One of the biggest stories last month was that an upcoming episode of the popular TV series House was filmed entirely with the Canon 5D Mark II. I know a lot of you are looking forward to seeing how it turned out, but now you can get a sneak peek: Fox has uploaded a short teaser of the episode to YouTube. It’s not HD, but it’s a pretty neat glimpse into what they were able to do:

The episode is set to air Monday, May 17th.

(via Philip Bloom)

This might be old news for some of you, but I just came across it so I’m guessing many of you haven’t seen it before either. This is a 4GB USB drive that looks exactly like a miniature Canon 5D Mark II, with an EF 24-105mm lens as the drive, and the camera body as the case.

You can find them on eBay by searching for “canon 5d usb“. These little things will set you back about $94 apiece, including shipping.

Don’t need that much power in a USB drive? There’s also a 2GB flash drive that looks like a Canon 450D (AKA Rebel XSI). It actually costs more ($110) and seems to be a bit more rare. The USB drive is also in the body rather than the lens, and it comes with a kit lens rather than a nice L lens:

Seeing as the lens ship from Hong Kong, Canon probably doesn’t have anything to do with these lenses, just like the Canon 24-105 coffee mugs that appeared when the Canon L lens mug became a crazy Internet hit.

Anyhow, if you want to say you have a full frame USB drive and don’t mind spending semi-big bucks for one, this is the way to go.

Two weeks ago we featured the short film “The Last 3 Minutes” by cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, which showcased the potential of the Canon 5D Mark II for filmmaking.

Hurlbut’s team also created a behind the scenes look at how the amazing short was filmed, and gives a great glimpse into the unique blend of effort and creativity it requires.

If you haven’t watched “The Last 3 Minutes” yet, here’s a link to our original post.

(via Planet5D)

We recently featured a Canon 5D Mark II shaped cake, but didn’t have any photographs of the back.

It just so happens that Daniel, the man for whom the cake was made, recognized it on PetaPixel and emailed us with more photographs and some background:

That cake was my groom’s cake, which was presented as a surprise by my awesome wife during our wedding reception. Knowing how much I love photography and my 5Dmk2, my wife commissioned BethAnn (owner of Studio Cake) to create this amazing piece. Since you were wondering what the back looked like, I thought I’d send you a pic…the picture on the screen is a shot from our engagement shoot (by Ray of Apertura Photography).

It’s amazing how much the cake resembles the actual camera. We love the engagement photograph displayed on the “LCD”. Sadly, Daniel informs us that the photo itself wasn’t edible.

This cake sets quite a bar for photography-related cakes. If you have any photos of similar cakes, feel free to email them to us!

The season finale of the popular TV show House, which will air on May 17th, was filmed entirely with the Canon 5D Mark II. cinema5D overheard the plan last month and Greg Yaitanes, the director of the show, has confirmed it through a tweet in which we made himself open to questions.

We’ll republish some of the interesting questions and answers here, interview style:

@MVRamunno: What is the difference in how it looks on a TV screen compared to a regular camera?

Greg Yaitanes: richer. shallow focus pulls the actors faces to forground [sic]

@oamad0101: How many frames per second and why a Canon 5D Mark II?

GY: 24p and wanted it for ease of use in tight spaces.

@unikissa: Ok, seriously. Can you tell us something about the lenses you used?

GY: all the canon primes and the 24-70 and the 70-200 zoom

@sarabury: Did you have to change any of your working practices to fit in with differences between the 5D and a typical setup?

GY: some. focus was hard with these lenses but more “cine-style” lenses are being made as we speak.

@marykir: were you using CF cards for storage or some sort of mass storage mod? seems like you would need a lot of cards :)

GY: some 18gb or something like that card. gave us 22 min of footage.

@Drdiagnostic: How was the quality as compared 2 the traditional camera used in shooting?

GY: i loved it and feel it’s the future. cameras that can give you these looks

@klizma: How did you manage to stabilize the camera in tight spaces? Any special kind of brackets?

GY: no. mostly gave it a hand held feel. or on a small tripod

This is quite an endorsement for Canon, with a network giant entrusting the finale of one of its most popular shows to the 5D Mark II (which happens to be the first digital camera to take the Presidential portrait as well).

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the popularity of the show:

In 2008, House was distributed in a total of 66 countries. With an audience of over 81.8 million worldwide, it was the most watched television show on the globe and far surpassed the viewership figures of the leading TV dramas the previous two years

If you haven’t yet, check out the short film, The Last 3 Minutes, which we posted earlier today. It was filmed with the same camera.

(via Canon 5D tips)

If you’ve always wanted to see what a Canon 5D Mark II looks like opened up, you’re in luck. zakums06 over at DCHome converted his 5D Mark II to a mirrorless version for filmmaking purposes, and documented the whole mirror removal surgery:

To see the rest of the 23 photographs zakums06 posted, check out this forum thread. The mirrorless camera can still do photography, but you’ll have to use LiveView since the whole viewfinder system is gone.

Needless to say, don’t try this at home!

(via Canon Rumors)

The Last 3 Minutes is a beautiful short film by cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, the cinematographer of Terminator Salvation. It was shot using the Canon 5D Mark II, and was sponsored by Canon to show off the latest firmware that enables 24p (frames per second) recording, giving it a “movie quality”. Filming spanned 17 locations across 4 1/2 days, and a wide assortment of Canon prime L lenses were used.

The present day portion of the film in the beginning was shot at 24p, while the flashbacks were filmed at 30p and converted to 24p in order to produce a dreamlike quality. You can read more about how the film was made on Hurlbut’s blog.

(via PDNPulse)

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!