Magic Lantern

[DanK]

All you Canon shooters: I am looking for advice about Magic Lantern. I haven't had much interest in it before, but I just learned that it adds focus peaking in live view, which would be useful for some of my macro work. Anyone have any good or bad experience? The body I would use it on is a 5D Mark III.

thanks

[bnnrcn]

I didn't know what Magic Lantern was, so I googled it and I found this. I just had a quick look at the video and it says something about better focusing in live view. It might help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrx2kJ6dBt4

[DanK]

I didn't know what Magic Lantern was, so I googled it and I found this. I just had a quick look at the video and it says something about better focusing in live view. It might help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrx2kJ6dBt4

Thanks. It does a lot. My concern is that there might be drawbacks that become apparent with use.


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[GrahamS]

Magic Lantern is primarily designed to enhance video capture. The drawback is that it is not sanctioned by Canon, so if anything goes wrong, your warranty is void.

[Manfred M]

Magic Lantern is primarily designed to enhance video capture. The drawback is that it is not sanctioned by Canon, so if anything goes wrong, your warranty is void.

My understanding is that it is a side-load that resides on the camera's memory card and does not affect the actual camera firmware, so there is no impact on the camera = no impact on the warranty. Besides, focus peaking and zebra stripes work just as well for stills as they do for video.

[DanK]

Thanks. It does have enough features for still shooting that it's an appealing option.

[Black Pearl]

A fellow shooter has it loaded on his 6D and finds it very useful, particularly the focus peaking.

If there are any things you'd like a little more feedback on bung them below and I'll ask him specifics.

[DanK]

A fellow shooter has it loaded on his 6D and finds it very useful, particularly the focus peaking.

If there are any things you'd like a little more feedback on bung them below and I'll ask him specifics.

Thanks. I was mostly interested in whether anyone had a cautionary tale. So far, no.

[lunaticitizen]

This.

[DanK]

This.

wow. I think I may do without.

[GrahamS]

My understanding is that it is a side-load that resides on the camera's memory card and does not affect the actual camera firmware, so there is no impact on the camera = no impact on the warranty. Besides, focus peaking and zebra stripes work just as well for stills as they do for video.

This is incorrect. Magic Lantern is a new firmware package that replaces the Canon firmware package.

[Manfred M]

This is incorrect. Magic Lantern is a new firmware package that replaces the Canon firmware package.

As I Nikon user I have no direct working knowledge of this package, but the information I have received from Magic Lantern users tells me otherwise.

It is not firmware per se as it does not override the firmware residing on the camera's EPROM. Remove the power to the camera and to a "cold" restart and the actual firmware will load again and override Magic Lantern package and no trace of Magic Lantern in left on the camera.

The closest desktop / laptop equivalent I can think of is loading a different operating system by telling the computer to load an operating system from an external disk or memory stick, rather than a hard drive. It will continue to operate on your computer until the next time you restart it and the computer loads the OS from the hard drive again.

With a camera, even when you turn it "off", you really are turning it to "standby" mode, so the side-load continues to reside where the camera's operating system loads to. If you do a true "cold restart", by either updating the camera's firmware or removing the camera's battery and running down the camera's internal backup battery, the operating system will be reloaded from the EPROM again, wiping out all traces of Magic Lantern. If this happens, you have to reload Magic Lantern again.

[Black Pearl]

This is incorrect. Magic Lantern is a new firmware package that replaces the Canon firmware package.

From their website:

Magic Lantern is a software enhancement that offers increased functionality to the excellent Canon DSLR cameras. We have created an open framework, licensed under GPL, for developing extensions to the official firmware.

Magic Lantern is not a "hack", or a modified firmware, it is an independent program that runs alongside Canon's own software. Each time you start your camera, Magic Lantern is loaded from your memory card. Our only modification was to enable the ability to run software from the memory card.

[Daman]

I installed Magic Lantern into Canon 7D, it seemed okay for the first few day's, then i started experiencing glitches, sometimes i couldn't switch back to my normal window, then the screen would start to scramble the display on the lcd, i had a few freezes, I then decided to remove it from my camera and everything returned to normal, many people have had only positive experiences with this software but unfortunately it didn't work for me

[DanK]

I'm persuaded. I'm going to do without, at least for now.

[russellsnr]

Hi, Used ML for a long time on my 600D and now my 6D Great piece of kit that IS loaded onto the SD card and does NOT replace the Canon firmware. I shoot only stills (no video) so many extra options with ML installed, far to many to list here but go to the ML site and read all about it. http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/
Russ

[inkista]

I installed Magic Lantern into Canon 7D, it seemed okay for the first few day's, then i started experiencing glitches, sometimes i couldn't switch back to my normal window, then the screen would start to scramble the display on the lcd, i had a few freezes, I then decided to remove it from my camera and everything returned to normal, many people have had only positive experiences with this software but unfortunately it didn't work for me

I've found that the experience you have with MagicLantern is entirely dependent on which camera model you have, and how mature the development for that model is on ML. The 7D's ML build history has been long, bumpy, and fraught with divisiveness (go google "Tragic Lantern" to get some idea of how disruptive this was to the ML dev community). The main problem with the 7D TL build is that a) it was mostly done by one guy as a learn-to-program project, b) he didn't understand best practices, and c) he learned far too late he should have been pushing his additions back onto into the repository for peer review. It was, basically a huge fail simply because someone didn't grok best practices for open source and had to learn it all the hard way, with a lot of wasted effort. It was kind of heartbreaking.

Me, I have a 5DMkII and a 50D, both of which I've loaded ML on, and the worst side effect would be battery drain because I forgot to wait 10 seconds before pulling out the camera card. I had one or two freezes, but these were easily fixed by simply pulling the battery from the camera and rebooting, and mostly happened when the build were new.

As someone with an EE/CS degree and an affinity for tech stuff and an ability to read release notes , ML has never scared me much. It's basically code that runs on top of the DryOS system in the camera--it's more like adding applications, using the memory card as a hard drive, than it is like replacing firmware. If you jump in too early, sure, you might brick your camera, but understand that the programmers have a huge incentive not to brick your camera, because that would mean bricking their camera, too.

For me, adding video capability to the 50D, and having auto-ETTR, dual-ISO (single-shot HDR mode), auto-bracketing, focus peaking, trap focus, intervalometer, etc. etc. is worth the baggage. And it's always fun to freak someone out by showing them you can play Arkanoid on your dSLR. If I'm worried about ML flaking out on me in the field, I simply use a different memory card that doesn't have ML on it in the camera for that shoot.

Everybody's comfort level with this kind of thing is different, though, and if you're not ready to take the plunge, I wouldn't. The 5DIII, like the 7Ds, being dual-DIGIC cameras, may be a little riskier in use with ML than my antiquated babies; not to mention a bit more expensive.

But dual-ISO mode pretty much has me keep ML on a card in the bag at all times.

[BrianA61]

I have had ML on my 5D2 for quite some time. I always try to use the latest version, which seems to change fairly frequently. I have had ZERO issues with it. The thing to keep in mind is that the Canon firmware version makes a difference. You HAVE to run ML on the correct firmware version listed on ML's website. I just bought a used 7D body and loaded the ML version listed on their site but only after upgrading the camera firmware to the correct one listed. It is not the latest firmware but it is one that ML will work with. I have had a chance to test it since I just got the camera and haven't taken it for a test drive yet. I like the enhancements to the functions of the camera that you couldn't otherwise take advantage of. And, it just isn't for video capture. There are a LOT of enhanced features for stills, which is what I shoot anyway. It's easy to remove if you don't like it, so, no harm, no foul.