www.DivePhotoGuide and www.Wetpixel.com announce their first photo contest.

All right. We admit it. Digital photography has changed our lives. We no longer feel the urge to fall on our dive knife when a whale shark swims by and we have just squeezed off that 37th image on a 36-exposure roll of film; now we can just delete the shot we accidentally caught of our instrument console, and go try to swim down Moby Dick.

Obviously, we're not alone. www.Wetpixel.com and www.DivePhotoGuide.com have announced their first annual International Photo Competition and it is—get this—restricted to _digital photography only (okay… you can scan a slide if you want… but submissions have to be in a digital format).

There are six categories for entries, including traditional macro, unrestricted macro, traditional wide-angle, unrestricted wide-angle, environment and conservation, and—our favorite—a special "compact camera" category just for owners of point-and-shoot cameras, so you can enter on a shoestring if you want to.

Prizes include trips to some of the top photo destinations in the world, HID lighting systems, camera housings, and other get-you-drooling goodies, and 15% of the entry fees will be donated to marine conservation efforts.

But here's the kicker—you have to click quick. The deadline for entries is February 3, 2006. For more information, go to: www.wetpixel.com/i.php/contest/