Inon “Clear Photo System” received U.S. Patent No. 6,704,500 on March 9, 2004.

“Clear Photo System” is a method of transmitting a flash signal from a digital camera’s internal strobe to an external strobe via a fiber optic cable. By attaching a piece of “Clear Photo Film” to the digital camera’s internal flash, the visible light portion of the strobe’s flash is cut, so only the non-visible light wavelengths, passing though the fiber optic, are used to trigger the external strobe’s flash. The benefits are elimination of backscatter and image ghosting from camera’s internal strobe flash.

Also, “Clear Photo Film” is now available separately, so users of other strobe systems can take advantage of Clear Photo System benefits. Previously, the film was only bundled with Inon fiber optic kits.

A recent discussion of ambient light underwater photography in the Wetpixel forum pages presented a wealth of information on the use of filters to correct color balance problems in photographs taken underwater without strobes. This article presents a technique for correcting this common problem.

This month, we have a guest column by Wetpixel Co-Administrator Craig Jones who shoots the Nikon D100 in a Nexus housing. Craig comes from a computer science background – so who better to talk to us about using all of the features in the Adobe Photoshop RAW converter called Adobe Camera Raw (v2.2). This is an “advanced” article with a limited audience, but is becoming more and more applicable as digital photographers start to use the wonderful features of the RAW format.