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

Hellman & Friedman, the U.S. private equity fund which bought the stock agency, Getty Images, four years ago is looking to either sell, or issue a public offering of the business, The Financial Times reports. Getty Images was founded in 1996 by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein to bring the fragmented stock photography business into the digital age. It is now the world's largest supplier of stock imagery but has been unpopular with content providers for some time, as it has been reducing costs, primarily by enforcing stricter contracts and paying less royalties.

Dpreview.com has just published a review of the Canon 5D Mark III. The comprehensive 30 page review contains many sample images and a specific review of the camera's performance in video mode. The reviewers find that it is weak in JPEG mode, and the video mode is not significantly improved over that of the 5D Mark II. They do find that it is "an extremely versatile photographic tool that is capable of great results in many shooting situations" but also feel that for those buying in to a top end system, the Nikon D800 may be a viable alternative.

GoPro's marketing for their new underwater housing features free diving sequences with Italian super model Roberta Mancino and pro surfer and free diver Mark Healy in the Bahamas. The filming was carried out at various dive sites on the island, including Tiger beach. Andy and Emma Casagrande were responsible for the footage which was all shot using GoPro HERO2 cameras in the new underwater housing.

Apple has released an update to its camera RAW compatibility. Version 3.13 adds support for RAW files from the following cameras: Canon EOS-1D X, Nikon D800E, Nikon D3200, Olympus OM-D E-M5, Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF5 and Sony Alpha SLT-A57.

The update is free and available via Software Update or the Apple support site for users with OS Mac OS X 10.6.8 and OS X Lion 10.7 or later.

Acquapazza has announced the release of its housing for the Sony NEX-5N EVIL camera. The APSO-NEX5N is available with either a bayonet or threaded port attachment systems. Acquapazza offer a total of 8 ports catering for almost all the Sony lenses available for the camera, including the A mount 16mm wide-angle (SAL-16F28), 50mm macro (SAL-50M28) and 100mm macro (SAL-100M28). These will only focus in manual mode. Acquapazza offers both mechanical and magnetic zoom/focus control, with the possibility of both being available, and the user can vary the LCD viewing angle via an external control.

The APSO-NEX5N is available now, with a retail price to be confirmed.

Chris Parsons has posted the first underwater video shot with Canon 5D Mk III on the forums. The footage was shot around the Windjammer wreck in Bonaire, which lies in 210' (65m) of water, just past the end of the reef on the northwest end of the island. Chris was using a Canon 8-15mm lens (at 14mm) with a 1.4 x teleconverter. Chris is uncertain of the exposure settings, but thinks it was mostly shot at 1/60 at around f/8 to f/13, ISO 800-1600. He also utilized the AF-On feature on the camera to pre-focus at around 2' ( 0.6m).

In addition, he has also posted some macro footage from Bonaire onto Vimeo. This was shot using an 100mm lens and Atlantis Mk I lights.

Nikon has released a firmware upgrade for the D700 SLR camera. This address an issue that "in some very rare cases, caused images to be extremely under-exposed has been resolved". It updates both elements of the camera's firmware, namely D700 A to ver 1.03 and B firmware to ver.1.02.

The update is available via the Nikon support site.

Wetpixel Editor Adam Hanlon reviews Brian Skerry's recent book, Ocean Soul. Brian has also granted Wetpixel an exclusive interview about the book and his life as one of the world's pre-eminent underwater photo journalists, conducted during one of his assignments "from the middle of the North Atlantic, where the weather is terrible and I have a few days to catch-up on work". Adam finds that:

"Skerry's story-telling in both images and words gives Ocean Soul an integrity that is lacking from "simple" picture books. The next time you are feeling jaded and are seeking inspiration for an imaging project, this will be a great resource to reach for." (Image ©Mauricio Handler.)

Anna DeLoach writes that a new wrasse species Cirrhilabrus humanni has been described in the new reference work by Drs. Gerry Allen and Mark Erdmann and including in their new reference book, Reef Fishes of the East Indies. The fish is named after the underwater photographer, Paul Humann. Anna describes how she and Ned DeLoach found the new species whilst diving on a dive site near Alor, Indonesia, in a post on her blog.

dpreview.com reports that the mandatory 30 minute recording time on digital cameras may be changed is the scope of the World Trade Organization's Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is expanded. Currently, the cut-off is used to avoid digital cameras being re-classified as video cameras which have a higher rate of duty. The changes may well be "a slow and highly politicized process", but it would seem that the proposal to discuss changing the ITA's frames of reference has been broadly welcomed. With many cameras, the recording time limits imposed are actually due to the FAT 32 file size limit of 4Gb or to control camera overheating issues, rather than to avoid customs classification.