The author of the winning photo will score a one-week liveaboard dive trip aboard the M/V Solmar V, a fantastic liveaboard dive vessel that runs trips to Socorro, the Sea of Cortez, and to Guadalupe for great white sharks.

Paradise Dancer

Raja Ampat

As has been the topic for many of my FiNS blogs I am studying the ecology of pygmy seahorses for my doctoral thesis. Raja Ampat, along with Wakatobi, has some of the highest densities and diversity of these tiny fish that I have seen. During our expedition through the four kings (the translation of Raja Ampat) I saw four species including Satomi’s pygmy seahorse which had until now eluded me! I was also ecstatic to see the red and white colour form of Denise’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus denise) that is restricted to this area. Satomi’s pygmy appears to be nocturnal and is highly active in the early evening after the sun has set. As a result great care should be taken when photographing them. Bright lights stress them considerably so lights should be mostly covered whilst viewing the animal. We used a red filter to reduce the intensity of the light, with good results.

All in all there is something for everyone in Raja Ampat. I have been back to reality for a couple of weeks now and I am still dreaming of the stunning dives and creatures we saw. I have posted more images on my website.

A submarine for 3 takes tourists on Aruba to a depth of 100 meter

Now, tourists on Aruba can take a genuine submarine to a depth of 100 meter, under the guidance of an experienced pilot. U-Boat Worx B.V., the Dutch manufacturer of exclusive private submersibles, has opened a new submarine center on the Caribbean island. The company meets the need in the tourist branch to explore the underwater world in a safe and comfortable way.

U-Boat Worx at Reef Aruba image by David Pearlman

Peter de Hoop, U-Boat Worx Aruba’s managing director, has this to say: “For tourists, this is a wonderful opportunity to discover the underwater world in an exclusive way. You do not need a diving license and our guests can chat with each other, while enjoying a glass of champagne.”

The price for a ride in the submersible depends on what the customer wants. The dive can be geared completely to one’s personal wishes.

The submarine builder from Breda, The Netherlands, expects that the Aruba operation will open the eyes of many businessmen, wanting to apply this idea elsewhere in the world. “The business on Aruba was set up to break open the luxury tourist submarine market. By catering to tourism ourselves, we are showing third parties, such as luxury resorts, hotels and cruise companies, what the opportunities are”, says Bert Houtman, founder of U-Boat Worx BV.

Taking a trip in a submersible has many advantages over regular deep-sea diving. The guests are in a dry, 1 atmosphere environment. This means that, no matter how deep you go, there are no changes in air pressure. In this way, possible medical disorders resulting from decompression sickness, that can be caused by SCUBA diving, are eliminated.

U-Boat Worx at Renaissance-planes image by David Pearlman

The electrically powered submersible for 3 people is equipped with Lithium-Ion batteries for long sailing times. The Carbon Dioxide (CO2) produced by the passengers in the pressure vessel is removed by so-called scrubbers, and the oxygen used is also added automatically. The C-Quester-3, as this submersible is called, can stay underwater for over 96 hours, in case of emergency. There are numerous accessories, such as a safety buoy, a lead weight that can be dropped off, underwater communication, an air-conditioning system, a depth sounder, sonar and optionally video and tracking systems. Safety is guaranteed by a separate classification by Germanischer Lloyd.

For more information, please checkout the website http://www.uboatworx.com/

With The Growth in Popularity of Underwater Photography, A Community of Esteemed Professional Photographers Respond By Developing A Series of Free Online Underwater Photography Tutorials to Help The World Learn About Underwater Photography

New York (Jan 27, 2010) – In response to the global demand from photographers, scuba divers, surfers and snorkelers around the world, leading underwater photography website DivePhotoGuide.com has launched a highly anticipated free series of comprehensive underwater photography tutorials and guides to help the world learn underwater photography. Never before has there been such a growing interest in underwater photography. Affordable digital cameras have made underwater photography more accessible, and social media has made it easier than ever to share photos with your friends, family and the world.

The underwater photography guides offer easy-to-read tutorials for photographers all levels to learn how to take great underwater photos.

