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Nov 2005

Nudibranch Christmas Cards

In preparation for the Holidays, Sea Challengers Publishing has teamed up with artist/diver/Branch lover, Jan Kocian, of Whidbey Island, Washington to produce 4 magical Holiday Greeting Cards.  Visit their web site at SeaChallengers.com and click on “New Titles” to see these cards, 10 per box, perfect for the Brancher/diver.

Jim Lyle's Around-The-World Trip Report

Member Jim Lyle is back from an around-the-world dive trip. His report is here.

Bilikiki Announced 2007 Solomons Trips, Slideshows

One of our favorite boats (and sponsors!), The Bilikiki, has announced more trip dates in 2006 and 2007 and has added a website slideshow of photographs taken by their guests.

November MiniComp Winners

Video edited minutes:
1st place Dwight Crumb
2nd place Walter Marti
3rd Place Dwight and Janet Crumb

Mini-Comp Shoot Your Buddy:
1st place Matt Berry
2nd place Todd Winner
3rd place Roger Carlson
3rd place Cory Gray

Interesting new photo site Radiant Vista

Here's an interesting new site: Radiant Vista. With downloadable video, every day they critique an image, every week they have a photoshop class.

November Newsletter Online

Walter Marti has produced his first newsletter! it's online at this link!

If you or someone you know is not receiving email notifications of the newsletter and would like to, sign up at
this link.

November Speaker and Workshop

This month's speaker is Ken Dethloff, from Samy's Camera.

Ken's presentation will be on "The transition for film to digital and digital workflow".

Ken Has a Photojournalism degree, and although he started diving in college, he became certified and began taking pictures underwater in 1993. He has been working with digital media for over 15 years. After running a Service Bureau for two years, he moved to California in 1998. Since then, he has been in the Professional Digital department at Samy's Camera.

An expert in all areas of digital media, his true expertise lies in digital workflow, from capture and storage, raw file manipulation and conversion, Photoshop manipulation, color matching and profiling, to printing of the final image, small or large format.

This month's workshop is from Matt Segal and will be on underwater photography with a point-and-shoot camera with strobes, picking up where we left off last month.

November Minicomp

This month's minicomp theme is "shoot your buddy", it's pictures of other divers underwater.

Naming the pictures worked out really well last month. Please use names in the following format this month:

0511_novice_image-title_your-name.jpg or

0511_open_image-title_your-name.jpg

So an entry from me could be called:

0511_open_judy-on-wreck_roger-carlson.jpg

DiverNet posts 11 tips for Underwater Video

DiverNet has posted their 11 top tips for better underwater video, from award-winning filmmaker John Boyle.

NCUPS Sea 2005 Winners Posted

Winning images from NCUPS' Sea 2005 photo competition have been posted. Congratulations to all the winners!

UwP Magazine Issue 27 Avaliable

The free digital magazine UwP (Underwater Photography) issue #27 is available for download. Articles this month include Digital Workflow, Finding Macro, and more.

BP Kongsberg Underwater Image Competition 2006

Here's a photo contest you probably won't even enter. Stills must be taken deeper than 200m, or with a microscope....

Two books for your Christmas List

Here are two books to put on your Christmas List: Sea Salt, Stan Waterman's memoirs, and Nudibranch Behavior, by Dave Behrens.

Transcript from Diver Adrift off Belize for 3 Days

Here's a transcript of an interview with a diver rescued after 3 days at sea. She and 3 other divers abandoned their chartered boat after multiple equipment failures.

3 New Workflow Tools: Aperture, Portfolio 8, and RawShooter Premium

The last few weeks have brought us announcements of three new digital (and raw) workflow tools: Aperture, from Apple (Macs only), Extensis Portfolio 8 (PC and Mac), and Rawshooter Premium (PC only).

TSA Registered Traveler Restarting Next Year

After a successful trial run, the TSA will formally start the Registered Traveler program by next summer. Registered travelers will spend less time in security checks at airports. Read more here.

Repairs to Cozumel Reefs Underway

Here's a link to a Reuters article describing damage to Cozumel's reefs, and the start of work to repair the reefs as possible, with drills and epoxy.

Nikon Announces D200

Nikon has announced the D200, a 10.2 megapixel cropped sensor camera. Here's the link to the initial DP Review.

Notes from the Board Meeting

Notes from the board meeting tonight:

The club banquet will be Saturday, January 21st at Ports of Call. More info, menu choices, payment info, etc, to come soon. Mark the date!

Planning for next year's club competitions is underway. Send your ideas for MiniComp themes to Suellen, our Competition Chair. Next year we'll probably also have a larger group (the whole board?) spending more time on the International, it's a big job. Let us know your ideas on that, too. Thanks to all who put so much time into it this year.

Board member elections will be held at the end of the year. If you're interested in taking office, contact a board member. Board meetings are always open if you're just interested in helping out in general.

Current Status of Cozumel, after Wilma

Here's a good summary of what hurricane Wilma did to Cozumel, by Aldora divers. Some of the pages there have a journal of what they've found over the last few weeks.

Here's a table listing the status of many resorts and operations.

Finally, this is the report from the Scuba Club Cozumel; Judy and I have been there yearly, and we're very glad to know that the staff are all safe. I'm hoping that, since their operation is relatively intact, they'll be among the first to report on the health of the reefs.

We were there just after Emily, last summer. A lot of sand had shifted, new swimthroughs had opened up, there was debris on the shallow reefs, and damage to finger coral ranged from very noticeable in some areas to little or none in others.

Underwater Photography Mag Issue 27 Now Available

The latest issue of UwP, a free electronic magazine, is now available to download at www.uwpmag.com