Wetpixel Wiki

A comprehensive wiki documenting the history of digital underwater photography and videography, built from the Wetpixel.com archive: ~8,000 articles, ~400,000 forum posts, ~5,700 comments, and ~1,500 news items spanning 2000–2023.

The Wetpixel Story

From news page to community

On March 21, 2000, David Breitigam launched Wetpixel.com — the first dedicated news page for underwater digital still photography. For nearly two years, he ran it as a one-man operation: curating gear news, covering DEMA shows, breaking product announcements like the Light & Motion Tetra 3030, and even organizing the first all-digital underwater photography liveaboard charter (“Film-Free Diving,” Kona 2001). Then in April 2001, a Silicon Valley software engineer named Eric Cheng quit his startup job, bought an underwater housing for a Nikon Coolpix 990, and went diving in Palau. He uploaded the photos as a travel journal — which Breitigam featured on Wetpixel in May 2001. Breitigam recruited Cheng for satellite web coverage of the Kona charter that November, where Cheng also met photographer Jim Watt. The two joined forces: Cheng relaunched Wetpixel as a community site and editorial platform while Breitigam handled the business side. Around 2003, Breitigam stepped down due to time constraints, and Cheng became the sole owner. Their timing had been perfect: the Nikonos V had just been discontinued, digital SLRs were arriving underwater for the first time, and photographers scattered across the world’s oceans needed a place to figure out this new technology together.

Wetpixel became that place. At first, the community shot compact cameras — the Nikon Coolpix 990 and 995 in Ikelite housings, the Olympus C-3030, C-3040, and C-4040 in cheap first-party PT-010 housings. By DEMA 2002, the Nikon Coolpix 5000 had seven competing housings — more than any other digital camera. But the real shock came from DSLRs: Jim Watt had a Canon D30 underwater in a UK-Germany housing by 2001, and in April 2002, Cheng and Watt stuffed the new Canon D60 into the same housing — a near-perfect fit. Five D60s went on the pivotal July 2002 Bahamas expedition — professionals were committing to digital. The Nikon D100 followed with twelve competing housings by mid-2003, and by DEMA 2004, “almost literally no film products” were being shown. Wetpixel documented every step of this film-to-digital transition, growing from 484 members in October 2002 to over 35,000 registered users — serious underwater photographers, not casual snorkelers.

Eric Cheng: owner, editor, expedition leader, industry nexus

Cheng wasn’t a figurehead co-founder — he was, for nearly a decade, the engine of Wetpixel. He personally authored 1,084 articles (second only to Adam Hanlon’s ~4,930 posted), peaking at 204 articles in 2006 alone. He contributed 3,593 forum posts and was a constant presence in community management — from handling DDoS attacks and patching forum exploits while traveling, to managing site migrations, moderating disputes, and running Wetpixel’s Twitter.

His DEMA coverage alone was extraordinary: 127 DEMA articles from 2002–2010, with exhaustive booth-by-booth reporting in 2006 (44 articles), 2007 (32), and 2008 (37). He organized annual Wetpixel/DivePhotoGuide cocktail parties at DEMA that became industry networking staples — the Rosen Centre pool bar in Orlando (2006), the Las Vegas Hilton (2008). These events weren’t just social; they cemented Wetpixel’s position as the nexus between manufacturers and serious underwater photographers, a role no other publication filled.

He ran the business: soliciting advertising, maintaining manufacturer relationships with Ikelite, Nexus, Aquatica, Subal, Inon, and others who provided pre-release access and loaner gear. He co-founded the Our World Underwater / DPG-Wetpixel competition with Jason Heller of DivePhotoGuide. He co-launched Wetpixel Quarterly, a premium landscape-format print magazine, with Elijah Woolery in 2007.

