Hi,
I am trying to install magic Lantern the August 22 version on my 60d. I already have canon firmware 1.1.0. I am using the Sandisk Ultra SDHC card to install the software. I cleared all user settings back to default. I low level formatted the card. I unzipped the files to the SD card. I set the camera on Bulb Setting. I pressed the update firmware setting on the camera. The camera displayed loading firmware for a second and then the view screen went blank and the camera card red light is blinking. That's it. How long should the update take? What else could I be doing wrong? I have to remove the battery to access the camera again.

Thanks,

John Gerard

If things don't seem to be working as expected you must pop out your battery immediately to prevent any possible damage to the camera. The developer stresses this point repetitively.

You probably missed the separate step of making your SDHC card "bootable" because you didn't mention anything about it.

John, I've noticed you asking a number of questions about ML. I strongly suggest you read and understand the entire manual before using this software. I know there's a lot there but all the questions you've asked are answered either in the manual, on the developers website or the wiki. You also had a feature suggestion and the developer has a preferred place for those as well.

ML is not really ready for public consumption just yet. It requires some precise steps to get it working and it's not without risk. Be careful.

Ok, my camera works fine so I don't think I heart anything. It sounded like the august release would install every thing and perform the making of the boot disk. At least from what the instructions stated. At least this is how I interrupted them. I searched and searched for information on how long the firmware update process should take. I could not find anything. I think this information would be much helpful. I even checked the Ml web site and YouTube videos.
I did remove the battery after only a minute or two. With firmware updates you don't want to remove power or that will crash the system and you are dead in the water. Having a video that shows the exact process using the latest software version showing the part of the process from installing and showing what the camera shows until it show the green conformation screen, or what ever it is call, for the 60d would really help. There are a few great videos installing the ML firmware on other canon models. But never talking about how long the process should take.
I have install firmware on my Canon 10d and other devices. IE: printers, Blu-ray players and HDTVs.
I think I will hold off on installing the ML software for now.

John Gerard

I am having trouble installing Magic Lantern on my 60D.

I format a card in the camera.
Put the latest firmware on the card.
Update the firmware in the camera.
Format the card.
Add the Magic Lanterns files and folders to the root directory of the card.
Run the firmware update on the 60D.

...60D screen goes black and the little red light blinks slowly. What am I missing?

I've installed Magic Lantern on three T2is no problem.

Hi Christian, you said you put the latest canon firmware on the card, but I think you need to downgrade your firmware to 1.0.1 which you can find on the magic lantern web site.
I don't think magic lantern will install with the latest firmwares..
Hope this is of some help john

I personally will not mess with the 60D by installing magic lantern. Your videos won't be better by this software. I personally will not risk a 1000 Euro camera.

stelios

I disagree with this assesment. Magic Lantern provides valuable feedback that can improve your shooting. Having audio meters, headphone monitoring, focus distance, white balance info are all exceedingly helpful to improving your footage. Secondly it has features which allow you to tweak settings much faster than the standard way. There are key shortcuts for ISO (not to mention it gives you more ISO steps), white balance Kelvin, and 3X zoom (on the T3i). With these I'm able to make adjustments much faster. Really there is no downside to Magic Lantern besides the initial prep. Automatic restart after 12 min cutoff is a life-saver too. Yes, on a very rare occasion it crashes. But this is really not a problem

I agree with Brett, I would be interested to know who, if anybody has damaged their camera installing this firmware, and I mean damaged as in having to send it back to Canon for repair, rather than just pull the battery.
So far, zero crashes and I cannot imagine using the camera without it any more.
The best part of magic lantern is the big red cross in the screen that tells me I'm NOT recording ;-), even I cannot miss that.

Hi all,
So far I gave up trying to install Magic Lantern. I just did not want to damage my camera. But I would love to have the features that Magic Lantern provides. One mainly is the ability to record more than 20 minutes at a time. Among a few others. If magic Lantern ever gets to the point where it will not damage my camera I will try it again. If my 60d was a backup camera that I could afford to lose then that would be a different story. The one time I tried to install the software it did not would but at least there was no damage to my camera so that good.

John Gerard

John Gerard

Did you do a canon firmware update before ML?

My ML install didn't work on a new 60D. The cam had the current firmware. I downloaded the same firmware from canon, installed it, then my ML install worked.

