Hi,

Been using ML without problems for a while now. Progress is very fast at the moment. Loving the peaking filter, and external monitor issues are being worked through.

So currently have zebras, cropmarks and peaking filters, and it seems we might be getting false colours and picture in picture focus assist overlay.

With all this, do people feel this slightly lessens the need to invest in top a quality field monitor?

Thoughts?

James

I have been using Magic Lantern for the 5D since its inception, and was one of the early testers working with the Trammel's initial builds. More recently, I have been shadowing, and doing some testing of the builds as Alex and other out put them. I am also testing AJ Newman's fabulous build off the 5D side, which is providing great new features like magnified focus assist, and false colors, as well as a neat interface on the camera LCD.

Alex, and other on the 550D/T2i side, are currently working on the monitor issues. Essentially, the overlay for a lot of the features like zebras, do not output to a monitor. As a result, you get a confused and jumble monitor screen, and attempts are being made to see if that can be overcome. Trammel Hudson had taken a brief run at it on the 5D side in the past year, but was not successful, though, to be fair, he was probably not able to put a lot of time in it.

At this point, those of you that are concerned about safety, I can report I have not bricked a camera yet. But I am not saying it can't possibly happen, but thus far, I have been confident that the builds are relatively safe. But there seem to be some misunderstandings here that potential users need to understand

1. Magic Lantern rides piggy back on your current firmware. It is firmware version specific, so you need to be sure your camera has the current firmware version.

2. You install magic lantern using your media chip. It must remain on the chip to be called each time the camera starts up. The chip, has to be boot enabled to automatcally boot Magic Lantern when you start the camera. There are instructions for doing that. The card must have the various files on it that come in the package. These will reside in the root directory of your card. You should not mess with them, except that in successive updates, you can just overwrite them with newer version. In latest versions there is also a directory on the card called "cropmks" which contains the various cropmark choices. (Note, you can actually run some Magic Lantern builds by calling for a firmware update each time you start the camera, as long as the firmware is on the card. Because Trammel Hudson experienced what he believed was a limitation on the amount of firmware updates allowed on his 7D, the continual firmware updates on other cameras are not currently considered smart, so the autoboot methods were designed for that reason, as well as for convenience.)

3. If you don't want to run Magic Lantern for a particular project, use a chip that it is not installed on. I have two chips dedicated to Magic Lantern, and serveral not. I am using Class 10 chips for Magic Lantern to take advantage of the increased bit rates it is promising.

4. If your camera locks up, goes dark, or does seem to be working properly while using magic lantern, usually, shutting down, and removing the battery, then reinserting it, will work to get it going. If that doesn't work, then removing the card, and start the camera without a card in the slot to resolve the start failure. Use another card without Magic Lantern to confirm camera is operating properly.

5. You should remember this is all experimental. I am willing to risk by cameras to be able to employ the advanced features that are offered, and that risk is worth it to me. If you are satisfied to work within the limitations of the stock camera, do not mess with it.

Thank you very much Chris for that, in depth reply. It makes me feel a lot better about this and I look forward to working with it. I certainly hope they fix the issue where every time you turn the camera on, you have to readjust the settings in ML back to the way you had it before. That gets to be a pain in the neck.

Ditto - Thanks for that post Chris...

I certainly hope they fix the issue where every time you turn the camera on, you have to readjust the settings in ML back to the way you had it before. That gets to be a pain in the neck.

To have your camera start with your desired settings each time you turn it on, open the ML menu, go to Debug>Save config and press set.
Do the above each time you change any setting in the ML menu, and you want those settings to open as default.

[QUOTE=Steve Boutin;1609636

Something I discovered from sifting through all of the info there, which was more exciting to me than Magic Lantern itself, was that when you use the manual lenses (vintage ebay lenses etc.), to see what you are actually shooting (wysiwyg) just press the +-AV button, and move the wheel back, and forth, a couple times, and you're good to go! This might be a Canon firmware bug according to Alex the programmer for Magic Lantern.

Then again, maybe this is something everybody already knew except me :) wouldn't be the first time.[/QUOTE]

Steve, I dont understand what you mean by this. You get the same view through the screen (wysiwyg) when using old manual focus lenses as you do using chipped, modern lenses. The only difference is you have to press the record button to get the view up on the screen. It has always been like this.
Cheers.

As stated above, you can save config, and it will return the ame settings to you on start back up. Trick is that the config file that it writes to is on the chip you have in your camera at that time. If you want to use another card, you have to transfer that file to the new card to have it start up that way. Also, as the various new features have been added, some of the features with setting may not have been added to the save config write command, and those are bugs that should be reported for fixes.

To have your camera start with your desired settings each time you turn it on, open the ML menu, go to Debug>Save config and press set.
Do the above each time you change any setting in the ML menu, and you want those settings to open as default.

Oh, outstanding Colin!!! Thank you so much for that!!