The tutorials are written by professional underwater photographer Jason Heller and DivePhotoGuide.com editor Matt Weiss, along with contributions from several world renowned professional and award winning underwater photographers, such as National Geographic photographer David Doubilet, Martin Edge, and Alex Mustard. Each tutorial includes beautiful underwater photos and equipment set-up shots that illustrate each technique.

Underwater photography can be incredibly rewarding, but it does pose unique challenges and requires an understanding of basic principles and techniques. Beginners will find the Getting Started Guide very intuitive, including the top ten basic principles of underwater photography and how to select your first underwater camera system. Other tutorials include macro, wide angle, super-macro, composition, lighting, surf photography and a number of creative techniques. New and advanced techniques and tutorials will be added on a regular basis.

More than Tutorials
Popular underwater photography website DivePhotoGuide.com has been a valuable resource to a community of over 50,000 underwater photographers around the world since 2005. In addition to the new free techniques guides, the website features underwater photo galleries from the top pros and amateurs in the world, daily underwater photography and ocean related news, in-depth articles, a comprehensive underwater photography equipment guide, travel guide, event calendars and a monthly photo contest with prizes.

For More Information Please Contact: Jason Heller, (917) 806-4600

Like many users of housings we come to a point when we want to upgrade our system. The usual route is to move to the latest camera housing by our current manufacturer to utilise the investment we have previously made in port and lighting systems.

We wanted to upgrade our two Nikon D200 system to D300. The search was on for the best deals available on both cameras and housings through our network of underwater photographers around the globe.

Our conversations led us to Hong Kong where our friends Stephen Wong & Takako Uno considered that we may be interested in talking to Edward Lai, owner of the newly formed Nauticam company, who was completing the final pre-production housings for the Nikon D90 and D300/300s models. Edward and his team have been in the precision mould manufacturing industry for more than 20 years, and now focusing on development and production of underwater photographic equipment.

The introductions were made and after many e-mails over a couple of weeks Edward kindly sent us a Nikon D90 and Nauticam Housing for us to use on our trip to The Philippines. Joy and excitement to have such a generous offer made and nervous anticipation to be experimenting with a new camera model and a new housing – a daunting prospect…

Nauticam Housing for Nikon D90

Upon arrival the quality of finish and precision of the engineering was most eye catching. Underwater the system was very simple to operate and having much easier access to the operating features than we were used to. Additional levers replaced some of the traditional push in rods making regular operations much easier and at your fingertips. We were able to connect our Inon strobes via optical cables that enabled use without electrical sync cords (a potential point of weakness) and for those that like to use TTL the need for additional converters was not necessary.

Nauticam Back Cover

The bonus was that we could use our existing Sea & Sea Ports by simply removing the existing locating plates and replacing with a simple Nauticam bayonet ring – a one off operation for continued use on the Nauticam Housings. The fitting of the ports is simplicity itself through the unique lever/locking feature on the front of the housing – open lever, push in port – close lever! Existing Zoom Gears – no problem – a well engineered adapter allows all existing Zoom Lens Gears to be used!

During our trip we used the system on 50+ dives and only had two minor faults, one of which was due to camera failure and the other, a fixing point which has since been rectified for the production units.

The Enhanced Optical 180º Viewfinder is supplied as an Optional extra but has such excellent qualities that once tried would be difficult to return to the standard.

Enhanced Optical 180º Viewfinder

We have been introduced to a well engineered housing system that provides easier usage, advanced operating features, lighter in weight and is able to use our existing ports and strobes – all for the total expense of purchasing two optical cables.

We will soon take delivery of a Nikon D300 and D300s Nauticam Housing and suggest that anyone looking for a change for the better to look at the Nauticam range as extensions are planned in the near future (including Canon models) before making a final decision. Prices are realistic and extremely competitively priced which is surprising for such a quality item.

Nauticam Housing Features and Benefits

Contact details: www.nauticam.com

The views and opinions in this article are solely those formed by DigitalDiving – Dive the experience with Nauticam.

There are 14 still-image categories and 2 video categories across the competition series.

For those new to the competition series – the Our World Underwater competition and DEEP Indonesia competition are distinctly separate competitions, but part of a unique series hosted by DivePhotoGuide and Wetpixel.