Although there are some alarmists out there (you know who you are), when I installed a couple months ago I covered all the forums for ML, at wikia and vimeo. No one had reported damage to a camera, other than a developer who was experimenting on Canon's firmware & borked the cam. This was not an ML install, it was firmware experimentation.

So, to all, if you're aware of a camera broken by an ML install, let's hear about it. If you don't know of any broken cameras, please stop spreading rumors... (deleted)

For me, Magic Lantern has been well worth it. And yes, I installed it on a 60D two days after I bought the camera, new at retail.

Note that like the developers, I too am not responsible for any damage to your camera. Do your research at the ML wikia and vimeo forum sites, make your own decision.

Seth,

I also have ML installed on my 60D. My camera has not been damaged and I don't know of anyone who has damaged theirs.

Not to be an alarmist, but the very first thing you see on the developer's installation page is a warning surrounded by asterisks in capitals is, "THIS IS DANGEROUS AND MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA. IF IT BREAKS, YOU GET TO KEEP BOTH PIECES."
Unified/Install - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Unified/Install)
Stated further down the page reads,
"• If you encounter a "locked up" camera, quickly remove the battery.
• When in doubt, remove the battery and reboot.
• And, remember that this software can damage or destroy your camera."

If the developer is going to that length to alert us about potential danger why should we not heed his warning? Just because neither you nor I know of anyone who has broken their camera hardly means that it can't happen, nor does one deserve the accusation of "spreading rumors that have no basis in truth!"

So don't get all bold-and-italicize-texted on us. :) lol

Jordan, please can you tell everybody which firmware version you have on your 60d so others know that ML works with it. I myself have the 550d/T2i/KissX4. with ML.

...but the very first thing you see on the developer's installation page is a warning surrounded by asterisks in capitals is, "THIS IS DANGEROUS AND MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA. IF IT BREAKS, YOU GET TO KEEP BOTH PIECES."...

If the developer is going to that length to alert us about potential danger why should we not heed his warning? Just because neither you nor I know of anyone who has broken their camera hardly means that it can't happen, nor does one deserve the accusation of "spreading rumors that have no basis in truth!"

So don't get all bold-and-italicize-texted on us. :) lol
Hah! That's me, mr. bold and italicize! I'm on a roll - if you're a fan of b&i, see this morning's post in the audio forum, in which I attempt to skewer another internet myth.

OK, in all seriousness, I appreciate what Jordan wrote. I saw the same warnings at the ML Wikia site and the official ML forum. And they gave me pause. When I looked deeper into it, I found that exactly one camera had been borked in ML development. And that the volunteer developers on this project took that seriously, and put up a strong disclaimer as Jordan quoted above.

As I understand it, they didn't want anyone coming back and saying "you broke my camera and Canon won't honor the warranty..."

So, yes, I too am not responsible, use Magic Lantern at your own risk.

But, I stand on my statements above - I researched it, and my decision was that there was way more reward than risk. But, your values may be different, and you should balance reward and risk for yourself. There's the money. There's what ML does. There's the risk. Balance them for yourself. Nobody can do this for you.

However! (had to get one in...) The warning that Jordan quoted above seems to have developed it's own life as an internet meme, and now the conventional wisdom is becoming that ML installation is dangerously high risk.

So... have you ever heard of a camera broken by installation of Magic Lantern? There's a large community of ML users on this very forum... has anyone ever heard of a specific instance in which a camera was broken by ML installation?

As well as the warning it's also the slightly scary prospect of adjusting firmware. That's traditionally been a bit risky in computing in general (although it's pretty good these days).
To that it's worth noting that ML doesn't seem to adjust the firmware very much at all, in the sense of BIOS updates and the like. All it does, from what I gather, is flip an internal toggle that tells the camera to load from the card (which then has ML installed on it).
You do need a Magic Lantern installed card to make it go and/or restore it to normal after that. But you don't really alter anything in a major way internally. That's much safer to my mind than updating the official Canon firmware!

I can imagine circumstances where card-camera communications are interrupted when its loading or something and thing get messed up. Probably just de-powering it should fix most of them.
Of course, it's not entirely risk free and no one could say so. But folks took their camera out in the last few days didn't they? How did you know you weren't going to drop it?

Jordan, please can you tell everybody which firmware version you have on your 60d so others know that ML works with it. I myself have the 550d/T2i/KissX4. with ML.