Most remarkably, he organized and led over 50 distinct expeditions under the Wetpixel brand between 2002 and 2013 — a pace of roughly one trip every two months during peak years. The Bahamas shark and dolphin trips with Jim Abernethy’s Shear Water were a near-annual flagship (2004–2010). He ran sardine runs in South Africa (2006–2008), great white shark expeditions to Guadalupe, Ultimate Indonesia trips aboard the Damai II, sperm whale expeditions to Ogasawara with Tony Wu, Alaska expeditions, PNG Eastern Fields, Maldives manta trips, and Kona Digital Shootouts. Nearly all sold out months in advance. These trips weren’t just revenue — they built the relationships and the community identity that made Wetpixel matter.

He built the team: appointing Alex Mustard and James Wiseman as co-administrators, expanding the moderating team in 2005 with Drew Wong, Mike Veitch, Dr. Luiz Rocha, Herb Ko, and others, adding Paul Waghorn as video moderator, and bringing on Matt Segal — the USC student who would write 354 articles while juggling midterms. The 2008 Wetpixel Quarterly masthead reads like a who’s-who: Mustard, Cheng, Veitch, Rocha, Cor Bosman, Julie Edwards, Ko, Wiseman, Todd Mintz, Segal, Elijah Woolery, William Heaton, Leslie Harris.

On the forums, Cheng set the tone — expert-oriented, welcoming but no-nonsense, conservation-minded. He personally managed the Photo of the Week contest, mediated gear debates, organized community charity drives (Katrina relief, Oxfam Asia Pacific), and championed shark conservation through Shark Savers and Sea Shepherd (he was head photographer for the Antarctic anti-whaling campaign documented in Whale Wars Season 2). His “Screaming Turtle” — a baby loggerhead shot on a Canon D60 off Jim Abernethy’s boat in February 2003 — became the second digital photo ever on the cover of DIVE Magazine (July 2003, one month after Douglas David Seifert’s first), later won Nature’s Best Photography (2005), and was displayed at 4×5 feet at the Smithsonian as a vertical crop from a 6-megapixel frame. It showed the community that digital could stand alongside film at the highest level.

The team that built Wetpixel

These are the people who held official roles — administrators, editors, moderators — and authored the articles, managed the forums, built the infrastructure, and ran the events that made Wetpixel function. Without them, the site wouldn’t have existed.

Alex Mustard (7,106 posts, 143 articles, co-administrator) was the community’s most authoritative editorial voice. His field reviews of the D700, D750, and Nauticam WACP were landmark events that shaped purchasing decisions across the industry. He co-administered the site with Wiseman, co-created Magic Filters with Peter Rowlands, co-hosted 258 episodes of Wetpixel Live with Hanlon, and co-led the Lembeh macro workshops that became Wetpixel’s signature expedition. He later received an MBE for services to underwater photography.

James Wiseman (8,634 posts, 158 articles, co-administrator) was the other half of Wetpixel’s founding editorial engine. He authored the foundational “Strobe Use for Digital Cameras for Beginners” (2002) that helped thousands make the film-to-digital transition, wrote 70 articles in 2005 alone reviewing housings from every major manufacturer, and co-built the Wetpixel v3.0 redesign. Based in Houston, he brought HUPS (Member of the Year 2005) and Seaspace trade show coverage to the site.

Craig Jones (133 articles, co-admin) was the primary news editor from 2002–2004, writing 86 of ~117 articles in 2003 — three-quarters of everything published. He pioneered filter-based ambient light UW photography in a foundational 2003 article. When Cheng and Wiseman traveled, Jones ran the site solo.

Matt Segal (354 articles, administrator) was the young workhorse — a USC Aerospace Engineering student who produced exhaustive DEMA booth-by-booth coverage (2006–2008) while rushing home to take midterms. His 154 articles in 2007 made him the site’s second-most prolific author that year.

Drew Wong (10,071 posts, 90 articles, associate editor) was the “video guru” — he coined “ViDSLR” in 2009, wrote the most comprehensive video housing reviews on the site, covered ADEX Singapore for over a decade, led sardine run expeditions to South Africa, and interviewed Cousteau cinematographer Didier Noirot.

