Sigma has announced that they are releasing an 18-35mm wide-angle zoom with a constant aperture of f1.8. The 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM Art lens is, the company claims, the first lens to offer such a large aperture throughout its zoom range. Suitable for DX cameras, the camera has a minimum focus distance of 11”, which may make it suitable for underwater use.
We would like to welcome Abi Smigel Mullens as an Associate Editor. She has been a moderator of our community for some time, and has worked closely with Eric, Alex and Adam over several shows. For those who haven’t met her yet, she is a San Francisco based photographer who specializes in underwater images of kids through her business, Sea Star Underwater Portraits as well as more conventional underwater imagery.
Doug Sloss of Underwater Lightroom has written an exclusive Lightroom tutorial for the Wetpixel community. He points out that most photographers do not use the local correction functions available in the software. The tutorial aims to remedy this, or in Doug’s words, persuade us to “go local!”
Earlier today, TechCrunch signposted that a beta release of Adobe Lightroom 5 (LR5) is imminent. In an article that has subsequently been taken down, TechCrunch listed the new software as having an improved spot removal tool, a spot highlighting tool, a selective enhancement engine and a new tool called upright that corrects both distortion and horizontal skewing. Lastly, LR 5 beta adds the ability to work on images in a preview mode. Update: Lightroom 5 beta is now available as a free download on Adobe Labs.
It has been confirmed that Wetpixel members David Barrio and Luisa Quin have won the CMAS World Championship of Underwater Photography. The event was held at Cayo Largo, Cuba from 9 to 14 April, but due to issues with the internet in Cuba, we are still awaiting full details and results. In the meantime though, hearty congratulations to all the prize winners and especially to David and Luisa.
Wetpixel member Chris Parsons of Nauticam USA has posted some macro footage shot at Blue Heron Bridge, Florida with a Canon 1D-C on the Wetpixel forum. He feels that if footage captured with the camera “is exposed and color balanced correctly while shooting, the video is beautiful.”
Photographers from the same country will be invited to team-up during the 2013 HP Red Sea shoot-out and to put together a portfolio for submission into a National Team category. The judging phase and awards ceremony will take place during the fortieth Festival Mondial de l’image Sous Marine from October 31 to November 3, 2013, in Marseille, France. The category’s judging panel will cast their votes live on stage during the Festival, in a “Eurovision” type event.
Rob Stewart, producer and filmmaker of Sharkwater, has released his follow-up film Revolution to Canadian theaters. The film continues Rob’s journey, “one that will take him through 15 countries over four years, and where he’ll discover that it’s not only sharks that are in grave danger – it’s humanity itself.”
The Los Angeles Underwater Photography Society’s 17 April meeting will include a presentation by our own Wetpixel moderator and FinFoundationImages.com curator Steve Williams. Steve will be describing five ways to think differently about improving our imagery based on the model that was developed on one of our threads here titled “Good to Amazing” and illustrated by his photographs and the images of the contributing Fin Foundation photographers.
The 2013 San Diego Undersea Film Exhibition is calling for submissions. The event will be held on 11 and 12 October in the Qualcomm Hall, San Diego. Films that have been selected will be projected in a High Definition format in a state of the art venue onto a 30 ft. screen. There are no prizes and an independent panel of distinguished judges will select the approximately 30 films to be shown during the two night event.