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

Filmmaker Howard Hall has shared his experiences filming great white sharks, sea lions, leafy sea dragons and cuttlefish in South Australia in an interview carried out by One World One Ocean and posted on their YouTube channel. The interview also features footage from his trip.

Howard has been featured by the organization as one of their "Ocean Heroes" as he:

"...has been capturing amazing underwater images since the 1970's, inspiring millions with his work."

Inon has announced the release of the LE-700-S LED torch which is being marketed as a "serious lighting device for underwater imaging with its wide variety of filters as well as powerful dive light". It is powered by 3 x AA batteries which give it a burn time of 110 minutes. It is supplied with a set of filters and is constructed of aluminum with a rotary switch that cannot be completely unscrewed. There is also a variety of mounting options available for the light.

The LE-700-S is available now and local retail prices are still to be confirmed.

Berkley White has posted some thoughts and demo video from early video testing of the Canon 5D Mark III in the cenotes of the Yucatan, Mexico. He was using a "hacked" housing which gave him limited access to controls, but found that the high ISO performance was far superior to that of the 5D Mark II in terms of noise. He debates the pros and cons of the new ALL-I video codec and finds that the 6fps frame rate and improved autofocus on the new camera rectify significant weaknesses in its predecessor. He concludes:

"And while it may be hard to distinguish between the 5D II clips and 5D III clips in the video above, you’ll be able to get the shot with the Mark III in conditions where you just simply couldn’t pull it off with the 5D Mark II."

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.