Abi Smigel Mullens (728 articles, associate editor) was the third most prolific author, primarily covering marine conservation news, photographer interviews, and competition results from 2010–2022.

Mike Veitch (4,541 posts, moderator) wrote the definitive CFWA tutorial (“The Near and Far,” 2011), co-managed NAD-Lembeh Resort (2008–2011), and later co-founded the Underwater Tribe podcast from Bali. He put a photo on the cover of National Geographic Traveler (August 2007).

Dr. Luiz Rocha (46 articles, moderator) was Wetpixel’s science correspondent — a California Academy of Sciences marine biologist who wrote 30+ conservation articles in 2006 alone, bridging scientific research and the photography community.

Cor Bosman (moderator, site hacker) was Wetpixel’s behind-the-scenes technical architect. The co-founder of XS4ALL — one of the Netherlands’ first ISPs, known for internet privacy advocacy — Bosman brought serious infrastructure skills to a photography community. He built the Google Maps member map (2008), created Facebook and WordPress integrations for the Photo of the Week, and co-managed the critical July 2008 software migration with Cheng, spending two days rewriting custom code into plugin architecture while working remotely from the Netherlands. He photographed with partner Julie Edwards, primarily in the Solomon Islands aboard the MV Bilikiki, and won Best of Show at Underwater Images 2008. He was staff photographer for Wetpixel Quarterly Issue 2, and joined Cheng on the 40-day, 130-dive Ultimate Indonesia expedition in 2009 and the Dominica sperm whale trip in 2010.

Herb Ko (moderator since 2003, POTW administrator) was one of Wetpixel’s earliest moderators — member #59, appointed in September 2003 when the community had just 1,300 members and 20,000 posts. Based in Mountain View, California, he moderated the Consumer Digicams forum and took over running the Photo of the Week contest in 2004, designing the entry/voting pipeline system that structured the competition. He was a gear reviewer (the Aquatica A300 for Canon Digital Rebel, the SB-105 strobe retrofit), the first INON Artist of the Month alongside Craig Jones (November 2003), and active in both NCUPS and LAUPS photography societies. He was staff photographer for Wetpixel Quarterly Issue 2.

Elijah Woolery (Wetpixel Quarterly co-founder) brought design and marine biology credentials to the magazine project. A former lead design engineer at Light & Motion and graduate student in marine biology at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Woolery co-founded and co-edited Wetpixel Quarterly with Cheng in 2007 — described as “really a mini-coffee table book” that prioritized compelling imagery over advertising. He later taught Product Design at Stanford University’s d.school and co-hosted the Webby-nominated Design Better Podcast.

Other team members

Beyond the people featured above, many others held formal roles and contributed significantly:

Senior Moderators: Shawn Heinrichs (conservation moderator from 2007, Emmy-winning filmmaker), Paul Waghorn (video moderator, SSI instructor, underwater filmmaker), Sterling Zumbrunn (Backscatter staff, Digital Shootout workshop leader)

Moderators: Giles Shaxted (appointed 2009, article author, dive instructor), Steve Williams (Fin Foundation conservationist), aussie (Ryan Pedlow) (appointed 2009), Chris Ross, Tim Gurney, Dave Burroughs, Julie Edwards, Leslie Harris, Todd Mintz, Darren Jew, Mary Lynn Price, Drew Wohl

Key external figures: Jason Heller (founded DivePhotoGuide.com in 2005, co-founded the DPG-Wetpixel competition series with Cheng), Jim Watt (professional photographer who staffed the early Digital Shootouts and introduced Cheng to the UW photography community; died 2007), and Peter Rowlands (UwP Magazine editor, co-created Magic Filters with Mustard).