Donald,

Unified - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Unified)
Currently I'm using Unified ML 2.2 (aka 2011Dec22 Xmas Edition) on my 60D running firmware 1.1.0.


As of July 23 (or shortly thereafter) I hope to be using ML 2.3 on my 60D with fw 1.1.1, if all goes as planned.
MagicLantern.fm - ML 2.3 RC2 testing - ready for pro use? (http://www.magiclantern.fm/104-releases/124-ml2rc-2)

My advice would be to follow the instructions on the Wiki installation page. There is a list about halfway down the page that lists the firmware you should be using for each camera model, as well as detailed installation instructions.
Unified/Install - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Unified/Install)

Make yourself an installation checklist and tick it off as you go to help stay on track and all should be well (like Seth says) ::cough:: lol

On the new forum page "MagicLantern.com it still recommends 1.1.0

install [Magic Lantern wiki] (http://wiki.magiclantern.fm/install)

Personally I would stick with 1.1.0

Donald,

Nowhere on that page you linked does it suggest using fw1.1.0 for any model using ML2.3.
You said you have the 550D/T2i/KissX4 so right now you should be using fw1.0.9 with ML2.2 and 1.0.9 with 2.3 when it becomes available to the general public.

I'm currently running fw1.1.0 on my 60D with ML2.2 but on the page you linked it clearly says 2.3 only works with 1.1.1. I stated this in my last post.

What are you referring to?

Thank you for the responses. I have successfully installed Magic Lantern on my 60D. Your replies prompted me to look closer at the specific version of firmware I needed to install. The latest Canon firmware (1.1.1) will not work. However, the good folks at ML have provided a link to the proper version (1.1.0).

Nice to see that you got the firmware installed. Do you or anyone reading this thread know if there are specific instruction on how to install the firmware including what version work together. I might try it again but I would like one instruction page that cuts out all the confusion on what to perform, etc. That's the problem I had the one time I tried installing ML. On the instructions I had at the time nowhere did it say that I had to manually create the boot disk.. As an example.

Thanks,
John Gerard

John,

My advice would be to wait until Aug 13th when the new version will be available.
This will work on the camera's latest firmware and should be the "best" version of ML to have on your camera.

In the meantime watch this video:
How To Install Magic Lantern 2.3 On Canon Cameras Using A Mac - YouTube

Thank you so much for the great reply. i am going to take your advise and wait untill Aug 13 for thew new release. I watched the video and it makes thinks very easy to follow. At least with this current version of ML i do not have to creat a boot disk.. at least there is no mention of having to creat a boot disk just to coping the ML file to the SD card after formating the in the Camera. It will be great to get ML installed before I head to the Monterey Reunion Auto Races on Aug 16-19.This year they are featuring the Carrol Shelby Cobra historic Race cars.

John Gerard

Hi,
i have a question about the new Follow Focus feature in ML. Is this actual full Ato Focusing in video mode or does the camera only focus when i manually press the arrow keys? I like to perform a lot of Zooming in and out and it is very hard to focus as i zoom. If this is true Auto Focus like on my Sony FX-7 camera or at least close to that functionality then this is killer. This is the only hard part about used my Canon 60D in video mode. Then I dont need to convert my Mpeg2 HDV files into MOV files in order to import them into my ipad.. I have the ipad3 and I use Avid Studio for the ipad. This is a great app but need a few feature updates. I can import my Canon 60D footage direct throught the Camera connection kit and it suppisingly runs great. Very smooth play back of the video which is saying something for a consumer product running on battery power. The touch screen of the iPad make editing so much easier than using a PC.

John Gerard

Hi John,

When attending the Historics, make sure to go to the Cobra corral before the parade laps and try to bum a ride. With camera in hand, you're likely to find a single driver who will gladly take a passenger.

Years ago, Lotus was the honored marque. I brought my '86 Turbo Esprit. Normally, when driving the track, you need to have a helmet, have your car tech'd, can't take passengers aside from instructors, etc. For the parade laps, those rules are waived. We did four laps. And rather than tool around, everybody bunches up around before the back half of the track, let's some space develop, and then pushes it a bit. That first time down the (blind) corkscrew is unforgettable!

