DEMA 2009, Days 3-4: Page 1 of 5 (page controls at bottom of this post)

The 2009 Wetpixel / DivePhotoGuide cocktail party @ DEMA
(photo: Adam Lau)

DEMA coverage posts:

• Day 1: Introduction
• Day 2: Booth coverage insanity!
• Days 3-4: More booth coverage, plus party photos <-- you are here

Booths and other topics covered in days 3-4 of Wetpixel's DEMA 2009 online coverage:

• Focus / video light shine-off
• 10bar Housing #1078
• Bonica #749
• Equinox #771
• New World Publications #1557
• Nocturnal Lights #1569
• Wetpixel / DivePhotoGuide cocktail party
• PiratePro
• Underwater Kinetics #1911
• UnderwaterVideography.com #885
• Sea & Sea #1519
• BS Kinetics #1861
• Ultima Digital #1078
• SeaLife #761
• SeaBotix #2004
• HydroAcoustics Inc #2112
• Intova SnapSights #1569
• Tektite Tekna Moray Sartek #2433
• Trident #1463
• Ultramax #1728
• i-Divesite #1085
• MemoryKick
• Marketing notes from Michaela Brockstedt

We didn't have time to post any DEMA Show coverage yesterday because we threw a party at the Rosen Centre that drew probably 300 guests. But we're making up for it today with our final coverage, which includes photos and commentary from 20 more booths. It is (unfortunately) impossible for us to cover every single manufacturer and retailer that sells a photo- or video-related product; these days, every dive light doubles as a "video light" and there are probably a hundred booths offering products that might be of interest to the casual shooter. We have tried our best to do a thorough report on what was being shown.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about our coverage (or anything else on Wetpixel), please head on over to our forums, or contact us privately.

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Focus / video light shine-off

Compact focus / video light visual comparison:

• prototype Light & Motion Compact Imaging Light (real product name TBD)
• Hartenberger Nano
• Fisheye FIX1000LED
• Fisheye FIX500LED

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10 Bar #1078

LC Ng was at the 10 Bar booth, which was absolutely crammed with housings and accessories. 10 Bar has housings for the Panasonic LX3, GF1 and S3, which I was particularly interested in because I own both the LX3 and GF1. The LX3 is a fantastic compact camera because it has a 24-60mm/f2.0 lens (35mm equiv), and 24mm is MUCH wider than is the 28mm or 35mm standard on most compact cameras. All of the housings have wired bulkheads, optical sync support, and changeable "lens ports," which are ports with optical elements within them (think of a wide-angle adapter that is actually a port). Furthermore, a large dome can be screwed onto the front of the wide-angle lens port.

There is also a housing for the Fuji 3D W1 camera, which shoots 3D out of its two lenses (both stills and video).

10 Bar also distributes Nauticam housings under the 10 Bar brand.

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Bonica #749

The '3rd generation' Bonica 1080p HD video camera features a hybrid soft / hard housing (Silicone skin inner housing and hard outer housing). It allows for locked autofocus, is waterproof to 12ft w/ just the Silicone Skin, and is waterproof to diving depths with the hard housing. The rear buttons push on an infrared remote control, which in turn controls camera. We saw this in previous generations of the housing as well, and it is ingenious.

They were also showing a 1500-lumen LED Light that runs on 8AA batteries. It features a 60 degree beam, 10-100% variable power, and 60 minute burn time at 100%.

Also on display was a housing for the JVC Everio 1080i HD camera. A wide angle conversion (0.54x) lens is available, as is an add-on dome port available for near-fisheye, which allows for over/unders.

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Equinox #771

Equinox, manned by Eric Giannunzio, is once again at DEMA with their video housings "by Soupcan", promoting sponsorship by Les Stroud of "Survivorman" and showing off a brand new, unreleased product. Their primary offering to the typical recreational or individual professional underwater videographer is the Pro6/HD6 housing, which features a 250 ft depth rating and 3 year warranty. But the teaser display item was an upcoming housing for the RED system, which was available to view in crystal clear RED HD, of course.

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New World Publications #1557

We went to visit New World Publications, the publishers of the fish identification books that so many of us use and love. Ned, Anna, Paul and Eric are super nice people and are involved with all sorts of conservation efforts through REEF and other organizations.