The figures Wetpixel covered most

These are the photographers, filmmakers, and industry figures most extensively covered in the archive — including several of Wetpixel’s own team members, whose careers as subjects of coverage far exceeded their editorial roles.

Alex Mustard (described in the team section above) was the single most covered figure in the entire archive — 431 articles mention him as a subject. Beyond his Wetpixel role, he won GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 with “Night Moves” (the first underwater photo to win overall, from 16,500+ entries), won Wildlife Photographer of the Year categories in 2005 and 2021, published six books including Underwater Photography Masterclass (2016), developed the Magic Filter for ambient-light color correction with Peter Rowlands, revived and chaired the Underwater Photographer of the Year competition (2014, with Dan Bolt and Peter Rowlands), and received an MBE for services to underwater photography (2018).

Eric Cheng (described in the Wetpixel Story above) appeared as a subject in 319 articles beyond the 1,084 he authored — a reflection of how central he was to the industry, not just to Wetpixel. After leaving Wetpixel, he became Director of Photography at Lytro, Director of Aerial Imaging at DJI, and Director of Immersive Media at Meta Reality Labs, where he was Emmy-nominated for interactive programs.

Stephen Frink wrote the landmark Seacam D1X Field Journal (March 2002) — the first comprehensive DSLR underwater housing guide ever published. As North American Seacam distributor, publisher of Alert Diver, and Director of Photography for Scuba Diving Magazine, he bridged the dive publishing establishment and the new digital community.

David Doubilet — the National Geographic underwater photographer — was the most frequently referenced external figure in the archive, his over/under technique and decades of marine work cited as the standard of excellence.

Howard Hall was the IMAX and cinema underwater filmmaker whose career mapped the entire history of UW cinema technology — from 16mm film through 1,200-lb IMAX 3D cameras to RED ONE 4K. His partnership with Gates Underwater produced the DEEP RED housing (2007).

Berkley White founded Backscatter and created the Digital Shootout event series — running continuously from 2002 across Fiji, Bonaire, Palau, and Roatan. His products (ND graduated filter, GoPro filters, MF-1 Mini Flash, OS-1 Optical Snoot) shaped how the community shot.

Tony Wu was a behavioral marine photographer whose Antibes Grand Prize work and sperm whale imagery were regularly featured. He co-led Wetpixel expeditions to Ogasawara and Dominica with Cheng.

Keri Wilk pioneered snoot photography — his “ground-breaking images” (Mustard’s words) inspired the commercial snoot market (Retra LSD, Backscatter OS-1). He won Best of Show at Ocean Art 2010 and Beneath the Sea 2011, and captained Team Gulen in the Lembeh-Gulen Shootout.

Shawn Heinrichs was the conservation filmmaker whose Manta Ray of Hope campaign was a direct precursor to CITES 2013 manta protections. He also served as Wetpixel’s conservation moderator from 2007, straddling both contributor and subject roles. Emmy winner (Untamed Americas), co-cinematographer on Racing Extinction, Sea Hero of the Year (2011).

Other frequently covered figures: Drew Wong (team member; 83 articles as subject, the community’s “video guru” who coined “ViDSLR” and shaped how the community adopted video), Mike Veitch (team member; 57 articles as subject, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 category winner, National Geographic Traveler cover 2007), Martin Edge (author of The Underwater Photographer, the community’s most-discussed instructional book), Stan Waterman (legendary UW filmmaker, Emmy winner, namesake of the Beneath the Sea award), Nick Hope (2,166 posts, whose 92-minute documentary “Mucky Secrets” was one of the most substantial UW educational films produced by a community member), Brian Skerry (National Geographic photojournalist), Peter Rowlands (UwP Magazine editor), Don Silcock (Indo-Pacific location guide author), Norbert Wu (Antarctic cinematographer), Doug Perrine (first digital Wildlife Photographer of the Year winner, 2004), and Tobias Friedrich (bubble bokeh technique, Lembeh-Gulen Shootout captain).

