After an Australian court issued an injunction to stop whaling in the country’s Antarctic whale sanctuary, two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) members boarded the Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 to deliver a letter of the news. Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane were tied to a mast for some time and then held on board, but were released back to the Australian government this morning.

Both sides have traded barbs in the media, with the Japanese government denying that the men were restrained and alleging that the group had thrown bottles of acid at the whaling vessel, and the SSCS stating that the men were assaulted and that the Japanese boats are illegally poaching the whales. There’s an active discussion in the forums on the methods used by both sides - do you think the situation was handled appropriately?

LaCie has announced the “Little Disk,” a small 30GB or 40GB USB 2.0 hard disk that measures 2.64x1.69x.67 in. / 67x43 x17 mm and weights 85g / 3oz.  The unit uses 1.3” drives and has a captive USB cable for convenience.

I like my FW800 portable drives, but I’m starting to think about downsizing because of the recently-announced rules from the FAA about transporting Lithium batteries. A pair of Little Disks might be the perfect way to keep your photos backed up during dive trips to faraway places.

Photographer and Wetpixel member Stephen Frink borrowed a copy of the new 14mm II from Canon Professional Services to examine both topside and underwater performance and compare against the other popular wide angle lenses: the 16-35 II and 15mm fisheye.

Frink finds that “the new Canon 14mm II is much, much better than the original 14mm lens...and offers better corner performance than the 16-35 II.” Continue reading for the full review, which looks at angle of view and corner sharpness, chromatic aberration and flare resistance, and depth-of-field considerations for the new high-ISO cameras, and is complete with sample images…

Hello, divers!  Here’s a list of the photography expeditions we have planned so far in 2008 and 2009.  We’ve got a busy year coming up…

Feb 02-10, 2008 Socorro and Revillagigedos Islands (SOLD OUT)
Mar 10-18, 2008 Bahamas sharks (SOLD OUT)
May 09-18 2008 Bahamas oceanic white-tips (SOLD OUT)
May 20-28 2008 Bahamas sharks and dolphins (SOLD OUT)
Jun 06-14 2008 Bonaire Digital Shootout
Jun/Jul 2008 South Africa ocean safari (tentative)
Jul 19-27 2008 Bahamas sharks and dolphins
Sep 03-17 2008 Manta Fest 2008, Yap, Micronesia
Mar/Apr 2009 Ultimate Indonesia

Hope you can join us on at least one of them!

Come photograph sharks and dolphins in the Bahamas with Wetpixel and award-winning photographer Alex Mustard aboard the M/V Shearwater!  We managed to secure this exiting charter only after someone else canceled (they are hard to get).  Expedition dates are July 19-27, 2008.

July is a fantastic time for both tiger sharks and dolphins (bottlenose and Atlantic spotted).  We’ll definitely see tiger sharks, lemon sharks, and reef sharks, and will have a good chance of encounters with dolphins.

Final reminder: the deadline for image and video submissions for the 3rd Annual Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide International Photo & Video Competition (Our World-Underwater 2008) is tomorrow at 11:59pm Pacific time.  We look forward to seeing your entries!

While you are getting your entries for OWU 2008 in, be sure to be thinking about what you would like to enter in DEEP Indonesia 2008, whose deadline is one month later, on February 15.

Jason Heller & Eric Cheng are working on a piece for the May issue of Sport Diver Magazine called “Going Wide.” The column will have a sidebar with tips on wide-angle underwater photography from the communities of both Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide.

Whether you shoot with a compact / point ‘n shoot camera or a top-of-the-line SLR, shooting wide underwater is both challenging and rewarding. “Going wide” requires specific equipment, approaches and techniques. Do you have any tips or tricks that you want to share with the readers of Sport Diver Magazine?

Congratulations to Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide members Tim Rock, Stuart Halewood, Peter Mooney, Laurent Kbaier, Lasse Iverson, Marco Caraceni, Tom Kline, and Chris Wildblood for having their images selected for publication in the “Your Best Shots” feature in this month’s Sport Diver Magazine!  To see all of the submissions from our members, check out the submission thread in the forums.  There is also a pdf available for download.

Also tradition is the running of a “FavoUrite shot” thread at the end of each calendar year. The shots from last year were fantastic, and you should definitely click over if you are a fan of underwater photography.

LetsGoDigital reviews the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 underwater housing for Panny’s T23 digital camera. 

Excerpt: All in all I am very pleased with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 and the DMW-MCTZ3 underwater housing. Biggest plus of this camera is the large zoom range of 28-280mm that makes the camera perfect for using underwater as well as on land. It only took seconds to take the camera out of the housing...

Attention photographers and videographers: the deadline for the Our World-Underwater photo and video contest is just around the corner! Get your images and videos in before January 15, 2008.  DEEP Indonesia’s deadline follows just one month later.  As a reminder, we’re giving away over $80,000 in combined prizes, including 30 dive expeditions and a bunch of underwater photography gear.

Winning images will be prominently featured in issue 3 of Wetpixel Quarterly and dozens of other print and online publications, including Sport Diver, Dive (UK), FiNS, Scuba Diver Australasia, X-Ray, UwP, and more.

Entry forms and detailed guidelines can be found at underwatercompetition.com.