A year ago, I wrote an entry wherein I recommended the Fuji FinePix F30 or F31d as my compact digital camera of choice. I later updated that entry to include a plug for the FinePix J10 — a $115 point & shoot camera.

So why, then, did I recently acquire a Canon G10? (read more »)

Gura Gear, logo detail

Andy Biggs shipped me a Gura Gear Kiboko bag to take with me to Antarctica and Indonesia, and it arrived today! When I took it out, my first thought was — this is a solid bag. In fact, I even unzipped the two pockets to look for shipping padding, but it was just the structure of the bag that I was feeling. (read more »)

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Adam Lau has a small set of election evening photos from San Francisco. Check them out, and pay homage to the 16-35 lens that was sacrificed at the end of the evening (poor guy).

My good friend, Andy Biggs, has launched Gura Gear, a new line of camera bags designed for and by wildlife and outdoor photographers.

The Kiboko bag is the first design from the Gura Gear line. Weighing in at only 4 pounds, the Kiboko is the lightest bag in its class. Designed with the needs of the photographer in mind, the bag allows all photo gear to be safely stored and comfortably carried but also quickly accessed. The Kiboko bag is deep enough to accommodate a pro level SLR camera body, as well as medium format cameras. The bag will also hold up to a 500mm and 600mm lens simultaneously. The Kiboko bag is made from high-tech Dimension Polyant VX-21, a unique and durable water-shedding material made from the same process that is used on some of the fastest lightweight sailboats in the world. The outer materials are abrasion and tear resistant and the interior is well padded, ensuring that the bag and your equipment will hold up regardless of the terrain you’re photographing.

I’ve been watching the Kiboko evolve since Andy’s first concept of the bag, and I really like where it ended up. I’ll be taking one on my next trip, which will take me to Australia, Antarctica, and Indonesia. It’s going to be the ultimate field test!

me, giving a lecture at DEMA (photo: Adam Lau)

I just finished posting coverage of around 45 booths and events at DEMA (the big dive industry dive show here in the States). As someone who gets to see a lot of what is getting released, I have to write some sort of insightful commentary about trends and stuff, but I’m going to wait until Segal gets off his butt and finishes his posts, firsts (what — midterms? PSHAW!).

If you’re sort of interested in DEMA, but you’re not really interested, you may want to peruse the 97 images I pulled out and posted on the Wetpixel forums.

Congratulations to my friend, Andy Biggs, who won this year’s Wild Places category of the 2008 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest! (read more »)

Downtown San Francisco in HDR

While I was out shooting the fire on Angel Island, I snapped a few bracketed shots for SF in High Dynamic Range (HDR). They came out really mild, but they aren’t bad for a few minutes’ work in suboptimal conditions; one of these days, conditions will be perfect and I’ll get a really nice shot. (read more »)

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Curses! My show at 50 Fremont was taken down early. I went tonight in the hopes of getting some good photos as documentation of the show. :(

New York HDR Experiment, Canon 1Ds Mk III

In the few minutes before running out for dinner, I set a tripod up and snapped a few images out of the window. They turned out OK, but I think the exposures were too long. The swaying of the building actually shows up in some of the frames!

The Queensboro Bridge at night

Pat Suh and I went to Dave and Kim’s rehearsal dinner tonight, which was held at Water’s Edge in Long Island City. The restaurant has a beautiful view of Manhattan and the Queensboro Bridge. I was looking out the window all night wishing I had brought my tripod. Instead, I propped my camera up onto a railing and tried to hold it steady for the exposure.

Exposure details: Canon 1Ds Mk III, 24-105/4L lens @ 24mm, 0.5s @ f/4.5, ISO 1600

Four years ago, I wrote a RAW converter comparison article called The Mystery of RAW Converters. Here’s a one-image update to the article. (read more »)

Backlit taro leaf, Yap, Micronesia

While walking on a stone path today, I spotted this backlit taro leaf in a field of swamp taro. It’s probably the best photo I took today (at least, topside).

A large female manta ray in Goofnuw Channel, Yap

I had a beautiful encounter with this 14′ female manta ray this morning. She stalled in front of me for 20 seconds or so before gliding over her cleaning station, literally inches from my face. I lowered my camera and savored the moment.

