Magic Lantern Firmware

[Oliver Christoph Kochs]

Hello,

just a short report on Hudson's enormous achievement. We have used the Magic Lantern Firmware Add-on for a production and it was really helpful to turn off the auto gain for the audio. We have used a sound devices 702 recorder (recorded as a backup) and plugged it into the mini jack of the 5DII. Audio sounds very good on the camera and is totally in sync.

If anybody else is using this, please comment your experiences here.

Thanx so much...

[Oliver Christoph Kochs]

Mr. Hudson has released an updated Firmware add-on. Some really funky stuff in there like storing settings to a config file, multiple on-screen menues and a custom designable cropmarks screen. You can rack focus stored in a setting and "play" it! The overall stability seems to have improved. Well done!!! This is getting massive!!!

[Phil Rhodes]

This is all good fun and very laudable, but I have a sneaking suspicion we're trying to polish a turd here.

 

The things the 5D needs are 24-frame rates, uncompressed output, and cleaning up of the aliasing problems. The hardware is probably capable of doing the first, might be capable of doing the second, and is almost certainly not capable of doing the third.

 

I'm as excited about the thing as anyone - it appears to poop all over red in terms of dynamic range - but there are fundamental problems with it which follow focus tricks do not address.

 

P

[Oliver Christoph Kochs]

Hi Paul, regarding number three: This Digic 4 won't be able to interpolate pixels.

For the Other issues: Certainly i know that it is true. I am tired of converting to 25p also. This process occupies my Mac for no reason. I do tell every Canon rep to do something about the framerates. Yet, the audio-thing comes in handy. I've had excellent results and so i think it is okay to promote this.

BTW i have never had much of the aliasing issues, a couple times moire patterns but that i would have had with ANY videocam...

[Emanuel A Guedes]

0.1.6 version release

 

We already knew the quality audio feature, now rack focus in-camera among many other features:

 

* Custom cropmarks bitmap file

* Live histogram while recording

* Time remaining estimate indicator

* Automated focus pulls

* Focus stacking

* HDR exposure bracketing

* Lens data (hyperfocal distance, DOF, etc)

* Cleaner, multi-level menus that timeout automatically

* Audio monitoring can be turned off during clip review

* Internal mic can be used (must enable audio.mic-power=1 in config)

* Output audio volume control

* Configuration can be saved into magiclantern.cfg

 

LINK for details

 

On other forums:

 

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=4589

 

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=180272

 

 

And here's a link where the feature development has been presented with the help of other contributions (interesting ones*, actually):

 

Rack focus using EF motors via Software

 

 

* with the release of more power to come

[Jean Dodge]

Hudson is also working on some Sorbel edge mapping software that may allow for focus assist to be displayed. This is very useful and a good stopgap measure to cover the camera's inability to send a high quality signal to a monitor when it is recording. The Marshall monitor has a similar feature, which is great.

 

The camera reminds me of what it is like to shoot with wide-open super speed lenses and a slow optical finder in low light - you just don't have the ability to judge critical focus. The taking lens out-performs the display method.

 

I'm not sure if this focus assist feature is in the current version or not. But I hope it works. I'm interested in the looks this camera is capable of getting without intimidating the subjects you are interacting with. Shooting on city streets at night is a lot of fun with the 5Dmk2.

 

The magic lantern firmware has really been a marvel to see develop. Sure some features are more useful than others but look at the progress he has made.