Magic Lantern 0.1.6 release

[Andy Batt]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

My son did a rack focus shot tonight as we prepare for a 48-hour weekend. [snip]
7) Once properly set up, activate Rack Focus and it should do its thing.
This feature kicks royal be-hind for narrative work!

Thanks Jon - I'll give this a spin in a little bit - I appreciate the clarity of the 'how-to'

@Chris & @Tramm - you should appendix the user manual with this explanation

thanks!

andy

[Chris Barcellos]

I started a thread on Auto Lenses for Magic Lantern. I hope Chris Hurd agrees, but I would like to see posts for best lenses for working with Magic Lantern in that thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...n-0-1-6-a.html

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Jon what ones are working good for you ? Name brand Canons, others ?

I've got the EF 28/1.8, 35/2.0, 50/1.4, 85/1.8, and 200/2.8L II. I'd avoid the 35/2.0 as it's a non-USM, non-FTMF lens. It doesn't communicate all the parameters, and is a pain to set up for rack focus, though it does work.

This weekend I'll get a better feel for how accurately and repeatably the other lenses take the focus commands. Of these, I think the 50mm and 85mm are the most important, as they're the most likely to be used racking between two people in conversation. With the 200, you can focus on an object, defocus by hand and play it backwards to nail the single point. With the 28, I'm most likely to have an object in the foreground that is continually out of focus with people in the background, where focus is very forgiving.

Electronic focus aside, my favorite is the 85/1.8, and I feel that the 28/1.8 is the perfect compliment. The 200L II takes gorgeous photos, but is tight for human-scale video. Since a longer lens is most useful outdoors, the 180/3.5 Macro would be an awesome choice, given that it would cover long shots as well as super closeups. I love being able to establish characters with closeups of photos and knickknacks, as well as showing closeups of their hands at work. And we can't forget the closeup of the eye for horror films!

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by Andy Batt

In the Focus menu, I chose "FAR",
Moved down a line to the "FOCUS A" Focused to the FAR point, and pushed the joystick in (also tried the SET button)

Left the RACK SPEED at default (also tried different values)

Focused the lens to a near point, and chose the RACK FOCUS line and hit the joystick button - to no effect.

Did try the FOCUS STACKING - that worked like a charm!

Andy, were you able to get this going? I have the same issue, can't get rack focus to work. I've tried both the wiki instructions and Jon's steps and can't get the focus to budge. Everything else in 0.1.6 including focus stacking works. I've tried it so far with my 24-105 and 17-40 lenses.

Chuck

[Chris Barcellos]

Chuck, probably won't hear from Andy or Jon for a day or two. They are shooting a 48 hour contest films this weekend. Those are very intensive, and you just turn off the outside world doing them. Unfortunately, I don't have auto focus lenses, so I can't help there, and I started this thread to see what is working and what is not.

[Harry Simpson]

I usually leave my camera on for extended periods ot time and the power will time out and shut off. This am I picked up the camera and the battery was completely gone. Does ML continue to hold a connection even after the Canon OS does a power down? Is this why i lost juice? I'm thinking the answer is yes......

Also I will start a seperate thread on the rack focus so we can keep focused (pun intended) on that cause if i think it does what i imagine, it could be huge for my concert shooting where I do zooms.

[Chris Barcellos]

Yes it is possible that it hasn't shut down completely. One of the continuous warnings posted in the Magic Lanter Wiki and in Manual I drafted, is that after each session with ML, shut down, and pop the battery. There is a potential the camera could loop at shut down. Did the same thing the other day myself. Battery running down is one thing, but other is potential of overheating. Seems like opening the CF door will shut it down completely.

Developers of ML are continuing to recommend that you pop the battery each time you finish. In running with the AC adapter, I have been disconnecting power only, and so far that seems to be fine.

[Steve Cahill]

"4) If you focused to the near object, set the menu to FAR. If focused near, set to FAR"
Is that correct?



After you set focus points, dismiss the menu, than hit record than go back to focus menu while recording and start rack focus. I cannot get the camera to record video when in the menu first time around.

