I just got home from six days of the 2009 Multimedia Immersion and NPPA Convergence held in Las Vegas. It was exhausting, exhilarating, inspirational and humbling.

We coached 45 students from around the country on how to produce multimedia storytelling. We used gear from our sponsors, Canon, Think Tank Photo and Roberts Imaging, and along the way we tried to instruct and inspire the students so they could go home and spread the multimedia goodness to their friends and coworkers.

20-something iPhone photos stitched together

And we ate a lot of noodles.

At some point, all of the handouts that the coaches provided will be available as downloads on the Multimedia Immersion website. I made up a tip sheet for the 5D Mark II, as more than 15 of the students used that as their only video camera. And on Thursday at the NPPA Convergence, I gave a presentation on Photoblogging geared to the beginners. Both of those can be dowloaded from my blog.

Make sure to check in with the Immersion website to see when the participant’s videos are posted – there is some bad-ass work in there!

Includes a function to enable the manual exposure setting when shooting movies.

*When shooting movies in manual (M) mode, the shutter speed *1, the lens aperture value *2, and the ISO speed *3 can be freely set to allow a greater flexibility.

Notes:
*1 Shutter speed range: 1/30 sec. to 1/4000 sec.
*2 Lens aperture range: Maximum to minimum aperture value of the lens used
*3 ISO speed range:
Auto: ISO 100 to 6400 set automatically
Manual: ISO 100 to 6400, H1

That’s fantastic news for most of us who have had to master the art of trickery and MacGyverism to get the camera to expose the way we want it to.

I’ll be sure to report back after using it.

With the popular request for manual exposure control within video for the EOS 5D Mark II, Canon U.S.A. Inc. will be releasing a free firmware upgrade in early June. The upgrade will enable users to have manual exposure controls while shooting video, including ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. The manual exposure control in video on the EOS 5D Mark II is expected to make a huge impact with photographers. –Mary

Here’s the link to the press release. I’ll be sure to review it here shortly after it’s debut.

Regardless, Canon says their new 1.0.7 firmware update will take care of the problem and also addresses some vertical banding noise.

The surpise was which paper they wanted to sell – I’m not so suprised that they’re starting the fire sale. Makes you wonder what’s in store for the HL.