Gear revolutions, documented in real time

Wetpixel’s archive is a nearly complete record of underwater photography’s technological evolution across two decades:

The film-to-digital transition (2000–2005). Before DSLRs, compact cameras opened the door. The Nikon Coolpix series (990, 995, 5000) and the Olympus C-series (C-3030, C-4040, C-5050) were the cameras most underwater photographers started with — the Coolpix 5000 was the “most housed digital camera” at DEMA 2002, with seven competing housings from Aquatica, Ikelite, Sea & Sea, Light & Motion, and others. Olympus’s first-party PT-series housings (as low as $250) made underwater digital photography accessible to divers who couldn’t justify $750+ third-party housings. Then came DSLRs: the Canon D30 in a UK-Germany housing was among the first consumer-grade DSLRs used underwater (Jim Watt was shooting it by 2001), and when the Canon D60 arrived in April 2002, Eric Cheng and Jim Watt stuffed it into the same D30 housing — five D60s dominated the pivotal July 2002 Bahamas expedition. The Nikon D100 followed months later and ultimately generated the most housing options — twelve competing housings by mid-2003 — broad manufacturer support driving mass adoption. The Canon Digital Rebel (2003) was the first sub-$1,000 DSLR, making digital underwater SLR photography accessible. The Canon 5D (2005) brought affordable full-frame — Ikelite shipped the first production housing by December. By then, film was over.

The DSLR video revolution (2008–2010). The Canon 5D Mark II arrived in late 2008 with 1080p video capability, triggering a frenzied housing race among six manufacturers. Drew Wong coined “ViDSLR” on Wetpixel in May 2009. The Canon 7D paired with the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom became the “best of both worlds” stills+video system. See DSLR Video Revolution.

The mirrorless revolution (2012–present). The Olympus OM-D E-M5 (2012) was called “the most important underwater camera in years” by Mustard. Sony’s a7R II (2015) was the full-frame mirrorless watershed. The Canon EOS R5 (2020) triggered the largest mirrorless housing race — six manufacturers within 14 months. In February 2023, Mustard declared his Sony a7R V “the first mirrorless I enjoyed shooting more than my SLR.” See Mirrorless Revolution.

The strobe wars. From James Wiseman’s foundational 2002 “Strobe Use for Digital Cameras for Beginners” through the Inon Z-240’s 11-year reign as benchmark (2006–2017) to Retra’s 2017 entry and Backscatter’s MF-1 creating an entirely new compact macro strobe category — the archive documents every TTL system, every reliability crisis (Sea & Sea YS-D1/D2 quality issues), and every paradigm shift. See Strobe & Flash Photography.

The optics revolution. Nauticam, debuting at DEMA 2008 as “a total newcomer,” transformed not just housings but optics — the WACP (2017) replaced dome ports with corrected water contact lenses, the SMC/CMC wet macro converters (2013–2016) revolutionized macro photography, and the EMWL (2020) created an entirely new category of extreme wide-angle macro imagery. Edward Lai’s computer-modeled designs treated the entire optical system (camera + lens + port + air + water) as an integrated problem.

The destinations

Wetpixel’s coverage maps the world’s most important underwater photography destinations across every ocean. In the Indo-Pacific: Raja Ampat — the most biodiverse marine region on Earth — generated 170+ articles; Lembeh Strait, the “world capital of muck diving,” hosted the signature Wetpixel/Mustard macro workshops; Anilao rivaled Lembeh as a critter destination with 1,000+ nudibranch species; Bali’s Liberty wreck at Tulamben became one of the most-photographed wrecks in the world; Komodo, Wakatobi, and Papua New Guinea drew dedicated expedition coverage.

In the Pacific: Palau was where it all began — and became the world’s first shark sanctuary. Fiji (“soft coral capital of the world”) hosted the 2004 Digital Shootout. Yap was the manta ray destination, with three Manta Fests. Tonga became the premier humpback whale encounter destination, extensively documented by Tony Wu. French Polynesia’s Fakarava “Wall of Sharks” and Truk Lagoon’s WWII wrecks were pilgrimage sites.

