Monday 31 March 2008

Fiji forums: Head about to explode girl who is going to fiji next week - TripAdvisor

Fiji forums: Head about to explode girl who is going to fiji next week - TripAdvisor

"-Kadavu Island. Great island! Rugged, untamed, adventurous. Matava is wonderful - they have a dorm, also a private bure with shared bathroom facilities for a great price.

They have the best on site owners/managers, wonderful staff, the most awesome food, and they'll take you gamefishing, snorkeling, kayaking, picnicing.

It's not a real backpacker type place, so that might fit the bill for you.

They don't have a white sand beach, but if you paddle a few meters away, there's a private island with a great beach and they'll pack you a lunch you can take with you.

ENJOY!"

Fiji forums: Head about to explode girl who is going to fiji next week - TripAdvisor

Sunday 23 March 2008

SEA&SEA Announces New YS-17 Strobe and Digital Accessories

SEA&SEA Announces New YS-17 Strobe and Digital Accessories

Eagerly anticipated new strobe from Sea & Sea set to debut shortly.

LONG BEACH
, CA
March 17, 2008, – SEA&SEA announces the release of their newest strobe and compact digital camera accessories.

The YS-17 TTL slave strobe is an ideal strobe for most compact digital cameras available on the market today. SEA&SEA’s latest strobe offers a guide number of 14, beam angle of 70°x53° and a recycle time of 3 seconds. It is powered by 2 AA batteries and offers a 2-step light level control and TTL functionality – all in a compact design and a budget friendly MSRP of $349.00.

Accompanying the new YS-17 strobe are five new accessory products designed for use with Sony’s MPK-WD MarinePack underwater housings and other compact digital offerings.

These products include the Universal Grip Stay S (#22107, MSRP: $85.00), the YS-17 Universal Lighting Package (#70015, MSRP: $429.00), Sony MPK-WD Wide-Angle Conversion Lens .6x (#52117, MSRP: $345.00), Close-Up Lens (#52119, MSRP: $145.00), and Lens Adapter (#58118, MSRP: $70.00).

These products offer consumers a very affordable range of accessories and lighting options for their compact digital systems from SEA&SEA, Sony, Olympus, Nikon, Canon, Sealife, Intova and more.

More detailed specifications on the YS-17 TTL Slave strobe and the Sony MPK-WD accessories can be viewed at: http://www.seaandsea.jp/products/accessory/mpk/index.html

Availability:

Estimated availability in the US is May 2008.

ABOUT SEA&SEA: Founded in 1972, Sea&Sea is the leader in underwater imaging technology. The company offers a complete line of digital imaging products ranging from compact point and shoot cameras to professional housings, strobes, and accessories. SEA&SEA products are distributed in the United States by Tabata USA, tusa.com.


Wednesday 19 March 2008

Underwater Video: Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus

Underwater Video: Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus

By Sy Harris

"I’m at 100 feet with the reef at my back, shooting into the blue. All the action is in the deeper parts of the ocean where Grey Reef Reef sharks and barracuda jockey for position in the current. It’s a wide-angle fiesta and I had everything dialed: exposure, lighting, filtration…focus? Unfortunately I was in auto focus, and as the silver/grey fish procession swam by in the deep blue water I may have been stoked, but my camera’s auto focus was lost.

While I thought I was shooting clear, well-focused footage, my camera was making a series of focus adjustments, which I was unable to see through my viewfinder and monitor. The adjustments were definitely noticeable when I viewed the footage at home. The camera was “seeking” or constantly searching for proper focus, resulting in footage that was fuzzy one second and sharp the next. My shot was ruined!"

Underwater Video: Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus

Wednesday 12 March 2008

FVB Dive ME Guide

Please look at the FVB's updated website:

http://www.bulafiji.com/diveme/online_brochure.html

http://www.bulafiji.com/tourism-resources/diveme_ebrochure.pdf

Here you will find a new "e-brochure" about Fiji diving. It's awesome!

“Any country with coral reefs like this has a national treasure that should be protected. Fiji is on of the lucky countries.”
Roger Steene: Author, photographer and marine naturalist.

Monday 10 March 2008

Matava diving with mantas

Matava diving with mantas
Video sent by MatavaFiji

A very special dive and one of the few places in the world where manta rays can be seen regularly. You'll be taken by the size and graze of these beautiful creatures as they circle inquisitively. Though almost within touching distance all you'll do is stand back in awe.

Reef A Photographic Journey

“We feel a deep sense of connection with the ocean and its reefs and with that connection comes responsibility. Although we have lost almost a quarter of the planet’s reefs, those we see in this book still thrive — we are capable of saving them.” Sylvia A. Earle, from the foreword to Reef

Following in the steps of DK’s highly acclaimed Rainforest , Reef is a vibrant full-color photographic celebration of the world’s “rainforests of the sea” that pictorially progresses through an ecological chain that goes from algae, sponges, and mollusks, to the thousands of fishes that make their homes there, while showcasing coral reefs as one of nature's most magnificent creations. This vivid collection of photographs with accompanying DVD from underwater photography collective Scubazoo, reveals reefs and the thousands of unique and valuable plants that inhabit them as they’ve never been seen before!

Sales of this book support the Coral Reef Alliance.



Friday 7 March 2008

Sharks disappearing as fin chopping rises

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Populations of tiger, bull, dusky and other sea sharks have plummeted by more than 95 percent since the 1970s as fisherman kill the animals for their fins or when they scoop other fish from the ocean, according to an expert from the World Conservation Union, or IUCN.

At particular risk is the scalloped hammerhead shark, whose young swim mostly in shallow waters along shores all over the world to avoid predators.

The scalloped hammerhead will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally "endangered" due to overfishing and high demand for its valuable fins in the shark fin trade, said Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN's shark specialist group.

"As a result of high and mostly unrestricted fishing pressure, many sharks are now considered to be at risk of extinction," Baum said in a statement.

The numbers of many other large shark species have plunged due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year, said Baum, a fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Last year, IUCN put the great hammerhead, the largest of the nine species of hammerhead, on the Red List as "endangered." IUCN said in September that numbers of the shark in the eastern Atlantic may have crashed by 80 percent in the last 25 years.

Hammerhead meat has a very low value but the sharks are among the most endangered species because their fins are highly prized for the Asian delicacy shark-fin soup. In shark finning, fishermen chop the fins of the animals and dump the sharks back into the sea.

Fishing for sharks in international waters is unrestricted, said Baum, who supports a recently adopted U.N. resolution calling for immediate shark catch limits and a ban on shark finning.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Stuart Grudgings)