ve noticed some strange voting activity. It appears that some people are creating new users solely for the purpose of voting in the tag contest. We’ve analyzed the logs—it’s pretty obvious, so I’ve changed the voting logic to try to account for some of this.  We are not saying that you shouldn’t encourage all of your friends to come vote. Just don’t try to game the system.

OK—vote away!

Our time in Yap has come to an end.  We would like to thank the entire staff of the Manta Ray Bay Hotel and Yap Divers for hosting us for the first two weeks of Manta Fest 2008.

We had several Wetpixel members arrive over the previous few days and have had some great dives with them so far.  Todd Mintz (aka Yasemtough) was welcomed in proper Yapese fashion with an up close and personal visit from Valerina, one of the friendliest mantas here.  As she moved slowly toward the cleaning station, she decided to check out Todd instead.  With a few graceful beats of her wings, she hovered inches away from Todd’s camera…

I’ve never known diving without cameras. My first dive trip was a bribe; go to Sulawesi with the cast and crew of The Digital Shootout and teach a few of the subtle nuances of Adobe Photoshop. Irresistible.

The trip was unfortunate in its timing; we left San Francisco on September 10th of 2001 and, by the time we landed in Singapore, the United States had become a very different country. It seemed callous to continue on with our vacation and not return home at once to brace ourselves for whatever was to happen next. But even if we wanted to come home, air travel (especially into and out of the U.S.) was halted. Our fate had been decided…

Tony Wu has written his sixth and final installment to his weekly chronicles of Tonga humpback whales encounters and other experiences in the kingdom, and has compiled a photo summary of all 16 humpback whale calves :

And finally, as we headed back to port after swimming with mom and calf on our last day on the water, we came upon eight resting whales in shallow water.

Being near one whale is inspiring enough, but being in the midst of eight humongous whales is absolutely amazing! We swam among the whales for 20 minutes or so as the competitive males circled the female and surfaced from time to time for air, until the female finally left the bottom and started to swim again, with all the males in hot pursuit...

Cameras Underwater is pleased to offer the chance to see extreme wildlife photographers Doug Allan and Sue Flood talk about their experiences, up close and personal with polar bears, as they present personal videos and images during the Canon and World Wildlife Fund-sponsored presentation “Freeze Frame...Living on Thin Ice.”

The lecture, to be held at the prestigious IMAX cinema near Waterloo Station on September 24, 2008, will ”provide an opportunity to view unique footage of life in the Arctic...[and hear] about the effects of climate change on the plight of the polar bear.” All proceeds from the event will go directly to the WWF - read on for all the details…

Ikonoskop, a Swedish maker of cinematic film cameras, has just announced its latest offering, the A-Cam dII. This 1.5kg compact camera uses Leica, PL, IMS and C Mount lenses, shooting 1080p at 1-60fps in RAW mode to a 80GB memory cartridge, also developed by Ikonoskop. The cartridge can record at 240MB/s and holds 12 minutes of images at 25fps.

With its compact size and weight, this camera signals the exciting possibilities for the future of underwater filmmaking - join the ongoing discussion in the forums for the latest news…