In the Caribbean and Americas: Bonaire hosted the Digital Shootout for over a decade. The Bahamas — especially Tiger Beach — was the shark photography capital, with Jim Abernethy’s Shear Water as the Wetpixel flagship expedition vessel. Cozumel, Roatan, and the Cayman Islands drew steady Caribbean coverage. Socorro’s giant mantas and Guadalupe Island’s great whites were bucket-list destinations. Mexico’s cenotes spawned the recurring cave photography workshops.

In the Indian Ocean and beyond: the Red Sea was Mustard’s go-to camera review location for 15 years. The Maldives and Galapagos featured prominently in conservation coverage. South Africa’s sardine run was a Wetpixel expedition staple. Thailand’s Similan Islands and Richelieu Rock were the Southeast Asian liveaboard destinations of choice.

The techniques

The archive documents the complete evolution of underwater photography technique — from foundational skills to specialized disciplines. Macro photography and wide-angle photography are the two pillars, with close-focus wide-angle as the signature hybrid technique that underwater photographers pioneered. Strobe and flash photography and TTL flash metering document the community’s endless debate over manual vs. automatic exposure. White balance and color correction tracks the Magic Filter revolution and the science of restoring color at depth.

Specialized techniques emerged as the community matured: supermacro photography (extreme magnification with diopters and teleconverters), snoot lighting (pioneered by Keri Wilk and commercialized by Retra), blackwater photography (open-ocean night dives for pelagic larvae), fluorescence photography (UV-excited coral imaging), and split/over-under photography (the Doubilet-perfected half-in/half-out technique).

Subject-specific disciplines have their own rich archives: shark photography (approach techniques, baited encounters, the Tiger Beach playbook), whale and cetacean photography (behavioral photography, no-strobe technique, Tonga protocols), wreck photography (lighting confined spaces, silhouettes, remote strobes), cave photography (light beams, overhead environments, cenote workshops), muck diving photography (critter finding, guide expertise, Lembeh and Anilao), and night diving photography (focus lights, coral spawning, manta night dives).

The digital workflow is documented end-to-end: RAW workflow and post-processing (Lightroom, the RAW vs. JPEG debate, Erin Quigley’s GoAskErin tutorials), autofocus and focus techniques (back-button focus, manual focus for macro, mirrorless tracking), ambient light photography (no-strobe approaches, sunbursts, silhouettes), and backscatter management (the universal enemy of underwater photographers).

Conservation as a constant thread

Shark conservation runs through the entire archive like a backbone. From the 2007 Amazon shark fin campaign (products removed within 10 days) through Raja Ampat’s shark sanctuary (2010), CITES manta protections (2013), Rob Stewart’s death while filming Sharkwater: Extinction (2017), to CITES COP 19 protecting 113 marine species (2022) — Wetpixel’s community was consistently engaged. Shawn Heinrichs’ “Manta Ray of Hope” was a direct precursor to CITES 2013 protections. The Coral Bleaching Crisis of 2015–2017 — including Jellyfish Lake’s collapse from 8 million to under 600,000 — was extensively documented.

The industry ecosystem

The archive captures the full competitive landscape of underwater imaging equipment. Housing manufacturers Ikelite (1962), Sea & Sea (1972), Subal (1977), Aquatica (1982), Seacam (1989), and Hugyfot (1953) are all documented — along with Subal’s 2017 insolvency, Amphibico’s 2011 closure and Aquatica reacquisition, and Sea & Sea’s 2021 acquisition by Fisheye Co. Strobe makers Inon, Retra, and Backscatter are covered alongside lighting pioneers Light & Motion and Keldan. Newer entrants like Marelux (2021) and GoPro’s action camera revolution are documented as well.