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Nocturnal Lights #1569

Tim Lau showed us the new SLX800i LED light, which is 800 lumens and runs for 2-8 hours on 6 AA batteries. There are 12°, 60° and 90° versions of the light available, and it is $450 retail with neoprene sleeve and ball joint or flex arm adapter. There is also a 12AA version (the SLX800xi) that burns for 4-16 hours.

Tim's computer science background shows; Nocturnal Lights was also demonstrating a dealer website with tools to allow for easy integration of Nocturnal Light products into online shopping cart systems. Contact Tim for details.

DEMA 2009, Days 3-4: Page 2 of 4 (page controls at bottom of this post)

Wetpixel / DivePhotoGuide cocktail party

The 2009 Wetpixel / DivePhotoGuide cocktail party @ DEMA
(photo: Adam Lau)

The Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide cocktail night has become a DEMA tradition, drawing a good percentage of the underwater photography and videography crowd (including travel companies who cater mostly to underwater photographers). Every year in the past, Jason Heller and I have vastly underestimated the number of people who come to the party, but this year, we found the perfect venue: the 2nd-floor Terrace at the Rosen Centre. We put a bar up there and some candle-lit tables, and within 30 minutes or so, the terrace was crammed full of hundreds of people. A veritable Who's Who of underwater image makers, film makers, publishers, artists, travel operators and others were in attendance, and I really enjoyed wandering around the crowd, seeing people relax after a hard couple of days on the DEMA show floor.

A HUGE thank you to our sponsors! The Wetpixel / DPG cocktail night would not be possible without their generous support. Please click through and check out their websites -- and keep them successful so we can have another party next year. :)

Sponsors: Worldwide Dive and Sail, Diving Resort & Travel Expo 2010 in Hong Kong, July 16-18, 2010, Aquatica, DiverWire, Reef Photo & Video, Nauticam, Solmar V, BS Kinetics

The photo gallery contains images of people on the show floor, but is mostly about the party.

Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide!

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PiratePro

About half a year ago, DivePhotoGuide put out an industry design challenge. The goal? To make a digital camera system compatible with existing Nikonos lenses.

David Lewinnek and Shana Lyons of PiratePro have come up with such a system, which features a housed Olympus E-P1 micro four thirds digital camera with FL14 flash attached. The PiratePro housing uses a series of adapters for various Nikonos lenses (extension tubes and reduction tubes), and allows access to all camera controls. The prototype was somewhat boxy, but PiratePro plans to do another round of ergonomics design before settling on something final. Most importantly, the optics have been tested, and the system works.

One major issue with using a micro four thirds camera is that micro four thirds has a 2x crop factor. This means that the venerable Nikonos 15mm lens will have the same field of view as a 30mm lens, which is not very wide in underwater use.The widest Nikonos lens is 12mm, which would be like a 24mm. However, it is very exciting that one small team has decided to try to tackle this problem. When a full-frame rangefinder appears that isn't $8,000 (the Leica M9), perhaps there will finally be a tiny system that is capable of high-quality, wide-angle, digital imaging using Nikonos lenses.

Target release date is end of December 2009 / beginning of January 2010. We look forward to seeing sample images from the unit.

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Underwater Kinetics #1911

Fred Fischer was at the booth of Underwater Kinetics, a maker of dive torches, flashlights, and plastic cases. This year they have a new accessory lens for their extremely small superQ eLED torch that provides a slightly broader, more even beam which might make it more suitable as an inexpensive focus light on smaller digital still rigs.

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UnderwaterVideography.com #885

Earlier this year, Joe Holley of Marine Visions launched underwatervideography.com, an underwater videography portal. As it develops, the website will hopefully become a fantastic resource for underwater videographers and filmmakers.

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Sea & Sea #1519

Our good friend Andy Sallmon took us on a tour of Sea & Sea products. Sea & Sea was showing compact cameras, SLR housings, and strobes. Released last year, the DX2G and 1200HD are the current compact camera models. The DX2G is apparently being compared favorably to the Canon G10, which is impressive.

The Sea & Sea SLR housings now exist solidly in two product lines. The RDX series is made of polycarbonate and sells for $1200-1300. Two models support the Canon Rebel T1i (500D) and Rebel XSi (450D), and the Nikon D60, D40 and D40x. Optical bulkheads allow for DSTTL with Sea & Sea's strobes.

