Saturday, November 1st, 2008

DEMA 2008: Aditech Underwater

Aditech Underwater produces the Mangrove line of video housings for Sony, Canon, Panasonic, and JVC cameras. The overall shape of each housing is the same (as is the 200m depth rating), with slight variations in sizing and port placement based on the specific camera in use, and a range of dome ports to suit macro or wide-angle requirements.

Most Mangrove housings boast all electromagnetic controls (no penetration into the housing) and a 3.5” high-resolution TFT LCD monitor on the rear for convenient viewing…

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

DEMA 2008: Bonica Precision (with interview)

Michael Chan talks about the Bonica Snapper HD video housing and 60W video lights. The Bonica Snapper is interesting because it comes in a silicone case that is already waterproof up to 12’ (when outside of the underwater housing). The housing captures the camera’s remote control and uses it instead of the buttons on the back of the housing. By default, they bundle a second remote control in the package, in case you lose one.

Also on display was a new MT09 80° beam halogen video light, with 30W/40W/60W power settings and a Lithium Polymer battery that allows from 1-2.5hrs of burn time depending on the power setting…

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

DEMA 2008: TZKY Design Ltd (Ultima Digital)

Just to the left of the Wetpixel booth was a new entrant into the underwater camera housing market, TZKY Design Ltd (Ultima Digital), with an ambitious design to support the 22MP medium format Hasselblad H3D camera.

Based in Hungary, TZKY Design has produced an aluminum housing rated to 80m with access to all primary camera controls on the H3D, and shipping with a dome port for the 28mm and 80mm lenses, and an absolutely gigantic flat port for the 120mm macro…

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

DEMA 2008: 10Bar Underwater Housings

10Bar Underwater Housings had a variety of new housings for Nikon, Canon, Panasonic and Sony cameras and accessories. L C Ng directed me to an aluminum housing for none other than Canon’s flagship 1D/1Ds Mark III digital SLR.

The housing featured dual S6 bulkheads, and composite handles with a unique built-in fingertip shutter release (connected to the remote cable that plugs into the side of the camera) and ULCS strobe balls…

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

BBC announces winners of 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The winners of the 2008 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards have been posted on the Natural History Museum’s website. In the Underwater World category, Brian Skerry took first, runner-up, and specially commended. Other commended images were taken by Jordi Chias, Thomas Peschak, Laurent Piechegut, Amos Nachoum, Noam Kortler, and David Hall.

I’d also like to plug my good friend, Andy Biggs, who won the Wild Places category with his incredible image of the Skeleton Coast in Namibia.

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Wetpixel South Africa Ocean Safari 2009 (aka Sardine Run)

Wetpixel announces the South Africa Ocean Safari 2009 (aka the “Sardine Run”). There is no need to introduce the trip—just check out the incredible photos captured by our expedition in 2008! The Wetpixel Ocean Safari is based out of Port St Johns; this means that you may not necessarily get to experience dramatic African surf launches, but you will be able to get out onto the ocean when others cannot.

5 passengers max! Continue reading for full details.

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

DEMA 2008: People Pictures, Day 3/4

Most people I talked to at DEMA this year thought there would be a rush of people on Saturday because of the Saturday-only “immersion pass” that allows “up-and-coming” industry professionals to visit the show. But in fact, the show started to die down a bit on Friday, and by Saturday, it was virtually dead.

I actually enjoy slower days at conventions because it makes it easier to walk around and talk to everyone. But by the 3rd and 4th day of DEMA, most people on the floor looked like zombies; Matt Segal and I were running on almost no sleep because of our foolish attempts to cover the show live (and our attempts to recover from the party the other night ;).

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

DEMA 2008: Wetpixel

Special thanks to the Wetpixel and Wetpixel Quarterly team at DEMA, who included me, Matt Segal (administrator), Adam Lau (intern), Michaela Brockstedt (marketing), and Eli Woolery (editor and creative editor). This year, we represented our magazine, Wetpixel Quarterly, and ran around the show floor doing the online underwater photography and video coverage you see here.

Stay tuned for additional coverage from Matt—he’s still in school, and rushed back home after DEMA to take a midterm. He should resurface any day now. :)

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

DEMA 2008: New World Publications

I wandered over to New World Publications to have a chat with Anna and Ned Deloach, and to have my copies of Blue Water, White Death signed by Stan Waterman, who was stationed at the booth autographing his book, Sea Salt.

New World Publications puts out fish and reef critter ID books for the Caribbean, Eastern Pacific coast, Galapagos, tropical waters, and more.

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

DEMA 2008: ReefNet

ReefNet has a diverse product line-up, only a part of which caters to underwater photographers. They are well known for their dive data recorders, but were showing off a new flip macro diopter called the SubSee Magnifier. ReefNet also produces a Caribbean fish guide on interactive DVD.

The SubSee Magnifier is compact, and sits on an ABS plastic flip mechanism that can be custom manufactured in 48 hours for any port (on-demand production).

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