Three eras

The Cheng era (2001–2011). Eric Cheng built Wetpixel from a handful of users into the definitive resource for underwater photographers, writing 1,084 articles, leading 50+ expeditions, producing 127 DEMA articles of booth-by-booth trade show coverage, running advertising and manufacturer relations, and personally managing the site’s infrastructure and community. He built a team of co-administrators (Mustard, Wiseman), moderators (Wong, Veitch, Rocha, Ko, Waghorn, Shaxted, and others), and contributors (Segal, Jones, Zumbrunn) who collectively created the most comprehensive record of underwater photography’s evolution ever assembled. He co-founded the DPG-Wetpixel competition and launched Wetpixel Quarterly. In May 2011, he appointed Adam Hanlon as editor, retaining the title Publisher and Editor-at-Large; he continued organizing expeditions through 2013. Cheng went on to Lytro (Director of Photography), DJI (Director of Aerial Imaging), and Meta Reality Labs (Head of Immersive Media), where he executive-produced Emmy-nominated VR films.

The Hanlon editorial era (2011–2022). Where Eric Cheng was the co-founder-CEO-expedition leader-photographer who built the platform, Adam Hanlon was the daily operator who kept it running at industrial scale for over a decade. Appointed editor in May 2011, Hanlon became by far the most prolific poster on the site — 4,931 articles across 14 years, peaking at 552 in 2011. Of those, at least 164 were guest contributions by authors such as Don Silcock and Alex Mustard, plus 102 Full Frame photo essays by guest photographers, all published through Hanlon’s editor account. Even accounting for guest pieces, the remaining ~4,770 articles he wrote or curated is extraordinary — at his peak, Hanlon was publishing more than 1.5 articles per day while simultaneously running the expeditions business, managing the forums, covering trade shows, and hosting video content.

His editorial footprint was comprehensive. He wrote 429 DEMA-related articles — continuing and expanding the booth-by-booth trade show tradition Cheng established. He covered Boot Düsseldorf (2012–2019), ADEX (2015–2019), the UK DIVE/Go Diving Show, and international events from Golden Dolphin Moscow to CMAS championships. He published results from virtually every major underwater photo competition annually — Wildlife Photographer of the Year, UPY, Ocean Art, DPG/Wetpixel Masters, and dozens of regional shootouts. He authored or commissioned 130+ gear reviews, personally field-testing the Nikon D500, testing strobes in the Red Sea, and reviewing the SAGA Trio macro lens system in Lembeh and Norway.

The expeditions program continued under Hanlon with 178+ trip-related articles spanning 15+ destinations: annual whale shark trips to Isla Mujeres (2010–2019), the signature Lembeh macro workshops with Alex Mustard (2013, 2016, 2018, 2023), Raja Ampat expeditions on the Damai (2016, 2022), Red Sea photography safaris on VIP ONE, cenote workshops with Natalie Gibb (2019–2023), Alaska expeditions, Guadalupe great whites, and post-DEMA Crystal River manatee trips that became a community tradition.

When COVID-19 shut down dive travel in March 2020, Hanlon pivoted to video. Wetpixel Live, co-hosted with Alex Mustard, launched June 28, 2020 and produced 302 episodes (numbered to 264, plus extras) totaling ~89 hours across nearly three years — 150 in 2020 alone, nearly one per day during lockdown. The series covered everything from strobe technique to competition strategy to guest interviews with the industry’s leading figures. It accumulated ~329,000 views and became the most comprehensive audio-visual archive of underwater photography education ever assembled, keeping the community connected during the darkest period for dive travel. The series ended in January 2024, with Mustard launching a successor show, The Underwater Photography Show.

Ownership formally transferred from Cheng to Hanlon on December 1, 2018. Hanlon incorporated Wetpixel Ltd in the UK (Company #11657743) under SIC code 79120 — Tour operator activities — reflecting the integrated editorial-and-travel business model he had built.

