giftie

Agree 100%, why indeed? It is a waste of energy compared to going through or climbing the low wall. When they announced the winner's, my companion immediately said it was staged. I was a bit more reserved but I never saw wolves doing this when I was young and lived in the countryside [there were wolves then] and there were plenty of gates and sheep too. What I find amazing is that it was the Finnish nature magazine that raised the issue, all those professionals and wildlife photographers in the competition jury [who apparently spend most of their days shooting in the wild] had no problem in nominating the picture overall winner! Wildlife photo competitions should have an expert on species behaviour to ascertain that this and that behaviour are normal and not provoked or induced. But in the end it was they did the right thing, loss of credibility is far worse than some bad [but deserved] publicity.

Apparently I am not the only one that got a 2nd class brand new Nikon 70-200 VRII. It seems that these issues are not limited to users in a particular country. If you got one of these new lenses inspect the lens carefully checking for defects. It is not clear if these issues affect or will affect the optical performance of the lens. Pictures of what to look for are in my blog at: http://jorgesantosphoto.wordpress.com/

...you mean the footage is not yours!?

In case you have missed it. The European Parliament just approved an almost complete ban ban on the trade of seal products in the European Union Texts and amendments http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.js...amp;language=en Press Release http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/.../default_en.htm That obnoxious Canadian seal hunt is now a step closer to extinction. Good news are hard to come by these days but once in a while...

I echo what was written by others in this thread, leave the croc alone. He belongs where he is, we are just trespassing. Please do not try to sanitize and make everything risk free. Anyone who wants to dive the mangroves should be made aware that there is an added risk involved, for those who are willing to live with it fine, those who don't should skip those dives. I don't agree with making the area off-limits nor to remove the croc to make it safe. Thousands of people die or get mangled every year in car accidents and I do not seen anyone proposing to ban cars altogether, let's put things in perspective. I wish the unfortunate diver (and the croc too) a speedy recovery from the incident.

I asked Jean from Aquatica when I got it and he said yes, Rain X can be used on the Mega Dome. Don't know if this has changed due to further testing.

I was just being provocative and I also wouldn't buy their software, but their testing procedure is reasonably well documented so their results [unless one has well founded arguments] should be taken seriously, and this includes how they calculate the overall sensor mark. But Drew is right now I am feeling totally inadequate with my D2x, so it is time to upgrade to the D3x

Might be of interest to some, DXO Labs just made the extensive testing they done public at: http://www.dxomark.com/ For some, it just confirms what we already knew for others it might be a bit of a shock I'm afraid...

...from Greenpeace for the Blue Fin Tuna campaign. A masterpiece on its own right.

Pertamina prices of Marine Diesel Fuel have fallen from mid-June 2008 to now considerably, if I am not mistaken, by almost 27%. The following figures are the official prices (from Pertamina itself) in Indonesian Rupia/Kilo Litre for non-subsidised marine fuel excluding tax for distribution in regions 3 and 4 [where roughly, at least some of the boats out there will probably re-fuel, although the prices across distribution regions follow each other]. Date Region 3 Region 4 15/Jun/08 11118857 10665571 1/Jul/08 11462000 10984000 1/Aug/08 11228500 10761000 1/Sep/08 8823600 8421000 1/Oct/08 8125600 7736400 TO THE PEOPLE IN THE LIVEABORAD INDUSTRY OVER THERE: One must stick to the conditions in the contract one signed, if the price of fuel goes up you absorb the cost if it goes down you pocket the difference and this how it should be and it is how it is when one deals with real business men! The way it is now is: if the price of fuel goes up [or the subsidy goes down or whatever], the customer (who already incurred in considerable expense booking flights, paying the deposit for the trip) has to cover the cost from his/hers own pocket and is for all practical purposes held hostage either by the organiser (who might just be in the same position as his customers) or by the liveaboard company or both. But if the price of fuel goes down you pocket the difference! Such behaviour is UNACCEPTABLE and it reflects the complete lack of business ethics over there. YOU STICK TO THE PRICE THAT YOU NEGOTIATED AND AGREED UPON!! I made a note of this fuel surcharge rip-off mambo-jambo (since I am also a victim) and will restrict considerably my future travel plans to Indonesia until these companies start behaving in a professional, business like manner.

I think you might find exactly what you are looking for at http://www.ortlieb.com I have one of their bags, really good stuff, used it in the sardine run.

Wise decision, I went to the Apple store to buy 1 of the new 15" MBP and I turned away. The screen is mirror like [just like my iMac 24 Alu] and although at home you can exercise some control on the lighting the same is not usually the case for a laptop on a boat, airport, whatever. The folks at apple didn't learn anything from the iMac complains they got [the screen is utter rubbish, uneven brightness, color rendition and small color gamut], I just decided to pass the new MBP and since I can not anymore the previous model with the configuration I want I will pass on that too. I am considering buying another license of Leopard and patch it so that it can be installed on a laptop PC [be sure to check the hardware configuration of your laptop in detail!]

A couple more South African Airways now considers diving equipment included in the free luggage allowance; if exceeding, normal excess baggage rate applies. Although mentioned still mentioned in sporting equipment it can no longer benefit from a reduced fee. Not diver friendly for sure. Lufthansa airlines also changed their sporting equipment fees, excluding the free baggage allowance, diving equipment in a separate sporting bag weighting 15-32Kg will cost you $200USD or 150Eur on any Intercontinental route. Not very friendly for non-germans, apparently there is differentiated treatment if you are a local or non local [this service mindset also applies to South African [at least until recently]. Finnair [flies from Glasgow and Birmingham) has no specific allowance for diving equipment (therefore normal excess rates apply) except if there is a tank in the luggage and in that case is considered special luggage and subject to 1.5% of highest economy published rate. Putting a empty tank in the luggage [a very small one for e.g.] might be a wise thing to do depending on the published rates! Also, if it is considered a leisure flight [in their webpage] a flat fee is charged. If you are a Finn the chances of being hassled are much less and to be fair Finnair seems more tolerant of excess luggage if you don't exceed 28kg for Economy [of course this is at the discretion of the check-in staff]. Not very friendly. All the above is valid for Weight Concept luggage. A very important thing is carry-on, in which British Airways [uK norms that do not apply to the rest of European airlines] again is more friendly like Alex mentioned previously. As far as I am aware British Airways is by far the most friendly airline towards divers and/or photographers. I am now systematically checking routings with BA for any long haul flights even if I can not get there all the way with BA [at least it will be less expensive]. I also believe that we should try to do something about this, the Wetpixel community is a reasonable one in size and we should have some leverage. We could award [even if it a symbolic award] to diver friendly airlines, list Wetpixel recommended airlines, get some extra allowances for Wetpixel members or Team Wetpixel for e.g. I mean cycling associations much smaller than wetpixel community are able to get special deals with some airlines why don't we?

I guess we both don't qualify as really right stuff anymore with the female community but rather as really ripe stuff...

Sealux http://www.sealux.de/ has one too with a window for slave triggering, flat port. Well machined but lousy aftersales service though.