Well, that was fast.

Just a day after removing Version 2.0.3 of the 5D Mark II firmware due to a bug, Canon has released firmware Version 2.0.4, which simply fixes the bug in Version 2.0.3.

We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience caused to our customers by suspending the availability of the Version 2.0.3 firmware.

We are now introducing the Version 2.0.4 firmware. This firmware corrects the malfunction that occurred in the previous Version 2.0.3 firmware, in which the manual recording level changed and made recording impossible.

Customers who have the Version 2.0.3 firmware on their cameras should update the firmware to Version 2.0.4.

Hopefully Canon got it right this time.

Thanks for sending in the tip Jonathan!

Fashion label LeSportsac will be joining with Canon in its release of a case designed exclusively for the PowerShot camera, the companies announced today.

No big surprise here; the fashion industry has always worked hand-in-hand with the photography industry. Photography has always played an integral part in marketing fashion.

However, the tables are turning, and designer names are now a major marketing point for photo gear.

Consumer-level cameras are abundant. Every major manufacturer has several new models of point-and-shoots each year, a testament to the power of the consumer in the imaging industry. However, in a market flooded with similar products, manufacturers scramble to distinguish themselves from the next big company.

Late last year, Lady Gaga contributed some star power to Polaroid as she joined the company as a creative director. Polaroid’s most recently garnered a prominent feature in Gaga’s latest music video, Telephone, featuring Beyonce. Celebrity spokespersons such as Ashton Kutcher for Nikon are also a recent marketing trend in drawing public interest in photo products.

Last month at PMA, GE announced a new point-and-shoot collaboration with fashion designer Jason Wu called Create by Jason Wu, whose line includes colorful cameras and stylish carrying cases. The cameras will be released this April, but GE’s running a contest this month for autographed editions of the product.

Any thoughts on this trend? Would a designer name interest you next time you shop for a camera?

Danish-Norwegian artist Nina Maria Kleivan has come under fire for a series of photographs in which she dresses up her year-old daughter Faustina as some of history’s most evil figures. The series, titled “Potency“, has been shown in exhibitions around Europe, and is meant to explore the nature of evil.

Benito Mussolini

Adolf Hitler

Mao Zedong

Saddam Hussein

Idi Amin

Joseph Stalin

The Telegraph quotes Kleivan as saying,

We all have evil within us. Even small children are evil towards each other. Even my daughter could end up ruling Denmark with an iron fist. The possibility is still there. You never know.

Even though my generation doesn’t speak out about the war, silently our cultural circle sees Hitler as evil incarnate. But this is not a deliberate provocation, it calls for reflection. Even though comical, you’re not supposed to only laugh at these pictures. You need to contemplate them, ponder where this evil comes from.

While reaction to the series has been mixed, some groups have taken offense to the work. The head of the Canadian Jewish Congress is quoted as saying,

Surely, there’s a better way to explore evil than to throw a swastika on a baby.

What do you think of this series? Is it appropriate as art, or has the artist taken it too far?

(via Boing Boing)

Just days after releasing a firmware update that brought 24 fps video to the 5D Mark II, Canon has pulled the update due to a malfunction that occurred.

Photographers who used the new firmware discovered that in a certain situation, the firmware would cause the camera to be unable to record audio. After receiving reports of this issue over the past couple days, Canon has pulled the update from the firmware page and has put up a notice, saying:

Recently we have discovered a malfunction that occurs with Firmware Version 2.0.3, in which the manual recording levels for C1/C2/C3 are changed and the camera becomes unable to record audio if the power is turned off (or if Auto power off takes effect) after registering “Sound Recording: Manual” in the camera user settings.

If you’re already using the new firmware, you can avoid this issue by having your sound recording settings set to “Auto” when using C1/C2/C3.

Canon is currently working on a new update that fixes the problem, but has not announced when it may be available.

Looks like they should have tested the firmware more before setting it loose.

Ever wonder what a vinyl record looks like under an electron microscope? Okay, probably not. Luckily, there’s people who do, including Chris Supranowitz, who created a number of electron microscope images for a course at the University of Rochester.

Here’s a photograph of the record grooves captured by Supranowitz at 500x magnification. Those dark chunks you see are dust particles.

This one was shot at 1000x magnification. The record begins to look like the Grand Canyon.

These images were created in the Spring of 2005 for the course Opt 307/407: Practical Electron Microscopy and Advanced Topics. Other projects used the electron microscope to examine such things as snowflakes and bird feathers.

To see more of the amazing images captured by Supranowitz, check out the final project page.

(via Reckon)

This past week we ran a poll asking our readers what operating system they mainly use. Here are the results:

[poll id="37"]

481 votes were for a Windows OS compared to 606 for a Mac OS. This means roughly 49% of our readers who decided to vote use Macs, while 39% use some form of Windows.

Assuming that most people who took the time to vote in our poll are fairly serious about photography (we’re a photography blog, after all), we can say this poll is a glimpse at operating system choices among photographers.

