LAUPS: The Los Angeles Underwater Photographic Society
Founded 1957 - Celebrating 50 years of underwater photography

The winners from the March minicomp ("Patterns in Nature") have been posted in the LAUPS gallery, along with some winners from previous competitions. New albums are:

• March 2007 Minicomp ("Patterns in Nature")
• February 2007 Minicomp ("Pairs")
  
• August 2006 Minicomp ("Poisonous Creatures")
• September 2006 Intraclub

Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 21st is our meeting this month!

Speaker:

Glenn Allen presents:
The BBC’s “Wild Florida”
(A West Coast Premiere Sneak Peek...)

Glenn is here in California for a couple of months and then will head back to South Florida. He would like to share the new BBC thirty-minute film, "Wild Florida," and some “Behind the scenes” stories from the production. It is the film that he worked on all of last year with producer and DP Tom Fitz.

The film shares the experiences of five local Floridians and their interactions with the wildlife in the wetlands of the “Sunshine State.” We meet: 87 year-old artist and Everglades enthusiast, Sam Vinikoff. Alligator wrangler and back country guide, Mark Emory. Turtle researcher and conservationist, Larry Wood. Manatee-Watch volunteers, mother and daughter team, Heidi-Jo Baker and Joan McCarley, and we watch as Dolphin researcher, Laura Engleby documents some astonishing feeding behaviour in the Florida Keys. Diverse people, places and animals, but with the common connection of water and the stunning natural beauty of Florida.

It has not yet aired in the USA, but the "Numbers" have been VERY good in the UK. It premiered there four weeks ago with an 11.7% share. That translates to 2.3 million viewers! It aired again the following Tuesday with an additional 1.9 million viewers for a 4.2 million total. These were "Prime time" showings on BBC 2 on Sunday and Tuesday evenings! (Not bad for a small wildlife film... everyone involved with the production is very pleased.)

Glenn is proud to have been a part of the production and to work with Tom Fitz. The film has a great shooting style, story and a few surprises. I hope that you will all enjoy it.

It will be great to see you there!
-Glenn

Workshop: Roger can't make the meeting again this month, housing self-service us postponed until April. So this month, (if there is time) Roger made a 10 minute video of new gear from the PMA show.

Comp: MiniComp. Theme: Patterns in nature for stills and video.
Please name your stills as follows:

0703_open_your-title_your-name.jpeg or
0703_novice_your-title_your-name.jpeg

Items on the gear for sale page include a Canon Digital Rebel with Aquatica Underwater Housing.

LAUPS Gear for Sale

Take a look!

Congratulations to LAUPS Members Linda Blanchard, 1st in Conservation and Matt Segal, 3rd in Novice Macro!

Underwater Images 2007 Photo/Video Competition-Final Results

Registration is now underway for the 19th annual Chamber Day events (to be held on Wednesday, May 2 this year). In case you’re not aware of it, Chamber Day is a fund-raiser for our Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, and is the largest single-day scuba charity event in the United States.

As you may or may not know, the Catalina Chamber is dedicated strictly to the treatment of diving accidents on a 24/7/365 basis. Although we hope you’ll never need it, having the Chamber available gives divers a vital safety net in the event something should go wrong with your dive. Although there is a grant from LA County, and the Chamber gets income from some outside activities, Chamber Day provides a significant portion (close to 50%) of the Chamber’s annual budget.

The great thing about this event is that ALL the monies raised goes to the Chamber. No administrative fees are deducted from the proceeds, the local SoCal boats donate their time and services, the manufacturers donate gear for raffle prizes (roughly $30,000 worth), the Aquarium of the Pacific donates their facility for the evening event, hundreds of volunteers donate their time, and you (hopefully) donate your money. Last year we raised over $105,000 (last year's summary) and this year we’re hoping to do even better. The event has many facets and there are multiple ways for you to get involved.

The main event is Chamber Day, a full day of diving (two dives) at Catalina plus a walking tour of the Chamber at the Isthmus. Cost for this is $90 (plus $30 for food & airfills) which gets you the diving, the tour, a t-shirt, and five raffle tickets.

Chamber Day & Evening 2007

The practice of shark finning (where sharks have their fins cut off while still alive and are thrown back in the water to die) is brutal, wasteful, and often, illegal. A web search for shark finning will show you in mere minutes how terrible the practice is.

Please show your support for the world's dwindling shark populations by signing this petition against Alibaba.com, one of largest online traders of shark fins. Signing the petition takes less than a minute and requires only your name, e-mail address, and geographic location. You can also protect your privacy by showing yourself as "anonymous," if you wish. [via wetpixel.com]

Nikon has announced the D40X. We'll see if any more significant SLRs are announced this week (The PMA convention starts Thursday). They also announced a lens, the AF-S DX VR 55-200MM F/4-5.6G IF-ED lens.

D40X:
Nikon Corporation is pleased to announce the D40X, a new digital SLR incorporating a 10.2-megapixel CCD. The D40X is scheduled to launch worldwide at March 22, 2007 (TBD) and is a sister model to the D40, which has a 6.1-megapixel CCD.

While maintaining the compact size and portability of the D40 camera body, the D40X produces even more outstanding, detailed pictures thanks to its 10.2-megapixel CCD and cutting-edge digital technologies. Its resolution power makes it easy for users to print up to A3-size pictures or crop aggressively without losing any fine details. The D40X is loaded with everything you need for truly amazing images: a 10.2-megapixel CCD, Nikon’s exclusive 3D Color Matrix Metering II, an improved Image Processing Engine and superb Auto White Balance. Together with a world-famous Nikkor lens, these features combine to ensure perfect exposure, refined details and natural, vivid color.

Lens:
The AF-S DX VR 55-200MM F/4-5.6G IF-ED lens., a high-quality compact 3.6x DX zoom designed specifically to work with Nikon’s market-leading D80 and D40/ D40x cameras. The AF-S DX VR 55-200MM F/4-5.6G IF-ED is an affordable entry-level lens which features Nikon’s cutting edge Vibration Reduction stabilization system and exclusive Silent Wave Motor for fast, quiet and precise autofocussing.

In advance of PMA, Olympus has announced 2 SLRs (E410, E510) and made mention of a 3rd (E1 successor), all with live view. In addition, they have announced 4 new lenses and a 2x teleconverter.

The E410 and E510 both seemed to be based on the E400 body, which has a very small form factor. The E410 will fit in an E400's housing (currently only Olympus). The E510 has a larger grip, uses a larger battery, and has image stabilization good for up to 4 stops (interesting potential for great DoF & small apertures, when combined with the high DoF inherent in the small 4/3 sensor). Few details are provided on the E1 replacement, other than it will have live view, and with the new lenses will offer "world's fastest-class autofocusing."

The lenses announced don't seem to offer much for the UW photographer, other than good brightness in some and large zoom ranges. None are particularly wide, none seem to have macro.

ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-60mm (24-120mm) 1:2.8-4.0 SWD
ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 50-200mm (100-400mm) 1:2.8-3.5 SWD
ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-35mm (28-70mm) 1:2.0 SWD
ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 70-300mm (140-600mm) 1:4.0-5.6

Press releases:
E410 Boy, that looks small.
E510
Lenses & E1 successor