While the underwater photography and video competition series celebrates its five-year anniversary, the Our World Underwater show is now in its 40th year and one of the largest consumer scuba diving expos in the US. DEEP Indonesia is the first and only scuba diving and water sports expo in Indonesia, one of the most bio-diverse marine ecosystems in the world.

Winners for each respective competition will be announced live on stage at either the Our World Underwater film festival in Chicago (February 19 – 21, 2010), or at DEEP Indonesia in Jakarta (March 27 – 29, 2010), and will be published by supporting media partners worldwide. Winning videos will be broadcast via The Underwater Channel, and podcast as episodes of the iTunes-featured DiveFilm Podcast Video and DiveFilm High Definition Podcast Video

As with all UnderwaterCompetition.com events, 15% of entry proceeds will be donated to marine conservation efforts.

November 23rd 2009 was a very special day in the history of Walindi Plantation Resort. “The World” came to visit as part of her 2009 PNG Expedition Voyage. The 644ft, 40,0000+ tonne vessel is unique in that she is the world’s first residential ship.

The vessel has a number of apartments on board which are owned by individual residents, meaning that the ship is in effect owned by the tenants in much the same way as an apartment building is. In addition to the accommodations on board the ship, there are a number of restaurants and bars, a grocery store and a number of the facilities you would expect to find on a 6-star cruise vessel. Essentially a large private super yacht, the ship, with her crew of approximately 250, sails constantly around the world, offering residents a never-ending change of scenery.

Every so often The World goes into expedition mode, when the voyage plan (designed primarily by The World’s residents) takes her to remote areas. PNG was the destination for this year’s expedition, and Walindi was delighted to host her and her roughly 100 expedition residents and guests for an action-packed day.

At 8.30am the vessel dropped anchor just off the resort, and the acitivities began. In addition to a group of divers who said that their day’s diving was among the best they’d ever done (we picked Inglis Shoal and Susan’s Reef for them…what do you expect!?), we ran morning and afternoon departures to Garu Hot River and the WWII plane wrecks at Talasea, as well as a very popular sunset birding trip to Nick’s Place behind the resort.

We also had residents and guests join us for both lunch and dinner, as well as just to come ashore and relax at the Planter’s Bar and on the resort’s deck. The help we received from their onboard tour organisers was invaluable, and by the time departure was imminent we’d all made some great new friends and had a wonderful, if slightly busy, day.

Luxury cruise vessel The World

Last year's billboard in Beijing featuring Yao Ming

Shark Savers and WildAid are collaborating on a multi-media campaign in China targeting the consumers of shark fin soup. For $100 you can fund a “Say ‘no’ to shark fin soup” bus stop billboard featuring basketball star Yao Ming, one of China’s most popular and influential citizens. For a limited time, a sponsor of Shark Savers is matching donations, so your $100 gets TWO billboards put up.

This campaign targets the largest consumers of shark fin via a local hero’s influence — fighting from the inside is the only effective way to stop shark finning in the long term.

Last year, WildAid had 200 billboards in Beijing for 3 months. In a survey, 19% of Beijingers responding remembered having seen the boards and 82% of those people said they would stop or reduce their consumption of shark fin soup. Imagine the power of 1000 billboards for an entire year. This campaign works and your billboard will have an impact!

In general, I am cynical about Western efforts to stop shark finning, but this campaign really caught my eye, and I’ve used my wallet to voice support. For $100, I just sponsored two billboards.

FiNS friend Mark Thorpe, the man behind liquidmocean, has just released an iPhone app.

The app, called iDive Sharks, features twenty shark species, with overviews, images, distribution information and operators who provide interaction with each species being the main features of the app. It also incorporates a slideshow of 50 amazing images and an address book feature for the operators in question.

The app is priced at $1.99 in the iTunes store, and 20% of proceeds will be donated to shark conservation causes.

For the US iTunes store, click here to download the app. For all other iTunes stores, please search for “iDive Sharks” in your relevant iTunes store.

While you’re at it, visit the dedicated the site set up for discussion and support for this app at www.idivesharks.com.

iDive Sharks iPhone App

Check it out: http://wetpixel.com/features/dema2009

DEMA 2009