Sea & Sea was also showing a brand new strobe prototype, the YS-01. The YS-01 retails at $430 and has done away with wired sync, supporting fiber optic sync only. It is 1/3 stop less powerful than the YS-100a, is smaller, and (also) supports DSTTL for optical flash TTL. It should be released sometime in January. The YS-02 strobe is a manual-only, 8-power version of the strobe, and will be priced even lower. The YS-02 should be available in March.

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BS Kinetics #1861

Bodo Sutterer was at the BS Kinetics booth showing their line of carbon fiber camera and flash housings.

A Sony SR30 video housing was on display ($890 MSRP), as well as a remote camera monitor at $970.

Other products included carbon fiber strobe arms, which are estimated to be 25-50% lighter than comparable aluminum arms, Heinrichs-based TTL flash converters (supporting Canon, Nikon and Olympus), and a flash housing for the Mets 58 AF-1 strobe (which is compatible with Sony, Canon, Pentax and Olympus TTL).

Future products include a Canon 7D and Sony 850 housing (in carbon fiber!)

DEMA 2009, Days 3-4: Page 3 of 4 (page controls at bottom of this post)

Ultima Digital #1078

Peter Lorber showed off the booth, which featured huge prints from a housed Hasselblad H3D II camera and camera back. The Hasselblad camera housing cast from aluminum and CNC machined, featuring a 200 ft depth rating. It is 6.4Kg topside without the camera, and is slightly positive underwater. Ultima has a single 9.25" optical glass dome, which accomodates 35/50/80mm wide lenses, and also has diopter/correction lenses to match underwater lens FOV to topside FOV. A strange aluminum port cover blocks the parts of the dome port that are not useful to a given lens. This is an interesting way to fight flare, but it does require that a port cover actually touch the dome, which some folks may not be comfortable with (within the dozens that might be interested in a Hasselblad housing to begin with).

The housing features access to everything on the camera except for program mode, and is priced at $12,800 for the housing alone.

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SeaLife #761

As always, the SeaLife booth was constructed for a large amount of DEMA attendee traffic. Director of Sales Joseph Ifi was showcasing the DC1000, the current top-of-the-line SeaLife camera and associated strobes and accessories.

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SeaBotix #2004

Jeff Conger had one of the more interesting jobs at DEMA this year: letting people play with and drive the SeaBotix mini-rover "LBV" or Little Benthic Vehicle tethered ROV. The rover was deployed in the DEMA scuba demo pool, while participants were trying out gear. A nearby booth displayed information on configuring additional control and sensor packages for the LBV family including video, scanning and multibeam sonar, and various grabber and claw attachments. No word yet on whether the guest operators got carried away with the claws on any of the divers...

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HydroAcoustics Inc #2112

Tim Bibens of HydroAcoustics was on hand to discuss their Proteus 500 ROV. While above the range of the 'casual' videographer, the Proteus is a battery-powered, small-tether mobile ROV that can be controlled by a single operator. It is fitted with one camera in a tilt mount and can be fitted with up to three additional fixed cameras, for up to four lights total, and achieves nearly 1.6 kts out of its 13 lb thrust propellers, all in a package weight less than 70 lbs above water.

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Intova SnapSights #1569

For the casual underwater crowd, Intova has a new "Snapsights" underwater camera, where the camera electronics is directly mounted in a polycarbonate shell, ensuring a slim design. This housing package ships with batteries and memory pre-installed (but can be upgraded with larger memory cards) and are currently available in a 1.5 MP version without flash and a newer 3 MP version with flash. Intova's products can generally be found for sale in the resort and vacation market.

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Tektite Tekna Moray Sartek #2433

The Tektite booth was crowded with lighting products, from Tektite's own line to a new "Powered by Tektite" selection built to specification for Trevor Theriault of Moray Dive Gear. The Powered- lights incorporate a rattle into a flash for the Diver's Communication Torch or DCT. Sharing booth space with them was Carl Saieva of Sartek Industries, which (with the help of some machining from Tektite) constructs a range of powerful LED video lights and fittings that can be used on housing mounts or with cannister batteries.