The Manta Ray Bay hotel pool and the Mnuw

I snapped a few HDR shots on the way out to dinner last night. The clouds in Yap are incredible, and I’ve wanted to take this shot for some time, along with a mostly-clear sky and stars twinkling. But by the time the sky is dark enough for this sort of shot, exposures become quite long (the brightest exposures of the HDR series can be 8-10 seconds or more). And because the Mnuw is a boat, it rocks back and forth slightly, and wind pushes the tarp and other elements around.

I plan on doing some time-lapse photography of clouds moving sometime in the next day or two.

a manta ray in goofnuw channel, yap

Hello! I’m in Yap.

Manta action has been fair over the past few days. We’ve had pretty rough weather so far, and because wind blows water over the barrier reef, the tide has been eternally outgoing (and outgoing tide = green, mucky water).

Still, we’ve had multiple mantas every day on the cleaning station at Goofnuw Channel. They’re wonderful to watch — so graceful…

male mandarinfish, yap

I did a dusk dive today with the mandarinfish, but none of us saw them mating. MATE, you stupid fishies!

Luckily, mandarinfish are pretty regardless of whether they are in the process of mating, and I managed to shoot a couple good portraits.

A sixgill shark in Seattle

First, a bit of history: Marty Snyderman introduced me to Travis Swanson at DEMA last year and told me that Travis was the “Jim Abernethy of the Pacific Northwest.” Howard Hall and Marty had been out with Hydrus earlier come back with fantastic images and video footage of sixgill sharks (Hexanchus griseus) in relatively shallow water. Sixgill sharks are a deep-water shark species rarely seen by recreational SCUBA divers, and I was really intrigued by the possibility of seeing one. Marty’s introduction prompted me to immediately book an exploratory trip with Travis and [Team Hydrus][teamhydrus]. I invited Douglas Seifert (contributing editor, Dive Magazine) and Simon Rogerson (editor, Dive Magazine) along for the trip; I travel with Douglas frequently, but it had been years since I had seen Simon. (read more »)

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Wetpixel Quarterly, Eric Cheng Photography, Shark Angels

We arrived in Vancouver today and set up our booths at Gatecon. I’m hoping that the tenuous connection between me and Stargate fans¹ will be enough for them to be interested in my work. :)

UPDATE: Gatecon full report posted

I’m in the Puget Sound off of Seattle diving with sixgill sharks (Hexanchus griseus). We just finished our first evening in the water, and had fantastic luck (we started at around 9pm). Matt Segal and I dropped in and had four female sixgills come in on the bait almost immediately. I felt tremendous privilege being in the water with them because they are such elusive animals; our habitats simply don’t normally have any overlap.

a sixgill shark in Seattle (Hexanchus griseus)

During Simon’s rotation, he saw a large sixgill (12 ft long, estimated) eating crabs. We’re told that this behavior has never been seen before, and hope to be able to capture it on video tomorrow night.

I always thought ratfish (Chimaeras) were rare (I photographed some in Alaska, but there were literally hundreds down at the bottom today, along with about a billion dungeness crabs. If you want to photograph ratfish, there is no need to fly off to some exotic place and descend down into the depths. Fly to Seattle, chuck some bait off of the side of your boat, and shoot as many photos as you need!

On the way up from the dive, we ascended through an algae bloom. I looked over at Matt while we were hanging at our safety stop, and the slight oscillation of the ascent line caused his body to throw off literally thousands of sparkling lights…

six-gill shark — count ‘em. there are six of them. :)

Continue reading for video updates from the field. I’ll be uploading video as time allows for the next three days. (read more »)

if only this were typical

Some of my prints are on display (huge!) in the lobby of 50 Fremont, San Francisco.

The show is called Wetpixel: Marine Visions, and will be up from August 9 - October 14, 2008. If you’re interested in the photos, please contact Michaela Brockstedt.

I don’t have any proper images of the exhibit yet, but I hope to get in there to take some when I return from my next trip.

Underwater Photography Collage, by Eric Cheng

Enjoy! You can also download some larger versions below, which might be suitable as desktop backgrounds.

Download: [download 1024 px] [download 1920 px]