Magic Lantern - Black Screen?

[Martin Campbell]

Hi All,

have only fairly recently started using ML and so far love it. Only a few slight issues, on a few ocassions during important filming I've had the screen go Black on me. Usually I've fixed this by switching off the camera back on and/or removing the battery. It's a little bit more time consuming in those run'n gun moments. Also found a couple of times ML has just not worked and instead it's just the standard camera recording as it would - not an issue though seeing as it still recorded no problem - but had me slightly concerned when it was happening.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? I'd need to check which version of ML it is I have, but was installed very recently.

[Donald McPherson]

ML has a controls for the lcd to time off. Although the camera is still recording.
Are you by any chance pressing anyother buttons when you switch the camera on as this will force canon not to install ML.

[Nigel Barker]

It's because of these unreliability problems that neither I nor anyone else I know uses Magic Lantern when shooting run'n'gun events like weddings. If you can afford to re-shoot & think that ML helps you then go ahead but TBH apart from restarting after hitting the 4GB file limit I cannot think of anything in ML that is useful to me. I know that it has peaking & zebras & other gizmos but these really are pretty crude & certainly not on a par with what one would expect in a proper camcorder. Just as I prefer to avoid all the hardware junk like shoulder rigs, follow focus etc when shooting with a DSLR I also prefer to avoid software junk (no reflection on the ingenious efforts of the ML developers) so use the reliable uncluttered stock firmware.

[Martin Campbell]

Originally Posted by Donald McPherson

ML has a controls for the lcd to time off. Although the camera is still recording.
Are you by any chance pressing anyother buttons when you switch the camera on as this will force canon not to install ML.

Sorry for the late response Donal - and thanks for your help.
So far as I know - NO - I'm not hitting any other button. I'm going to do more tests this weekend to see what is causing it to happen.

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

It's because of these unreliability problems that neither I nor anyone else I know uses Magic Lantern when shooting run'n'gun events like weddings. If you can afford to re-shoot & think that ML helps you then go ahead but TBH apart from restarting after hitting the 4GB file limit I cannot think of anything in ML that is useful to me. I know that it has peaking & zebras & other gizmos but these really are pretty crude & certainly not on a par with what one would expect in a proper camcorder. Just as I prefer to avoid all the hardware junk like shoulder rigs, follow focus etc when shooting with a DSLR I also prefer to avoid software junk (no reflection on the ingenious efforts of the ML developers) so use the reliable uncluttered stock firmware.

I hear what your saying Nigel, but I have found it to be very helpful in filming (with exception of this issue!) Especially the peaking and zooming in live during filming.