VODAN 2006 is soliciting entries for its 9th International Underwater Photo & Video Contest in Nova Gorica, Slovenia.  Categories include ambience, fish, and macro in both tropical and cold water, as well as fresh water, images from digital compact cameras, and underwater video.  The grand prize is a Seacam underwater housing or flash.

Entries must be received by September 7, 2006 in order to be eligible for the competition.  The pdf entry form can be downloaded here.

On May 6, 2006, Eric Cheng gave two talks at Dolphin Scuba in Sacramento, California.  Mike Johnson, the owner of Dolphin Scuba, was a wonderful host, and his store was all but mobbed with people there for the talks, discounts, free discover scuba classes, and raffle prizes.  Eric (that’s me, and I’m finding talking about myself in the third person to be awkward) gave a talk on Digital Photography Techniques and one on Photoshop for underwater photography.  Wetpixel’s own James Wiseman gave talks at the event in Plano, Texas.  Photos follow…

Many reviewers talk of the D200 as the much-desired and wished for “digital F100”, and in many areas the D200 exceeds that venerable body’s capabilities. So it is no surprise that the D200 is probably the hottest thing going in the Nikon underwater dSLR world at the moment, and every major housing manufacturer has either announced, shipped or planning a housing for this body. As a one-time user of the F100 in a Sea & Sea housing, and with a collection of compatible ports to hand, I ordered the Sea & Sea DX-D200 housing as soon as it was announced. The purpose of this review is to go over some of the features and ergonomics of this housing, particularly from the perspective of someone who has used the older F100 housing by the same manufacturer…

The festival of underwater images MEDES IMATGE I MEDI AMBIENT (Medes image and environnment) will take place in L’Estartit, Spain, from the 6th to the 10th of June 2006.  Meded Imatge I Medi Ambient continues its international trajectory as one of most important festivals of underwater images in Spain, and has acquired a well-known name in Europe.  Continue reading for schedule and contact information.

Light & Motion has announced the Bluefin HC3 underwater housing for the Sony High Definition HDR-HC3, the smallest HDV camera on the market.  The HC3 supports one-touch white balance and features L&M’s trademark self-locking latches and electronic grips.  The housing can be purchased as a solo housing or as part of a complete Travel Package including dual lights, batteries, O-ring kit and custom case.

Amphibico has announced new and upcoming Phenom housing accessories, including a new Phenom Basic housing (with a domed, flat-port lens), a 4.5” High Definition 16x9 monitor, a manual white balance bracket, and a new lens system that solves the wide-angle vignetting problem that plagued the original Phenom port.  Amphibico will “upgrade” your old lens for $200 + shipping, resulting in a lens that gives you a full 94° of coverage without vignetting, but requiring the sacrifice of the housing’s 2nd flip filter.

Congratulations to James Wood, Wetpixel’s scientific photography expert.  James’ website, The Cephalopod Page, is featured in the Netwatch section of the most recent issue of the journal Science. The website is dedicated to octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautilus, and features many digital and film images of these amazing animals.  It’s definitely worth a visit!

Wetpixel was offline for much of today due to an issue at our server’s hosting service.  Our most sincere apologies if we disrupted your daily browsing habits!

A gold mine is being opened in Rinondoran Bay by a British-based company just north of Lembeh Strait. The mine plans to dump it’s cyanide waste - estimated to amount to 6-8 MILLION tons over 5 years - out to sea. The company says the waste will be dumped at 150 meters below the surface & settle in 800-1200 meters. I’d like to think that there’s some good oceanographic selection behind the selection of the disposal site & that dumping operations will be carried out with the utmost care but I’m doubtful about the future of the region. Another example of multinational money overriding local concerns & viability… Continue reading for the full article and a contact to write to in protest.

Adobe has released a new version of its Camera Raw plug-in and an update to Adobe Photoshop CS2.  Camera Raw 3.4 now supports the Canon EOS 30D, Leaf Aptus 65, Leaf Aptus 75, Olympus EVOLT 330, Olympus SP-320, Pentax *ist DL2, and Samsung GX-1S.  The Adobe Photoshop CS2 (9.0.1) update fixes a few problems discovered after CS2 was released.