The St Abbs and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve (VMR), Northumberland, UK is holding its annual underwater photography competition on 27 and 28 August. Entrants must register in advance by completing the entry form available on the VMR’s website and returning it no later than 1st August. Alternatively registration will be available on the morning of 27 August at The Old School, St Abbs. In either case, there will be only 45 entries allowed.

The competition categories will be: Marine life portrait; reserve atmospheric and the John Goldie most humorous shot. Full details, competition rules and the advance registration form are available as a pdf download.

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Wetpixel moderator Shawn Heinrichs has posted a report with stunning images of the recent JASA/Blue Sphere Media Mexico whale sharks trip in the forum. Of the action, Shawn says:

“this year was a home run with incredible in-water and topside activity and on peak days, several hundred whale sharks gathered in the space of 1 square km. When we first discovered the aggregation, we could never have guessed how it would transform the tiny island of Isla Mujeres into the world’s whale shark mecca. Nowhere else can you swim with such huge numbers of whale sharks, in blue water with such a great degree of certainty.”

Wetpixel has limited spaces available for its whale shark expedition to the same area in August. Please email me for further details.

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Aquatica has announced the release of the HD Wave housing for Sony HDR CX560/700 HD camcorders. It is constructed of a solid block of aluminum, and provides for all-mechanical control access to most key controls including manual white balance. In addition, the housing allows the user to access additional controls via the Sony remote commander, and has a 30° angled 3” LCD viewfinder.

The HD Wave has a suggested retail price of US$ 2,595.00.

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Canon has released a firmware update for the EOS 60D SLR. Firmware version 1.1.0 fixes two bugs: One in which flash settings are reset to default when the battery is removed and the other repairs the tendency for image rotation information not to be recognized at certain shutter release timing.

The update is available from Canon’s 60D support page.

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MSNBC.com reports that 30 fishermen were caught with 357 dead sharks aboard their rundown vessel inside Galapagos National Park last Monday night. A patrol by park rangers and an Ecuador navy ship detained the vessel as it fished 20 miles inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve, the park said in a statement. Shark fishing, as well as any commercial-scale fishing, is illegal inside the park and its associated marine reserve, and the fishermen will now face criminal charges.

Illegal shark finning in the Galapagos became prevalent during the late 1990s after the local sea cucumber fishery collapsed.

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