The decline (2022–2024). In July 2022, Hanlon claimed he had suffered a heart attack. Publishing slowed, then effectively ceased in April 2023. Hanlon cited his illness as the reason for non-payment of obligations, but continued accepting payments for forthcoming Wetpixel Expeditions (per Alex Mustard, 2026-06-09; corroborated by multiple forum accounts in [1], [2]). Community members documented in excess of $100,000 in withheld trip payments — including dive operators left unpaid, gratuities collected from guests and never passed through to crew, workshop instructors never paid, and participants who cancelled or were replaced never refunded. Hanlon restricted forum access, deleted complaint threads, and banned members who raised concerns. He pre-emptively suspended Eric Cheng’s forum account during the controversy — without ever contacting the co-founder — which is why Cheng appears as “Guest echeng” throughout the forum archive. Despite being listed as Senior Advisor on the Wetpixel masthead, Cheng was locked out of the community he had built. Hanlon deactivated his social media accounts and essentially disappeared from the internet ([3], [4]). Wetpixel Ltd was dissolved by UK Companies House in April 2024 for failure to file accounts. By early 2024, key community figures including Alex Mustard were redirecting users to Waterpixels.net as a successor community. The DPG Masters competition dropped “Wetpixel” from its name in 2025. The site remains technically accessible but is effectively dormant — a quiet end to what was, for over two decades, the center of the underwater photography world.

For the full detailed history, see Wetpixel.com.

Timeline — 25 year-by-year pages (1999–2023)

People — 263 photographers, filmmakers, editors, and community members

Gear — 85 cameras, housings, strobes, lenses, optics, and lights

Locations — 28 dive destinations from Anilao to Yap

Techniques — 21 guides from macro to wreck photography

Events — 18 trade shows, competitions, and expeditions

Companies — 27 manufacturers, retailers, and publications

Concepts — 13 industry trends, conservation topics, and Wetpixel history

How This Wiki Was Made

Wetpixel.com has had no updates since April 2023. With the site effectively dormant and its future uncertain, Eric Cheng — Wetpixel’s co-founder — undertook a comprehensive archival project in 2026 to preserve the community’s 23-year history before it could be lost.

The raw archive was captured using wget — one polite crawl of the ExpressionEngine editorial site, and a separate authenticated crawl of the Invision Community (IPS4) forums using session cookies. The content was parsed from the saved HTML into a SQLite database. The source corpus spans 1999 through 2025 and comprises:

The content was normalized into a SQLite database (~800 MB) and exported as structured markdown files with YAML frontmatter. Preprocessing scripts then built structured indexes: an entity mention index (140 entities across all articles and threads), person activity profiles for 16,069 contributors, 4,927 article topic clusters, forum thread quality scores, 1,025 article-to-forum cross-references, and a 53,669-thread long-tail index.

This wiki was generated using Claude Code (Anthropic’s Claude Opus) in a multi-session pipeline. AI agents read the preprocessed indexes to identify relevant sources, then read the raw source files to write wiki pages with source citations. Every factual claim links back to its source document. The approach was inspired by Andrej Karpathy’s karpathy/wik project — using LLMs to synthesize large archives into navigable, cross-linked knowledge bases.

The result is 453 wiki pages covering 263 people, 59 pieces of gear, 25 years of timeline, 18 events, 27 companies, 28 locations, 12 concepts, and 21 techniques — the most comprehensive record of digital underwater photography’s first two decades that exists anywhere. Every page has been through a formal rebuild process with independent fact-checking against source documents; however, as is the norm with wikis, there may be errors. Use the feedback icon (lower right) to help improve the archive!

Sources

  1. Forum thread: Wetpixeltravel Issues ↩
  2. Forum thread: How Is Adam Doing ↩
  3. Forum thread: What Is The Story Of Wetpixels Survival ↩
  4. Forum thread: Preservation Of Wetpixel ↩