DEMA 2009, Days 3-4: Page 4 of 4 (page controls at bottom of this post)

Trident #1463

The Trident booth was a stampede, not solely due to the aroma of chocolate chip cookies wafting from the oven manned by Mike Dreyfus and company. The usual array of diving accessories was on display, from spearguns to slates, tethers, retractors, and hose wraps. A new product is the silicone "rescue tape," using a bichemical compound coating on front and back to bond to itself and make a waterproof seal in just a few seconds (yet not bonding directly to whatever it's wrapped around). Worth keeping in the photo bag for a quick fix on a worn sync cord.

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Ultramax #1728

Ultramax was showing their line of inexpensive housed video cameras, which start at $549 (housing and compact camcorder). They also have video lights and strobes, and various packages that include base trays and arms.

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i-Divesite #1085

The i-Divesite booth, staffed by Kelvin Lee, featured many accessories, including strobe arms and ball clamps, macro and dome port lenses, and a range of compact lights suitable for focus or modeling work called the iTorch line. Various configurations of i-Torch are available, including standard-thread Y-clamp models using six AAA batteries for up to 10 hours of total burn time. Their UAL series of wet-mount dome lenses come with mounts for the more 'oval' apertures on many OEM housings such as Canon and Sony, and is also available with a 67mm thread mount. The front dome elements are plastic, with a back optical glass seal.

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MemoryKick

Anthony Link of MemoryKick gave us a demo of their MemoryKick Si, a portable photo backup, photo and viewer, MP3 player, card reader, and data backup solution. There are a million stand-alone card backup solutions on the market, but the MemoryKick is special because it can copy media at a blazing 40 MB/s (if the card supports it). It can also not only copy data from flash cards and USB sticks to the embedded hard disk, but it also copies from card to card.

Because MemoryKick is a small company, they seem to be able to react to the release of new cameras more quickly than can larger companies. Support for new RAW formats are quickly added via firmware update. Backscatter, Reef Photo & Video, and other retailers carry the MemoryKick.

MemoryKick unit with a variety of media attached

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Marketing notes from Michaela Brockstedt

If you had to describe the atmosphere at DEMA 2009, in a nutshell, the overall opinion was consistent: "Quality vs. Quantity" summed it up nicely. Both exhibitors and visitors alike commented on how the traffic was not as heavy, but the time spent at the show this year was definitely productive. Whether DEMA did a better job of qualifying the audience and weeding out the tire-kickers, or if those who made the effort to attend the show were more serious about their business, everyone we spoke with agreed that it was another great show in spite of the economic climate. The tourism boards of several countries also did a great job of staging events that sent lively music throughout the hall, keeping far-away destinations front of mind and spirits high.

As we walked the floor, it was apparent that some exhibitors were being a bit more judicious about how much merchandise they brought along, presenting carefully-edited assortments. We noticed fewer displays this year that were cluttered with product models in every size than in years past, and far more catalogs and marketing materials changing hands.

Exhibitors and vendors seemed to be engrossed in discussion from start to finish each day, and creatively-crafted deals were in abundance. There was also quite a bit of buzz around the topics of acquisition and retention in the dive industry as a whole. Discussion centered on whether or not it might be time for a paradigm shift in how we collectively think about the life cycle of our customers? Is there a way to bring more structure to the calendar year that might in turn offer greater opportunity to keep consumers engaged year round?

In addition, more than once we heard folks talking about families with kids and how we could collectively do a better job of attracting them to the sport and keeping them engaged. Diving drop-off rates left room for ongoing discussion on how to guard against consumers disengaging from the sport altogether as well. A lot of good thinking was going on surrounding topics that we will continue to monitor. As the show gradually started to wind down and the close of another year was at hand, in the midst of the flurry of activity to pack up and head home, last-minute reunions were taking place left and right. It was evident that camaraderie was alive and well, one of the many reasons that seems to keep us all coming back for more! (Author: Michaela Brockstedt)

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That's it for this year's DEMA coverage! If you have any questions or comments, please head on over to our discussion forum!

• Discuss DEMA 2009
• Discuss the Wetpixel / DivePhotoGuide cocktail party

This is Eric Cheng here, and I have to send out a special thanks to our AMAZING team at the show, who sacrificed sleep and day jobs to make coverage and Wetpixel representation possible: Matt Segal, Adam Lau, Michaela Brockstedt, and Richard Remski (our Wetpixel newbie, who was so helpful it was ridiculous!). Note that Michaela was instrumental in coordinating such a wonderful cocktail night. She is awesome. Thank you, all!