2023

Key events

Wetpixel’s final active year of publishing. The year opened with strong competition results and significant gear announcements, but new article output ceased effectively around April 2023, with the last substantive editorial content published in late March. Alex Mustard’s February review of the Sony a7R V marked a landmark moment: he declared it “the first mirrorless I enjoyed shooting more than my SLR,” signaling the completion of the mirrorless transition in underwater photography. In March, the United Nations finally reached agreement on a High Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement) after years of failed attempts — a conservation milestone the Wetpixel community had followed closely. Kat Zhou emerged as a dominant competition winner, taking both Ocean Art and Underwater Photographer of the Year. The DPG/Wetpixel Masters saw Martin Broen win for a second consecutive year.

January

• 2023-01-04: Panasonic announces the S5 II — the first Panasonic full-frame camera to feature on-chip phase-detect autofocus (PDAF), at $1,999. The addition of PDAF addressed a long-standing criticism of Panasonic’s contrast-detect-only system. (^[1])
• 2023-01-17: Ocean Art 2022 results announced: Kat Zhou wins Best of Show for “Octopus Mother.” (^[2])
• 2023-01-23: DPG/Wetpixel Masters 2022 results: Martin Broen wins the overall title for the second year running. (^[3])
• 2023-01-26: Scuba Lamp D-Pro strobe reviewed by Giacomo Rossi. (^[4])

February

• 2023-02-02: Nauticam announces the NA-R6II housing for the Canon EOS R6 Mark II and ships the NA-XT5 housing for the Fujifilm X-T5. (^[5])
• 2023-02-04: Alex Mustard publishes his review of the Sony a7R V, declaring it “the first mirrorless I enjoyed shooting more than my SLR” — a landmark statement marking the effective completion of the mirrorless transition for top-tier underwater photographers. (^[6])
• 2023-02-08: Canon announces the EOS R8 (entry-level full-frame) and R50 (APS-C) mirrorless cameras. (^[7])
• 2023-02-08: OM System announces the 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO lens at $1,499 — a dedicated macro lens with industry-leading in-body and in-lens stabilization, immediately of interest to underwater macro photographers. (^[8])
• 2023-02-15: Underwater Photographer of the Year 2023: Kat Zhou wins the overall title for “Boto encantado,” an image of an Amazonian river dolphin. (^[9])
• 2023-02-15: Marelux Soft Pro snoot reviewed by Kate Jonker. (^[10])

March

• 2023-03-13: After years of failed negotiations — the fifth attempt collapsed in August 2022 — the United Nations agrees on the High Seas Treaty (formally the BBNJ Agreement: Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction), providing a legal framework to protect marine biodiversity in international waters. The Wetpixel community had closely followed previous failures. (^[11])
• 2023-03-28: ADEX Ocean Gallery 2023 calls for photo submissions. (^[12])

April

• 2023-04-01: Retra publishes an April Fool’s joke announcing “voice control” firmware for their strobes — the last substantive editorial article published on Wetpixel. (^[13])

Note: After April 1, 2023, the Wetpixel article archive contains approximately 80 files dated April 4 with malformed URL-derived filenames (e.g., banners.php, email addresses, single words). These are crawler artifacts from site dysfunction and do not represent editorial content. Wetpixel publishing effectively ceased at this point.

References

• ^[14] — articles processed for the 2023 timeline