Besides the fun ride, the point of view footage in a parade of Cobras should be golden. :)

Hi,
i have a question about the new Follow Focus feature in ML. Is this actual full Ato Focusing in video mode or does the camera only focus when i manually press the arrow keys?
John Gerard

It won't have auto focus, you'll have to work it manually. That's the big trade-off with DSLR vs Camcorder for video.

I suggest using the focus peaking function. It's basically a color overlay that helps you see what's in focus.
It seems complicated when you're trying to figure it out reading the instructions but once you turn it on and play with it a bit it becomes much more intuitive.

You're going to want to practice as much as you can with DSLR video by shooting and reviewing your results so that you're not trying to figure it out when things are happening or you'll blow it.

Ya, it looks like it might be at least a little easier to focus than with the standard firmware installed. I think the newest Canon camera the ti4 I think it is has autofocus. But it is also a mirror less camera.
Can't wait untill the latest update become offcal.

John Gerard

Hi, I know that magic Lanterns official release is Aug 13. But I would like to have a few extra days to try out. What is your guys option on how close to a release version Magic lantern 2.3 for the Canon 60d is and what would your advice. Downloading now or waiting 3 more days.

Thanks,
John Gerard

I have just bought a T3i and the second thing I did after checking out the camera was to load ML works wit no problem for me and may others. Besides if you dont like it just format the card and it returns to normal as ML is card driven so to speak.

Thanks, sounds good. In the past there was so much emphasis around that if you did not install something right or a crash happened then you could destroy your camera. Sounds like ML has come a long way since then.
I will give it a try.

John Gerard

Hi all,
I just wanted to say yah and thanks to all that helped me. I got Magic Lantern installed for the first time. I had to first install the latest Canon firmware up date for my Canon 60D. From 1.1.0 to 1.1.1. After that I re low level formatted my SD card and copied the ML files to my SD card put my camera in M mode first. Went to the menu item firmware xxx.xx.xx pressed ok updated firmware which only took a few seconds and it was done. I have the 45Mb Sandisk SD card 6 16GB cards in all. I see that Sandisk even makes up to a 90Mb card. I am not sure what camera that one would be used for.
Anyway now to learning all the great features an updating my other SD cards.
Oh, the video was a big help and I recommend watching it a few time for anyone that has not performed this procedure before. Even thought the procedure is pretty straight forward it helps to make sure one does not miss a step and performs all steps in the correct order. One step I would have missed was to set my camera in M mode.
one other question that might have been answered before, when the final release comes out what is the procedure to update the filed. Should I...
1) format my Sd card then copy the new files to the card or
2) should I just copy the files over the top of the files already in my SD card?

John Gerard

Hi guys again,
Now since I got ML installed. I am looking for the adapter cable for the 60D to monitor the Audio out from the camera. Can anyone direct me to where I can purchase or if one is not available a DIY instruction guide on how to build one. I have soldered a plug connection onto a pair of ear phones so I am not bad at that function.

Thanks,

John Gerard

If you are using a pc make your card bootable with EOScard EOScard - CHDK Wiki (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/EOScard) then copy and paste the other files folders that you need on the other cards. Or do the same as you did the first time and use the camera to make cards bootable.

Thank for the info. I understand now. I find for others reading this note than making the Sd card bootable is easier if done in the camera. Which is to goto the firmware option in the Camera menus and click on firmware update, then wait untill Ml says "success". Then trun camera off and on again. For others that did not now this this makes Sd card bootable. And again I think is easier and less confusing that using a make bootable program on a PC.


Thanks,

John Gerard

...I am looking for the adapter cable for the 60D to monitor the Audio out from the camera. Can anyone direct me to where I can purchase or if one is not available a DIY instruction guide on how to build one...
There is some audio cable guidance on this page. (http://wiki.magiclantern.fm/userguide)

Sescom (http://www.sescom.com/ProductList.asp) is the manufacturer with various dSLR audio cables, there products are available at B&H Photo/Video and elsewhere.

One of the challenges of working with open source / freeware like ML is finding the documentation, quite a bit of which is user-generated, and figuring out which is the best and accurate for your camera. The three best sites are the new Magic Lantern site, (http://www.magiclantern.fm) the official Magic Lantern wiki at Wikia, (http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki) and the ML User Group at Vimeo, (https://vimeo.com/groups/magiclantern) but you will find bits and pieces everywhere with some determined searching.