Canon is looking into building power zoom lenses to use for video use. In an interview given to techradar, Mr. David Parry from Canon UK said that «Power zoom would be very good to have for video, we’re looking into it – that would be quite intriguing». “power”, here, doesn’t mean a super zoom lens, but a zoom lens where the zooming movement is powered (by a motor). Not trivial, since in videography manually adjusting the zoom may introduce shaking and noise. Other features a power zoom could have, is to be able to zoom in or out after given time intervals. In other terms: the zooming operations could be programmed to be executed in an automatic fashion. Canon is actually not producing such lenses, nor do other big brands for their DSLRs. Panasonic and Olympus build such lenses for their mirrorless system cameras.

It’s not surprising that Canon has about powered zooms, given the fact that the [shoplink 254]EOS 5D Mark II[/shoplink]before, and the [shoplink 2431]EOS 5D Mark III[/shoplink] now, revolutionized/are revolutionizing the way of making films. It’s well known, for instance, that an episodes of House MD was shot using an EOS 5D Mark II.

Another post for our German visitors. Publisher d-punkt is offering this book for free since a new edition covering LR4 will be available by the end of the month. Although the book covers the precedent release of LR, it remains useful. Lot of things (and work-flow steps) didn’t change from LR3 to LR4, hence the book is still a good introduction to LR. All aspects of the photographic work-flow are contemplated. Click here to download the book.

This is just a little & funny video that fakes some sort of “Photographic Olympics”. “photographic” not because the best existing gear is used to shot pics, but because the gear is used to do the game. So, while you are waiting for the Summer Olympics in London to start, you may fantasize on what you could/would/may/will do to your photographic gear next time a picture doesn’t come out as you wanted, or you missed the shot of your life. The video was made by Canada based seller The Camera Store, and – no! – no working gear was used in the video. :-) This is not the first video of the sort made by these guys. You can watch an older one below. Have fun, and a nice day (or night)!

 [via Rob Galbraith via IR]