Anyone using 5D3 and Magic Lantern?

[Peter Rush]

Hi all - Is there now a stable release for this and how are you finding it? My main use would be to get over the 29 minute recording limit and the focus peaking.

[Al Bergstein]

Seems to work for me. But if you just want to get over the 29 minute limit, I prefer using ML with a Atomos Ninja Blade. Gives an 512GB SSD and all the other bennies. But ML is cool.

[Mat Thompson]

I've just done a shoot in 1080p RAW with ML on the 5d mk3. It was used for glidecam specials.

Fantastic footage, fairly painlessly transcoded afterwards to ProRes HQ.

It's amazing what they have got out of that camera. The footy really is very very good indeed!

[Robert Benda]

There is some talk about the newest Canon firmware blocking ML, so guys were downgrading the firmware.

I have a 5d Mark ii, but am tempted to get a iii just for the RAW and 14 steps of dynamic range that the Magic Lantern guys pulled out of the camera.

[Peter Rush]

I believe with the beta version you had to install ML at every power on - is this not the case any more? I like the idea of RAW video but am unsure if my (pretty powerful tbh) system will cope with it - I'll look into how Premiere handles RAW footage - not sure I'd try it at a wedding yet though without lots of testing

Pete

[Maurice Covington]

I honestly havent figured out how to shoot anything good with magic lantern. SMH. :-(

[Donald McPherson]

You won't get past the 29 minute mark unless you record externally.

[Adrian Tan]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Is there now a stable release for this and how are you finding it?

I'm finding it brilliant; don't know how I lived without it for so long. Changes the MkIII into a whole different creature.

You don't have to reinstall it each time, but you do need a CF or SD with ML installed when you turn the camera on. I think (but haven't tried to be sure, and don't want to try) that once you've loaded the camera with a card with ML on it, you can then open the card door and swap cards freely. The way a friend does it, he has ML on the SD, and keeps that in the camera at all times, but swaps his ML-less CF cards.

I don't think there's an officially stable release for the MkIII, but what's there is fairly stable... Whenever I've had a problem, which has never been the case while recording, removing/reinserting batteries and cards seems to fix it.

I think the main problems I've had have been related to accidentally inserting a card with ML for MkII. Your camera will not like that at all, but the MkIII copes better with this issue than the MkII (if you insert a card with ML for MkIII into your MkII, you're definitely going to experience a few minutes of panic...).

There may have been other problems... I think they were related to swapping out to cards without ML while camera was off. But, as I said, doesn't seem to be anything that removing/reinserting batteries and cards can't fix.

ML for MkIII in general seems a lot more stable to me than ML for MkII, which is officially stable.

My main use would be to get over the 29 minute recording limit and the focus peaking.

The recording limit is the main use I get out of it, and it's an enormous help. You can go to a church, set up, press record, and you're covered. Get a nice video timelapse as well of people filing in. You don't have to keep running around just before you think the bride will show up hitting record on everything.

There's other good features as well... Zebras, the zoom in while recording to check focus, overlays that tell you that you're not recording if you're prone to double-tapping, HDR mode as well as raw, etc.

[Maurice Covington]

I've not been able to use the ML upgrade to produce what I would consider good video. I would be very surprised if you cold set up the Mark III, press record and simply walk away. The ML files that I tried recording early on are huge. It would surprise me if I could simply press record leave the camera running throughout a wedding and not worry about it. Has the ML software been modified to capture smaller files?

[Adrian Tan]

Hey Maurice, I think you're talking about ML raw, right? I'm just talking about recording in normal 1080 h.264 using the automatic restart function that ML provides.

[Maurice Covington]

Oh okay thanks. I really don't know that much about the ML software. I continue to struggle with it.

[Donald McPherson]

Don't you loose a second or two with camera restart. As it's just like stop start of the button but done electronically with the software.

[Ger Griffin]

Yea you lose a second but its not a big deal if youve got 2 cams.
ML makes the 5d3 a pleasure to use.
Vital settings are:

Auto restart: enable
Live digic : Live view focus assisting set to slightly sharper.
Powersave: live view screen set to auto switch off if not recording after 10 seconds (lets you know if your not recording but you think you are)

Ive been using it for years now and only ever had one problem. I let the camera down quite hard and it froze (while recording an important shot). In that case take out battery and reinsert. Take out card and replace also if you were recording and need that file. Otherwise you may write over the file you were recording with the next recorded file.

I have ML on the sd card and write footage to CF.

Go for it :)

[Adrian Tan]

Originally Posted by Donald McPherson

Don't you loose a second or two with camera restart. As it's just like stop start of the button but done electronically with the software.

I think it's four frames or something like that. But bear in mind that DSLR people tend to record sound separately from camera. So, if you have two cameras, either the second will be rolling while the first is restarting, or you should have shot more than enough cutaways to cover that 4-frame gap while the sound stays continuous.