February 2011
Would you believe it?
A funny story is being circulated on the web, taken from Amazon. It’s about a comment from an R.Sawyer who bought a Nikon F6: Camera will not work with CompactFlash or other digital media. You must buy a
cartridge of tape, which allows for just 24 shots. No LCD screen with image
playback. Very disappointed and returned. This is not all, because as many as 35 other visitors deemed the comment
useful. So, there are people who insist on using film, but there are also those
who never ever heard about its esistence! By the way, the Nikon F6 is the last professional top-of-the-line using film,
still on the Nikon catalog, at the price of $ 2810.
An interview with Sergio Sarta
Achieving a prize (at the Oasis Photo Contest 2010) in the company of
world-level photographers, who presented pictures of great beauty, taken in the
african plains or other remote areas of the world, gives me a great emotion and
a sense of fulfillment...
Underwater 3D with Fuji and Recsea
Recsea has produced the housing for the prosumer compact Fujifilm Fine Pix Real 3D W3. The camera is provided with two lenses and its 3.5” display makes it possible to view pictures and video in 3D without glasses.
Connected to a 3D TV set through an HDMI cable, it allows a wider stereoscopic
vision, with or without glasses, depending on the TV set used. The Recsea housing, built in acrylic and polycarbonate, weighs 430 gr and is waterproof up to 40
m.
A scratched dome port? NOVUS will fix it
Ikelite markets NOVUS Plastic Polish, a set of products to clean the acrylic ports, or to repair scratches. It comes
in single doses, or in bottles with a cloth for spreading it and for operating
on scratches: the three different bottles or doses contain products for
different uses. NOVUS 1 is for cleaning and dust protection. NOVUS 2 eliminates
small scratches on plastic materials, not to be used on coated plastic. NOVUS 3 removes deeper scratches on acrylic,
not to be used on polycarbonate or coated plastic.
Photography and knowledge: two galleries by Massimo Boyer
To me, photography is a way of documenting species and behaviors, in this sense
it is the more useful the more the animal is caught when doing something. I
like to use photography to show what the marine inhabitants are doing...
Eudishow - Divex 2011 Report
We visited the underwater activity exhibition in Bologna, Italy, and we were
pleased to realize how lively the u/w photography market is. In our long report
you will find all the new products presented, in particular in the mercurial area of housings for prosumer compacts. Click here to read our report..
New Isotecnic housing for the Canon PowerShot G12
The company from Castenuovo del Garda (Italy) presents the new housing for the Canon G12, the top of Canon conpacts, very appreciated for underwater usage. The housing,
built with the usual accuracy and precision in anodyzed anricorodal aluminum,
has an interchangeable port with a lock system, connection to external strobe, both optical and electrical,
all controls are available externally, and it can host also the Canon G11, with
some control limitation. It can operate at up to 100 m, and features an internal humidity indicator. All controls, the back door, and
the port, have a double o-ring for watertightness. Take a look at the new website, complete and appealing.
From Ikelite new housings for Nikon P7000 and Panasonic LX5
Ikelite has presented the new housings for two outstanding prosumer cameras: Nikon P7000 and Panasonic Lumix LX5, both in direct competition with Canon G12 and S95,and with the new Olympus
ZX-1, to name only the more recent ones. It is a market range of great interest
for underwater photo, on which manufaturers show an increasing commitment. Both housings allow access to all controls, are built with usual robustness and
precision, and ensure connection to external strobes, whereas the on-camera
strobe is occluded by the port. Approximate price is USD 650 and 550, respectively. They can mount macro and wide add-ons with M67 connection, with
an adapter for the Nikon.
New Hugyfot housing for Nikon D7000 and Hugy CUP 2011
Hugyfot has presented at Boot in Düsseldorf the new housing for the Nikon D7000, but the specs are not known yet.
Meanwhile the registration is now open to Hugy CUP 2011, that will take place this year in Dahab, Egyptian
Sinai, from September 5 to October 22, with the usual formula: the competitors
must shoot the pictures in the fixed time period and location, and then send
the selected images. Click here to learn more.
From Sealife the new Mini II
The new amphibian from Sealife will be available from March, waterproof up to 40
m and antishock for falls up to 2 meters. It has four possible control modes: Land, Dive, Snorkel, and External flash; the sensor is a 9 megapixel CMOS, the display is 2,4”, focusing is fixed from 60 cm to infinity. Powered by 2 AAA batteries (should
allow for 100 shots), it accepts SD and SDHC memory cards. It produces VGA
30fps video, with a fixed lens of 45 mm equivalent focal.
