This is definitely the case with one Flickr user – Dippold – who has shared a template to build your own camera. A perfect little project to keep you from gorging on all those chocolate Easter eggs this holiday!

All you need is a printer, some paper, a rubber band and a couple of rolls of 35mm film and you too can make your own pin-hole camera. Even better, Dippold has even added a nifty chart providing guideline exposure times.

Follow the link below to view Dippold’s Flickr stream and get the template yourself.

Dippold: Pin-hole Camera Tutorial & Template

Whilst most of the news and blog posts have focused on the additional of a function to allow manual exposure control when shooting HD Movies is does contain some other improvements and fixes. So even if you are not interested in the manual exposure feature it may be worthwhile installing it.

Firmware Version 1.1.0 incorporates the following improvements and fixes.

1. Includes a function to enable the manual exposure setting when shooting movies.
2. Fixes a phenomenon where the peripheral illumination of images cannot be properly corrected, even if the images were captured with the lens peripheral illumination correction function set to Enable.
3. Fixes incorrect indications on the Arabic, Romanian, Spanish, and Ukrainian menu screens.
4. Changes the battery information displayed on the camera when using the optional Battery Grip BG-E6.

The link below will take you to Canon page where you can download the update and find installation instructions.
EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Update Version 1.1.0

by FJTU (a veces on-line)

Following my previous post about increases in the use of and equipment for taking videos on your DSLR I thought I’d post something for those of you that don’t have the ability to record video.

DPS has just posted a great introductory article on time lapse photography – the process of taking regular single shots over a period of time then putting them all together to form a video. The article also includes some great examples of what can be done.

In addition, I thought I’d add a couple of other tools that may or may not help you if you decide to try some time lapse photography.

The first is a clever way to take tethered shots without having to lug a laptop around with you. If you’ve upgraded your Nintendo DS to a DSi and are wondering what to do with the old DS, then here’s your answer. Steve Chapman has created a program for his DS that allows him to use the game device to control his camera.

The second is a way to add pans and zooms to static time-lapse shots you’ve taken created by Jeffrey Friedl. For this, you’ll need both Adobe Lightroom and the ability to run a Perl script on your computer. As this amends your Lightroom catalog and pictures its not for the faint hearted, but could make your time lapse sets more dynamic.

Links to all the sites mentioned above are included below. Enjoy!

DPS: An Introduction to Time Lapse Photography
Steve Chapman: Controlling your Camera with a Nintendo DS
Jeffrey Friedl: Panning a Time Lapse with Lightroom and Perl

And of course once you’ve mastered all of the above, why not add a tilt-shift lens and try something like this!

Keith Loutit’s ‘Little Sydney’

With the increasing number of DSLRs that now allow you to take video such as Nikon’s D90 and D5000 and Canon’s 5D Mk II and 500D, it seems people are catching the DSLR video bug.

There was the recent announcement of the movie “Searching for Sonny” which is the first feature length movie to be shot entirely with a DLSR – the Canon 5D Mk II in this case. There have also been examples of DIY elements such as steady cams to provide smoother motion when filming with your DSLR. After viewing the steady cam video I mentioned to a friend that I didn’t think it would be long before the usual tripod manufacturers caught on and started producing steady cam frames of their own.

Whilst it isn’t a tripod maker, it does appear at least one (professional film rig) manufacturer is taking DSLR video accessories seriously – Redrock. They’ve just announced a hybrid cinema rig to turn your DSLR into a Hollywood-style digital cinema camera. So I’m sure it won’t be long now before there are other similar announcements.

Redrock DSLR Video Products

Look what arrived in the post for me yesterday!

After waiting for quite a while I’ve finally upgraded to a Canon 5D Mk II. I haven’t really had chance to sit down and have a serious play with it yet but I plan to try and get out this weekend to take some shots and give it a test run.

So look out for future posts on how I’m getting on with it.

The features of the new camera, pretty much aimed at the Nikon D90 are:

• 15.1 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor
• Full HD movie recording with HDMI connection for viewing and playback on an HDTV
• ISO 100-3200 (expandable to 12800)
• 3.4 frames per second continuous shooting
• Max. 170 large JPEG images in a single burst
• 3.0″ ClearView LCD with Live View mode
• 9-point wide area AF with cross type centre point
• High speed DIGIC 4 performance and superb image quality
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System
• Full compatibility with Canon EF and EF-S lenses and EX-series Speedlites, including new Speedlite 270EX, TS-E 17mm f/4L and TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

You can check out the full details and features on DP Review. However on a personal level I wish Canon would concentrate more on being able to deliver those cameras already in the marketplace. The 5D Mk II is impossible to find and I’ve had one on back-order for a while now. There’s obviously a delivery chain problem.

DP Review: Canon unveils EOS 500D / Rebel T1i DSLR

As always Digital Photography Review has a round up of all the action, including information on the over 100 products announced during the event. Their (as usual) comprehensive report breaks things down by manufacturer, outlining their announcements, new or updated equipment.

At the moment the site is showing an mainly updates on what they saw, but keep an eye open for their round-up report in the coming days, now the show has finished.

UPDATE: DP Review have just posted their 2009 show report. The below page now shows a full wrap up from this year’s show.

DPS: PMA 2009

Overall they plump for the 5D, mainly due to the ability to switch between still and HD 1080p video using a 35mm lens. The D700 does come out better in some of the tests though, such as high ISO.

Click through on the link below to read the full review.

Canon 5D Mark II vs. Nikon D700 Review Shoot-Out

The full review consists of over 40 pages of specifications, examination of the body design and menu layouts through to performance, features and a range of exhaustive tests.

To check out the full review and find out their overall conclusion on the camera, follow the link below.

DPReview.com: Canon EOS 5D Mark II In-depth Review

It turns out the newly assigned White House photographer, Pete Souza, uses the new Canon EOS 5D Mk II. How do I know? Well President Elect Obama’s official portrait (left) was taken with a digital camera for the first time. As Engadget points out, this means we can peek at the EXIF data.

• Canon EOS 5D Mk II
• 105mm lens stopped to f/10
• 1/125 exposure, with an ISO of 100