[QUOTE=Colin Rowe;1609998]Steve, I dont understand what you mean by this. You get the same view through the screen (wysiwyg) when using old manual focus lenses ....QUOTE]

It may not be the same on all 550-T2i Camera's. I had one of the first T2i's to come out. Anyway, when ever I would use, for example, a Nikon lens with a Nikon to Canon converter, I would always have to frame my shot with the aperture wide open then step it down to take the actual shot because LiveView was always much darker than the actual exposure. However, when in Movie mode, it worked fine..what I saw on the LCD was exactly how the picture would turn out. I didn't want to shoot still pics in Movie mode though.

The +/- AV button didn't do anything (for obvous reasons) on manual lenses. There was a discussion about this on the Magic Lantern site, and Alex replied that what you have to do to fix this is to jog the thumb wheel back, and forth a couple of times while pressing the +/-AV button, and said that he thinks it is a Canon firmware bug.
Anyway, I put on an old Super Takumar manual lens, put the camera in manual mode, and turned on LiveView, and the LCD was too dark to see anything as usual. So I did what Alex said to do, and instantly the LCD lit up like it was Christmas ,and it works perfectly now.. What I See Is What I Get.

The thread is here. About 3/4 of the way down on the page. http://groups.google.com/group/ml-devel/browse_thread/thread/850ec268bc883ceb/06cfb2f63e2ab13c

Thanks Chris!

One issue I've been having - no matter what version of ML I install - right up to the most recent - I get no kelvin adjustment and no iso options. I've installed and reinstalled many times and those new features are never in the menu.

I have been using Magic Lantern for the 5D since its inception, and was one of the early testers working with the Trammel's initial builds. More recently, I have been shadowing, and doing some testing of the builds as Alex and other out put them. I am also testing AJ Newman's fabulous build off the 5D side, which is providing great new features like magnified focus assist, and false colors, as well as a neat interface on the camera LCD.

Alex, and other on the 550D/T2i side, are currently working on the monitor issues. Essentially, the overlay for a lot of the features like zebras, do not output to a monitor. As a result, you get a confused and jumble monitor screen, and attempts are being made to see if that can be overcome. Trammel Hudson had taken a brief run at it on the 5D side in the past year, but was not successful, though, to be fair, he was probably not able to put a lot of time in it.

At this point, those of you that are concerned about safety, I can report I have not bricked a camera yet. But I am not saying it can't possibly happen, but thus far, I have been confident that the builds are relatively safe. But there seem to be some misunderstandings here that potential users need to understand

1. Magic Lantern rides piggy back on your current firmware. It is firmware version specific, so you need to be sure your camera has the current firmware version.

2. You install magic lantern using your media chip. It must remain on the chip to be called each time the camera starts up. The chip, has to be boot enabled to automatcally boot Magic Lantern when you start the camera. There are instructions for doing that. The card must have the various files on it that come in the package. These will reside in the root directory of your card. You should not mess with them, except that in successive updates, you can just overwrite them with newer version. In latest versions there is also a directory on the card called "cropmks" which contains the various cropmark choices. (Note, you can actually run some Magic Lantern builds by calling for a firmware update each time you start the camera, as long as the firmware is on the card. Because Trammel Hudson experienced what he believed was a limitation on the amount of firmware updates allowed on his 7D, the continual firmware updates on other cameras are not currently considered smart, so the autoboot methods were designed for that reason, as well as for convenience.)

3. If you don't want to run Magic Lantern for a particular project, use a chip that it is not installed on. I have two chips dedicated to Magic Lantern, and serveral not. I am using Class 10 chips for Magic Lantern to take advantage of the increased bit rates it is promising.

4. If your camera locks up, goes dark, or does seem to be working properly while using magic lantern, usually, shutting down, and removing the battery, then reinserting it, will work to get it going. If that doesn't work, then removing the card, and start the camera without a card in the slot to resolve the start failure. Use another card without Magic Lantern to confirm camera is operating properly.

5. You should remember this is all experimental. I am willing to risk by cameras to be able to employ the advanced features that are offered, and that risk is worth it to me. If you are satisfied to work within the limitations of the stock camera, do not mess with it.

Joel:

Latest T2i/550D version of ML being tested and available out there has ISO adjustment, shutter and White balance setting under the "Expo" menu. You can toggle your own ISO with many selections, including the sought after natural ones, shutter speeds down to 1/30th, and Kelvin settings to, including an auto white balance.

Installed ML on my t2i, works fine. The slight flickering on the ML interface scares me a bit but I'm sure it'll be fine. Audio levels and AGC is what I needed the most. I don't think I need to use my zoom H1 to record audio separately anymore. That'll save me a lot of time in post!

The flicker is un-nerving!
I'm particularly keen on the WB settings and lens info.
Well done.

The output to HDMI is fairly trashed from my camera. (oh well)

Yeah, I'm a little concerned about that flickering thing too. I'm not sure why it's doing that.

I've been trying to download ML on my Camera and for some reason ( this must be a stupid question) I cannot find 'EOSCARD.EXE' file, where can I get this file from ?

Yeah, I'm a little concerned about that flickering thing too. I'm not sure why it's doing that.

My understanding is that in order to counteract over use resources in the system and particularly to conserve battery power, the refresh rate of the LCD screen was slowed down. What we are probably experiencing is the scanning of the LCD.