Nikon too, 9 new compacts
Nikon has issued as many as nine new COOLPIX compact cameras: 3 superzoom S9100, P500, and L120, and the prosumer P300, with a large-aperture f1.8 lens, Nikon’s answer to to the new trend of prosumer compacts started by Olympus with the
XZ-1. The other five cameras are S6100, S4100, S3100, S2500 e L23. Unfortunately they all have 1/2.3” sensors, even though the tendency to increase the number of pixels continues.
The P300, at first glance, looks like the more interesting for underwater usage, for its
wide range of manual controls, the 24-100 f 1,8-4,9 lens (not bright enough in
tele position), macro focusing at 3 cm, 3” display, 1080p HD video, and a not-too-stretched 12 mp sensor. Let’s wait and see who is going to offer the housings, and for which cameras:
apparently, none has an underwater mode. The new cameras will be available by
March.
Two new amphibians from Pentax
Pentax has presented two new cameras, defining them adventure proof, that is, resistant to fall and cold, and amphibian up to 10 m: the WG 1 GPS and the WG-1. Of course, the former got GPS, and the latter doesn’t, apart from this, the two are identical: 14 megapixels, 28-140 zoom, 2.7” 16:9 display, HD 720p video, electronic stabilizer, macro LED around the lens for shots up to 1 cm. They have Underwater and Video Underwater modes, and come with strap and
snap-hook.
A rush of new cameras from Canon
Canon cranks out two new reflexes and 9 new compacts, all available from March:
for at least three of the latter, Powershot SX 230HS, IXUS SX 220 HS, and IXUS 115 HS, a dedicated housing is expected, as their menu lists an Underwater mode. This
doesn’t apply to the most sophisticated one, the IXUS 310 HS (upgrade of the SD 4000
IS), which, although endowed with more manual controls options, doesn’t appear to have a housing. Among the reflexes, the new 600D (T3i) places itself one step above the 550D (T2i), which, for now, is not
leaving the stage: it sports a huge 3.2” adjustable display, which caused a redesign of the back, making it difficult to reuse the housing of the previous model, also because
of a slight size increase. The other reflex is the 1100D (T3), with a 12.1 mp sensor, 720p HD video, and software upgrades, will replace
the 1000D.
Tested: Sea & Sea YS 250 PRO strobe
We publish our review of the strobe from the Japanese company, considered the
top of the line, of professional level. We have tested it in several dives,
both with wide lenses, and with macro, during professional activity. Is it
really up to its reputation and price? Click here to find out.
New products from Easydive
Easydive is the maker, among the various products, of the Leo housing for reflex cameras: it is a unique design in the landscape of the
sector, in fact, the housing ensures access to the camera controls through an
electronic dialog with the camera, and a keyboard mounted on the handle. This
solution makes it possible to adapt the housing to a high number of Nikon and
Canon cameras, and allows the user to upgrade the camera body without having to
change the housing. For each compatible camera, Easydive provides the dialog
hardware and the plate for the insertion of the camera. In addition to this,
one can choose among various backs, for an increased access to camera controls.
The last novelty from Easydive is the
Easy Real View back, “ basically a micro-camera that is installed directly on the eyepiece of the SLR
in order to capture the view of the optical viewfinder.
The framing, timing and compensation diaphragms are then transmitted to an
external display 3.5".
When you take the photo, Real View will change the video signal to display the
photo. Then, by pressing any key, it will re-connect the signal of the
micro-camera and the display will return "normal". The system is powered by a
rechargeable battery in the monitor, with a burning time of approx. 4 hours”.
A photographer at the service of science
The Australian photographer and explorer Neville Coleman has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), an honor bestowed on activites deserving particular acknowledgement. At 72, Coleman keeps surprising us with his books
and, lately, with his electronic publications for smartphones and iPad. In 1969 he lead the Australian Coastal Marine Expedition, covering 64,000 km. along the coast, and creating the basis of his monumental
archive of images of marine organisms. Since then, his contribution to
scientific knowledge has been fundamental, and his goal to promote photography
as an extraordinary tool for scientific investigation has been fully achieved.
He has published more than twenty guides on fauna and tropical environments,
and his particular interest in nudibranchs is concentrated in the NUDIBRANCHS ENCYCLOPEDIA - Catalogue of Asia/Indo-Pacific Sea Slugs.
Making video with Canon 5D Mk II
A short trailer made by Roberto RInaldi (read the interview) with the reflex Canon 5D Mk II, even in the small size, shows the detail
rendition and the video quality ensured by the camera. Click here to find out.
© duwphoto.com
2011
