It’s been obvious from day one that it was possible, but after a couple of years of oh-so-painful 30 FPS recording on the EOS 5D Mark II , Canon is finally coming through with its long-promised 2.0.3 update that brings 29.97 FPS and 24 FPS (23.976, to be precise) 1080p recording at last. Even the VGA mode has been swapped to a 29.97 actual rate, and PAL mode has a flat 25 FPS and 23.976 FPS as well. Additional tweaks include a manual volume adjustment (as opposed to the automatic gain the cameras usually employ), a brightness or RGB histogram display (this function, like some of these other features, has been available for a while as a hack), shutter and aperture priority modes have been added for movie shooting, and the audio sampling ramp has been bumped from 44.1KHz to 44KHz. The bad news: now you don’t have any excuses for not shooting that heartwrenching mumblecore masterpiece you’ve been telling everyone you’re working on. Hit up the source link for the download instructions

Nobody is going to share the murky photos from the DSi’s integrated camera, so why not hack a classic DS to become a controller for a dSLR? More

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

Remember this amazing travel mug shaped like a camera lens that Canon handed out to press at the Olympics? Well, now you can pre-order one for yourself for a mere $30 CAD. Sweet! [ Vistek via DoobyBrain via The Daily What ] More

Those press covering the Olympics sure do have a plum life. They bundle off to Vancouver for 16 days of watching ice-skaters embarrassing themselves , and ruthless Russian bobsledders showing their dark sides. Oh, and they get lens-shaped thermoses. The story goes that a Microsoft employee by the name of Josh Weisberg wandered into the Canon press tent at the Olympic Press Center, and got given a 70-200mm Canon L-series lens. Or so he thought, probably tucking it safely in his backpack before Canon realized they had gifted him a lens instead of a branded pen or hat.

We should all be pretty familiar with the specs of Canon ’s latest mainstream DSLR, so let’s skip past the new 18 megapixel CMOS sensor, SDXC memory card compatibility and high-res 3-inch LCD screen, and just focus on the one area where the Rebel T2i has a shot at matching the EOS 7D : 1080p video . Ron Risman of Cameratown has perched the two black-clad champs atop a tripod, installed identical (for the purposes of the test) lenses on them, and gone to town with testing the ISO performance of the two bodies. As he sees it, there’s no perceptible difference between the two up to ISO 1600, though looking at his video test we’re also hard pressed to distinguish any notable discrepancies at the maximum 6400 setting. Needless to say, the conclusion is that if you’re just after the 7D’s video performance with a smaller price tag, the Rebel T2i / 550D is the shooter for you. To make that decision as informed as possible, there’s also a feature comparison list, so skip along to the source link to get informed.

The Canon T2i dSLR sounded extremely exciting, as it promised to bring 1080P video (with decent frame rates) to Canon’s sub-$1000 dSLR line. Photographer Dan Chung was among the first to test it out, and the results look fantastic. As it turns out this little camera is a really competent performer and the footage I’ve shot so far looks pretty much the same as my 7D to my eye…The footage you see here is shot at 1080p/25 frames a second and not graded with only minor adjustments of gamma, sharpening and a little smoothcam in Final Cut Pro…In terms of video image quality I think it is too early to make definitive judgments…[but] I think this camera is cheap enough that there is now little reason for pros who have not yet bought a HD-DSLR to not put their toes in the water and see if they like shooting video. Note that Chung accentuated the frame rate by shooting almost exclusively with long dolly movements. But if Chung’s hands-on wasn’t enough, here’s another beautiful clip from another photographer named Drew Painter

The Canon T2i dSLR sounded extremely exciting, as it promised to bring 1080P video (with decent frame rates) to Canon’s sub-$1000 dSLR line. Photographer Dan Chung was among the first to test it out, and the results look fantastic. As it turns out this little camera is a really competent performer and the footage I’ve shot so far looks pretty much the same as my 7D to my eye…The footage you see here is shot at 1080p/25 frames a second and not graded with only minor adjustments of gamma, sharpening and a little smoothcam in Final Cut Pro…In terms of video image quality I think it is too early to make definitive judgments…[but] I think this camera is cheap enough that there is now little reason for pros who have not yet bought a HD-DSLR to not put their toes in the water and see if they like shooting video. Note that Chung accentuated the frame rate by shooting almost exclusively with long dolly movements. But if Chung’s hands-on wasn’t enough, here’s another beautiful clip from another photographer named Drew Painter . [ DSLR News Shooter via planet5D ]

The problem with elven cameras like Canon’s S90 is that they’re awkward to hold sometimes. Richard Franiec’s custom grip—CNC-machined from a block of aircraft-grade aluminum and black-anodized to match—adds just enough extra surface area to fix that. It stays just about as pocketable since the grip sits 1.5mm below the lens, and is attached to the camera with very high bond adhesive tape (meaning you can take it off without screwing up the camera’s finish). It’s 33 bucks, which isn’t a bad price to pay to make one of the best point-and-shoots on the planet even more usable.

If you enjoy 33-page camera reviews, today’s your lucky day, friend, with DP Review’s epic page-turner on Canon’s 1D Mark IV . Solid low-light performance, the fastest full-res shooting on the planet, and they’ve fixed the AF. Video? Dicier: [ DP Review ]