I've been trying to download ML on my Camera and for some reason ( this must be a stupid question) I cannot find 'EOSCARD.EXE' file, where can I get this file from ?

Its hidden deep in the Magic Lantern Wiki. That the problem with Wiki these days. Send me a PM email, and I can send it to your email. About .5 mb,

5 second Google search EOScard - CHDK Wiki (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/EOScard)

Thank you Chris, can't wait to try it out !!!!!

I had ML FW 109 -Jan30, after using rack focus the camera keep recording with out seeing the red light and can't stop it, I had to change the camera to photo mode to make it stop recording.
any one has the same problem ?

Try using the version released on the 28th, if that is a problem. I shot the 30th version last night, and remember haveing it stick in recording mode. I will report the bug.

All you have to do from your computer is download the other version, extract the files, and then overcopy them on your card. You do not have to go through the whole install process.

Also, to clear the camera lcd, they have set up the half way down shutter release to clear the screen sometime, and that might resolve your problem. Are you sure it was continuing to record and not just having the overlay froze on screen ? Try the half shutter push or even snap a frame if that happens to see if it clears.

Try using the version released on the 28th, if that is a problem. I shot the 30th version last night, and remember haveing it stick in recording mode. I will report the bug.

Thanks Chris, it's no big deal I was just playing with it. ML really ROCKS !!!!!!!!!
I cannot believe my T2i has zebra, audio control, and focus assist which is really an incredible asset to any shooter out there (especially if you have bad eyes like me), I haven't even tried all the other option that ML offers.
Job well done !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has anyone experienced corrupt video files or cards while using ML?

I am using the Jan 22 build and just lately I have had this happen twice when downloading to my friend's MacBook Pro using the Canon downloading software he has on it.

He normally downloads from his 5DMkII CF cards using a reader, but the software seems also to recognize the SDHC cards from the laptop's own internal reader. Most files have downloaded fine, but just a few have not.

I am going to uninstall ML and use different cards for a while to see if I can isolate he problem.

Latest build includes zoom while recording to assist with focus pulling.

I keep checking the Wiki site looking for some sign that a 60d version might happen soon, but nothing new has been posted for a while.

Alex doesn't own a 60D which is why he hasn't been developing a version for it. Someone offered to donate money towards a 60D so he could start developing on that too, so if you're interested you could donate some money and tell other 60D owners who are interested in ML about it too, I suppose.

I read this last week also Matt. It looks like he is interested, just needs someone to get him a 60d.

Here is the general Wiki for the T2i software, including installation instructions.

550D - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/550D)

This address can also be obtained and remembered by removing the word "UserGuide" form the link in the first post of this thread.

I read this last week also Matt. It looks like he is interested, just needs someone to get him a 60d.

We just need to donate a small amount and he will buy a 60D, then develop magic Lantern for it!

Donate here:

60D - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/60D)

so can anyone shed more light on these? how much higher can you go with them, and how much better do they look? my biggest issue comparing the 5D with the T2i is on detail sharpness, especially with people's faces. The 5D is much better- the t2i gets soft, compressed. There's no comparison. Is this discrepancy gone with the new bitrates?

Also, do the class 6 cards perform ok with them, or are we going to need class 10 for sure?

We just need to donate a small amount and he will buy a 60D, then develop magic Lantern for it!

Donate here:

60D - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/60D)

He's almost half-way there! Donate a little and get this great software for the 60D!

http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/60D (bottom of page)

so can anyone shed more light on these? how much higher can you go with them, and how much better do they look? my biggest issue comparing the 5D with the T2i is on detail sharpness, especially with people's faces. The 5D is much better- the t2i gets soft, compressed. There's no comparison. Is this discrepancy gone with the new bitrates?

Also, do the class 6 cards perform ok with them, or are we going to need class 10 for sure?

Class 6 work ok, but 10's can be much better. Buy the best write speed you can afford. 32GB SD cards are now priced better than 16GB (per GB), go figure.

Are you comparing the same lens on the two cameras?

Are you comparing the same lense on the two cameras?

my thought exactly. Likely most 5ds will be using L lenses or at least full frame lenses which are usually better than crop lenses. Many online t2i videos shot with the kit lens. Try a 5d and a T2i with a prime at f8 and you won't be able to tell which is which

Maybe waiting for 1.0.9 is a good idea.

In my late night searches I came across a pretty good step-by-step site...though I'll need to figure out a way to make a bootable card on the Mac (or dust off the 8 year old Dell laptop and hope it boots!), but the site below details the steps clearly.

Dangerous Derk Productions | British Independant film makers since 1994 (http://www.derkoi.co.uk/film/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89:how-to-install-magic-lantern-firmware-on-the-canon-550d-t2i&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=1)

Tried to open it, but says it's been suspended. Any other non-magic lantern wiki places to look at? It remains a very difficult read for me...

This an excellent guide:
YouTube - Canon T2i/Canon 550D - "Tutorial 5 - Magic Lantern" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sQS3eNUL0I&feature=player_embedded)

Installed it on my 2 memory cards - a-ok so far.