Now lets take a look at what Google Analytics tell us about the OS breakdown of our visitors:

This takes into account all of our visitors, regardless of whether or not they vote. Since this includes loyal readers as well as people who simply pass by, the average interest in photography is probably much less than those who chose to vote. Windows leads 66% to Mac’s 29%.

However, this still shows that our readers are, on average, quite different from the general population. Here’s the breakdown of OS use among the general Internet population:

Thus, Mac jumps from having a 5.9% market share in the general population to 49% among photographers. If we were a blog read only by professional photographers, I’d expect the percentage to be even higher.

Any thoughts on these statistics?

Image credit: Kick Boxing… by claudiogennari

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will soon be accepting applications for new generic top level domains (gTLD) to be created, potentially ushering in a new Internet land rush.

Currently, only a handful of gTLDs exist, including common ones such as .com, .net, .org, and less known ones such as .aero, .asia, and .travel. When ICANN opens up the application process, it may lead to an explosion in the number of gTLDs.

While many large corporations are presumably waiting to pounce on a gTLD for their business, Canon has decided to openly announce their intention of registering “.canon” in a press release. If everything goes according to plan, you might soon be seeing websites with domain names like “my.canon” or “buy.canon”.

Regardless of whether or not companies succeed in claiming their own gTLD, convincing the general public to use that gTLD might be much more trickly. Canon states,

With the adoption of the new gTLD system, which enables the direct utilization of the Canon brand, Canon hopes to globally integrate open communication policies that are intuitive and easier to remember compared with existing domain names such as “canon.com.” [...] Following approval for the new gTLD system, which is expected to take place after the latter half of 2011, Canon will make full use of the new domain name to increase the convenience and effectiveness of its online communications.

I’m wondering whether Canon really believes .canon to be more intuitive and easier to remember than .com, which has become seemingly synonymous with the Internet. It might simply be an attempt to secure the name so no one else can steal it.

Do you think “canon.canon” is more intuitive than “canon.com”?

Thanks @eugenephoto, for the tip!

We reported last month that the New York auction house, Sotheby’s will be facilitating the sale of more than 1,200 photos from the Polaroid company’s collection this June. The photos include images captured by legendary photographers and artists such as Ansel Adams and Andy Warhol. Sotheby’s estimates that the collection will raise some $7.5 million to $11.5 million, which will go towards paying for Polaroid’s Minnesota bankruptcy court.

Yet while Polaroid regains its financial footing, several featured photographers feel they are at a loss — if the photos change hands, they may lose their contractual rights.

According to the British Journal of Photography, some of the photographers are motioning for a re-hearing, hoping that the courts will reconsider selling the collection.

When the auction was first announced, photographer Chuck Close shared his disapproval in an interview with the New York Times that such a groundbreaking collection should go to the auction block:

“There’s really nothing like it in the history of photography.” But, he added, “to sell it is criminal.”

While the sale of these images is not technically illegal, the copyright laws are muddied in this situation. Typically, when a print is sold, the artist or photographer retains the copyright, along with the ability to reproduce his or her image. However, with these Polaroid images, the original image is unique.

Originally, when the artists gave the images to the Polaroid collection, their contracts granted them perpetual access to their work. But when the auction occurs, the contract will be nullified once the work is sold. Since the one of a kind images shot on instant film cannot be replicated, the artists require direct access to their work in order to license it.

In an interview with the British Journal of Photography, American critic Allan Coleman sums up the problem:

“Since they don’t have access, they can’t license the works. All they have is the copyright, which is meaningless now. I don’t think the court understood the unique nature of the collection.”

(via The British Journal of Photography)

It might be hard to believe, but each of the following “paintings” is actually a photograph by artist Alexa Meade.

Here’s a quick look behind the scenes to show you what we mean:

Were you fooled? We were.

To create the effect, Meade paints on three dimensional surfaces of objects, people, and spaces using acrylic paint.

To see more of her work, check out her Acrylic on Flesh Flickr set, or visit her website.

Image credits: Photographs by Alexa Meade and used with permission.

When Canon released the 5D Mark II, many who wanted to utilize the HD-video recording capabilities were disappointed that it only offered 30 frames per second (fps) and not 24.

Today, after a long wait, Canon has finally released version 2.0.3 of the firmware that brings 24 fps (actually 23.976 fps) to the 5DMkII.

Here’s why this matters:

24 fps is a desirable frame rate because it delivers video that has a cinematic look and feel. Of course, many other factors contribute to giving video a “movie look”, but frames per second is a big component. Virtually every movie you see at the movie theater was filmed at 24 fps (also known as 24p).

On the other hand, most of the stuff you see on television is shot at 30 fps, which is closer to how our eyes naturally see. This means there can be less motion blur, making it more suitable for things such as sports and news. This is also why most TV shows don’t have a “movie feel” to them.

The problem is that video cannot be perfectly converted from 30fps to 24fps, or vice versa. Thus, those who used the 5D Mark II were either stuck with the native 30fps or less than ideal 24fps if they somehow convert it.

Now, with the firmware update, the 5D Mark II can naturally obtain the movie-like quality that many have waited so long for.

If you have a 5D Mark II, you can download the firmware update from Canon’s website.