Amphibico has posted detailed information about their Dive Buddy Evo HD and Evo Pro HD housings onto their website, which report that the housings will be available this month (they’re accepting pre-orders).  However, reports from our forums say that the housings have been seen out in the field since mid-November.  On the Evo HD, access to manual white-balance for the HVR-A1 is a $200 option (make sure you get it!).

After a 3-week hiatus for reformatting, the Sea Slug Forum is open for business as usual, according to a post by site creator Dr. Bill Rudman.  Most of the changes won’t be obvious to visitors, but two new features are available: 

1. the ability to display all relevant messages for a species on one page.  I particularly like this one as it eliminates the need to keep clicking back & forth through 20 or more messages at a time.

2. taxonomic searches from Order to Subfamily level - very handy for people who know the group but can’t remember the right genus or species. 

The Sea Slug Forum is the very best opisthobranch site on the web.  It combines images with information on taxonomy, id, distribution, and life history for thousands of species.  UW photographers are a major source of new images & information that enriches everyone’s knowledge of these gorgeous creatures.

DivePhotoGuide.com’s Jason Heller was on Scuba Radio a couple of days ago, where he plugs our joint photo contest!  Listen to the segment online at Scuba Radio’s website. 

Scuba Radio is a radio talk show with a diving heme.

Shark finning articles are becoming more mainstream. The NY Times has an article about shark fishing in Manta, Ecuador, a location I have been to and documented as well.  It’s a well-written article, but I find it strange that it focuses on a place where the entire shark is actually used.  In a large market area on the beach itself, virtually every piece of the sharks pulled up are sold to locals as inexpensive meat.  Where are the mainstream articles that document shark-finning proper, where the live carcasses are discarded?

By the way, I think it’s funny that the article talked about Jackie Chan.  While I was down there, a bunch of kids kept running up to me and chanting, “Jackie Chan! Jackie Chan!” I wanted to show them a bit of my own Jackie Chan, but their blood-smeared, knife-toting fathers were just around the corner.

During the past few years, a number of exotic marine fishes have been seen and photographed by divers off the Florida coast. The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is one of the most abundant, and now appears to be established and reproducing off the Florida coast. Since the lionfish is a top predator, it may negatively influence the structure of fish communities in Florida reefs.

Wetpixel readers have discussed in detail an issue where, when shooting with two strobes, Nikon D2x files are not written to the camera. The solution consists of removing all hotshoe pins, except for the trigger pin. Please read the full article for a detailed explanation with figures.

We’re just one month away from the deadline for Wetpixel.com and DivePhotoGuide.com’s 2006 International Photo Competition!  There are dozens of amazing prizes lined up, including:

- trips to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Socorros, Galapagos, Bora Bora, Solomon Islands, Palau, and the Bahamas

- dive and photo and dive gear from Aquatica, Fantasea, Ikelite, Epoque, Nocturnal Lights, MCD, Ultralight, Backscatter, and Underwater Photo-Tech

- dive-related media from ScubaCore, Wyland, Takako Uno and Stephen Wong, Scott Tuason, Fathoms Magazine, Ocean Realm Journal, Dive Chronicles, and TheUnderwaterPhotographer.com

Winners will be announced on stage at the 2006 Our World-Underwater festival in Chicago, Illinois (February 24-26, 2006).  February 3rd is a hard deadline, so get your entries submitted!

UwP Magazine issue 28 is now available for download.  It includes an article by our very own Dr. Alex Mustard, coverage of Sea Shepherd’s anti-whaling campaign in Antarctica, numerous equipment reviews, and more.  UwP is absolutely free, and is worth every minute of its download time.

Happy New Year, photographers!  I can’t thank everyone enough for being part of such a fantastic, global community.  Here’s to yet another year of learning through comraderie!