Any further explanation or video of how this is done would be helpful.

[Andy Batt]

Originally Posted by Steve Cahill

After you set focus points, dismiss the menu, than hit record than go back to focus menu while recording and start rack focus. I cannot get the camera to record video when in the menu first time around.

hey all - I still haven't been able to do the Rack Focus - but this note adds some clarity - I'll report back.


thanks

andy

[Andy Batt]

Hi Tramm - not sure how to submit this as an official feature request - so here goes:

Regarding Audio:

1- 'smart' behaviour of the presence of a plug in the AV jack : having to unplug and replug this cable to not have the camera send the video signal, and then replug to monitor is quirky, and I worry about the wear and tear on the cable and port - it would be great to set this behaviour manually

2 - Playback VS Live sound monitoring: Having to turn the Monitor ON and OFF to either listen to live sound vs playback sound. It would be great to auto switch this dependent on the state of recording (or standby) or the state of playback.

3- Level Meters during playback: did not see these during playback - can these be enabled to 'monitor' the playback as well?

thanks for the hard work!

-andy

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Andy Batt

Hi Tramm - not sure how to submit this as an official feature request - so here goes:

You can add feature proposals and bug reports on the issue tracker.

1- 'smart' behaviour of the presence of a plug in the AV jack : having to unplug and replug this cable to not have the camera send the video signal, and then replug to monitor is quirky, and I worry about the wear and tear on the cable and port - it would be great to set this behaviour manually

There isn't anything we can do about that since the behaviour is caused by Canon's firmware before the Magic Lantern software is running. One workaround is to use an HDMI monitor since Canon will use that in preference to the A/V jack, which allows me to have my SmallHD DP1 and my headphones plugged in all the time on the set.

2 - Playback VS Live sound monitoring: Having to turn the Monitor ON and OFF to either listen to live sound vs playback sound. It would be great to auto switch this dependent on the state of recording (or standby) or the state of playback.

It's in the proposal list for the next version: issue 77. I need to figure out what events are generated when the camera switches from liveview mode to playback mode so that we can make intelligent decisions about audio monitoring.

3- Level Meters during playback: did not see these during playback - can these be enabled to 'monitor' the playback as well?

Also in the list for the next version: issue 51. As well as hiding the meters during review of still images since they obscure the exposure info on the top of the screen.

Congratulations on finishing your movie 2 minutes early! We were still burning ours to the DVD while inline to hand it in earlier this year.

[Andy Batt]

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

One workaround is to use an HDMI monitor since Canon will use that in preference to the A/V jack, which allows me to have my SmallHD DP1 and my headphones plugged in all the time on the set.

I'll need to get a SmallHD or Ikan for the next go-round then. I was under the impression that the HDMI can be used for playback, but that live monitoring wasn't possible?

-andy

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Andy Batt

I'll need to get a SmallHD or Ikan for the next go-round then. I was under the impression that the HDMI can be used for playback, but that live monitoring wasn't possible?

Live monitoring works on HDMI, with some caveats. It outputs very nice 1080i while framing and composing the shots, but once you hit record it drops to 480p. I spent much of the weekend hacking on this, but was unsuccessful at fixing it this time.

[Andy Batt]

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

It outputs very nice 1080i while framing and composing the shots, but once you hit record it drops to 480p.

Does the monitor autosense this and deal with it smoothly? Would an Ikan or Marshall react differently than a SmallHD?

[Chris Barcellos]

I have found that I can get best recording situation using an HDMI monitor, set to 4:3.

If I am using an SD and have to go out through the AV port, I also use a 4:3 setting on the monitor.

In using HDMI, there is a delay as the camera resets its output to SD. Can't seem to change that. In that process, if you have your monitor set at 4:3, your letterbox will come up the proper aspect ratio.

In SD out the AV, the 4:3 setting of the monitor formats aspect ratio properly at both framing and shot. Thats fine, but a negative to the monitor from the AV port is the feed back that gets recorded to the audio track.