New Wetpixel Feature: Wetpixel member Dave Patchen shows us how he mounted a fiber optic cable to route light from the Olympus C-5050's focus LED to the INON Z-220 strobe's optical sensor to activate the focus light and laser.

The Digideep POTW is back o­n our home page. We think the bug has been fixed, but let us know if there are any problems with image loading using Internet Explorer. [UPDATE, April 1 -- Something on the home page is still causing problems. Removed again.]

Also, we could really use your votes in last week's Wetpixel POTW.  We've changed the way voting works, so all you have to do is pick your three favorite photos instead of ranking every o­ne. :)

Dave Patchen shows us how he mounted a fiber optic cable to route light from the Olympus C-5050's focus LED to the INON Z-220 strobe's optical sensor to activate the focus light and laser.

Wetpixel user Marriard writes the following:

Re: The Sea Slug Forum: I am a huge user and supporter of this highly informative and useful site. Although it will remain 'up' it will basically stop adding content from this point onwards. Below is the official message on the board and also an address to write to if you wish to express your disappointment that it is going away. I am in the process of drafting mine and if you have utilized this source I know it would be hugely appreciated by Dr Rudman if you would also (politely) indicate your disappointment to the below address as well. Maybe we can get this decision turned around over the next few months.

Wetpixel has today reached 2000 registered forum members! We reached our 1000-member mark less than one year ago, on May 7, 2003. As of today, our forums contain more than 31,500 information-packed messages. I'd like to thank all our readers out there for the wonderful support we've received over the years.

Our 2000th member is ReeferBen, who will receive from our sponsors an Ikelite PCm Lite and a $30 credit for lightjet prints and other photographic services at Pictopia.com.

I've posted a report from this weekend's Beneath the Sea 2004 expo in Secaucus, New Jersey.

Hello, readers. We have changed the rules to the Picture of the Week contest a little bit, based on a suggestion by Wetpixel moderator Herb Ko.

Individual POTW contests will now either be in "entry" mode (albums marked with "ACCEPTING ENTRIES") or "voting" mode (albums marked with "VOTING"). You may submit competition photos only during entry mode, which will last for one week. After entry mode, the album will switch to voting mode; entries will no longer be accepted, but public voting will commence on the submitted images.

The voting style has also been changed to make your lives as voters easier. You now just vote for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place photos, instead ranking each and every photo.

At any given time, there will be two active POTW contests: 1) the previous week's contest (in voting mode), and 2) the current week's contest (in entry mode).

By pipelining the POTW contest, we hope to get more public votes for winner selection! So head on over and vote for last week's competition, which focuses on a conservation theme.

The Beneath the Sea Exposition at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ, is the largest consumer scuba & dive travel show in America. The ambiance of the show is very different than it is at DEMA, which is geared for the dive industry itself and not for typical consumers. It was crowded on Saturday: there were literally hundreds of exhibitors at BTS, and I spent about six hours squeezing between browsing guests, visiting both friends and exhibits related to underwater digital photography.

Ikelite Underwater Systems has today posted photos of their clear housing for the Nikon D70. This camera, like the Canon Digital Rebel fits nicely in Ikelite's new smaller form factor housing. The website lists the MSRP as $1,200 US. For more photos of the housing, see the related link below.

We've fixed a bug for those guests out there who were unable to see the Official Photo Contest. You should be able to see both the Picture of the Week contest and the Offical Photo Contest now. Sorry for the inconvenience!