Fantastic New Magic Lantern Canon EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Version Announced
Posted on 21. Mar, 2011 by planetMitch in 5D2, Software, Video
A fantastic new Magic Lantern Canon EOS 5D Mark II firmware version is right around the corner and it has some amazing new features thanks to AJ Newman and others working on the update. We’ve been talking with Moira O’Brien whom we met on the Trammell Hudson planet5D live interview and she’s kept us up to date with the latest… please take a few minutes to watch Moira’s overview video and then down to the mini-review I’ve posted and finally, at the bottom, you’ll find the download links. With thanks to Moira and AJ, we’re proud to be the first in letting the planet know about this significant Magic Lantern update!
Quick overview of enhancements
- Totally redone menus
- Enhanced audio options
- False color for exposure verification
- quick access to ISO menu
- Crop marks no longer in separate file
- Audio enhancements
- New ‘AJ’ menu and ML save settings on CF card
- Magic Circle enhancement to check focus with magnification
- ‘help’ in the menu system – hints at what the settings do
- more!
Update from Moira
This is from Moira’s update on Moving Image Cork
Magic Lantern was originally written by Trammell Hudson to overcome some of the deficiencies of the Canon 5Dmk2 when filming video and also to add functionality to stills as well. The development was taken to a certain degree but then Trammell got distracted by the real world and development stopped for a while.
Along came the T2i/550d and a lot of interest in porting Magic Lantern onto this platform (the 7D development having stalled) and a number of developers have worked on this project. The 5D strand however was largely ignored until AJ Newman decided to take up the cudgel and going back to first principles, rewrote the code from the bottom up.
read Moira’s whole blog entry for more
Moira’s visual overview of changes
MAGIC LANTERN AJ5.0 from Moira O'Brien on Vimeo.
Update from AJ on the ML Wiki
Here’s a summary of the biggest changes…
1) AJ MENU: *
Have a play and let me know what you think.**2) CANON ISO MENU* :
When you change the ISO (using the button) – the Canon menu is now displayed
for about 5 seconds3) HOTKEY* : Enhancement
More details in the FALSE COLOURS MENU. When you press/hold the Joy-Centre
for a period of time (eg 1 sec) – on release, the false colours is toggled.4) AUDIO* : Enhancement
When configuring audio – the audio meters are shown.
Options for Microphone source, analogue gain and digital gain dashboard
display.5) KILL OVERLAY* :
Activatable from GREEN SCREEN MENU.6) ML CONFIG SAVE* : Enhancement
You can save config either immediately, every time the camera is switch
off, or Once (eg to save the exact state you want ML to start up in).7) AF-ON* : Enhancement
I have tried to untangle the DryOs spaghetti of ‘events’ to enable more keys
to be on the Camera. I didn’t have much success (mainly because when AF-ON
and ISO keys is pressed, the Dry-Os has a bit of fit). What I have done is
try and stop these keys from interfering with the keys in ML.
planetMitch summary
Having a play with this new version for the last couple of days I can say that this is an absolute joy… this feels so much more like a professional version than a hack. Yes, there are still some screen flickers and hiccups in the visual aspects, but the menus and controls are so nicely laid out and easy to see. And there are plenty of features included that give you access to things you’ve never had on your 5D2. One thing I just love is a visual display of the focus distance. The audio and visual features just blow me away.
If you’ve never tried the Magic Lantern software, it is a bit confusing when you start up as you’re not going to see anything in the regular menus and knowing which buttons to press can be a bit of hit or miss… but here’s a couple of quick lessons:
- First, to get into the ML menus, you must be in live view (obvious as heck after you realize ML is all about video HA)
- pressing on the picture styles button brings up the ML menus
- using the 5D2 joy stick scrolls you thru the menus themselves
- once in a menu item, to change the options, press the shutter button… I keep wanting to press the normal select button on the back, but d’oh! that starts and stops recording
- if you have any issues or lock ups where the camera won’t respond, don’t fret, pull out the battery and reinsert. This causes a reboot of the camera and all should be ok!
Download!
First, please remember this is beta firmware – this isn’t even the ‘final’ version, there are some bugs to be squished… and, there’s the usual cautions that this is not supported by Canon or Magic Lantern, but you can try it out now with those understandings.
Moira has set up a special page where you can download the 2.0.4 version of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II firmware as well as the latest version of the Magic Lantern firmware for the 5D2 - NOTE: You download all of these items at your own risk – neither Moira or planet5D provide any warranty or support that these files will work properly nor is there any quarantee that they won’t damage your camera. Use at your own peril..
A big note here - this version of Magic Lantern ONLY works with Canon firmware 2.0.4 – so if you’ve upgraded to the latest version of the firmware (2.0.8) you’ll have to downgrade to 2.0.4 (which is nothing more than taking the 2.0.4 version and doing the normal firmware update).
For more info on Magic Lantern itself, of course you should read up on the Magic Lantern Wiki
You can also join the ML Development group for more details – and to get the absolute latest versions and to help with testing!
Our thanks to Moira and AJ for bringing this to planet5D first!
(cover photo credit: snap from Moira’s video)
20 Responses to “Fantastic New Magic Lantern Canon EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Version Announced”
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March 21, 2011
[...] Planet5D is reporting the release of a new Magic Lantern hack for Canon 5D mk II. This isn’t the first release for the 5D mkII. AJ Newman decided to improve the prior hack by recoding the entire project. This version features enhanced menus and audio as well as a fix for some of the issues in the last release. As with any hack, install with caution. This hack is still in beta as well, so improvements are on the way. Its also exclusive to the 2.0.4 Canon firmware. If you’ve recently updated you’ll have to switch back. To download the hack check it out here. For more info check out Moira O’Brien’s blog post. Tweet [...]
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March 21, 2011
[...] a complete rundown of the features and a download link, visit planet5D’s post. Related Posts Magic Lantern firmware increases 5D MkII’s bitrate up Magic Lantern Firmware [...]
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March 22, 2011
[...] For more details on this latest Magic Lantern version, check Planet5D article: Fantastic New Magic Lantern Canon EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Version Announced [...]
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March 22, 2011
[...] via planet5d [...]
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March 22, 2011
[...] – blog.planet5d.com Support New Camera Buy Canon Lenses, Buy Music CD or Digital Camera at amazon it helps this site, [...]
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March 23, 2011
[...] en “Fotoactualidad” ; Info en “groups google” y en “blog planet 5D” Etiquetas: Canon • [...]
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March 23, 2011
[...] Moira O'Brien and planet5D] Related:Magic Lantern Firmware Now Available for Canon [...]
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May 1, 2011
[...] For LOT more details of this latest Magic Lantern version, check Planet5D article: Fantastic New Magic Lantern Canon EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Version Announced. [...]
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June 11, 2011
[...] It is a fish eye and so you can get amazing effects. But professionally priced at $1400! Magic Lantern firmware. If you dare, you can update you Canon camera with homebrew firmware to get lots of new [...]
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phoSumpro!
21. Mar, 2011
when you say,
5) KILL OVERLAY* :
Activatable from GREEN SCREEN MENU.
does that mean we see a clean image on screen with no overlays whatsover?
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Adam J McKay
21. Mar, 2011
Where did the variable bit rate feature go?
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Andrew Gupta
21. Mar, 2011
Does it span clips (record video until the card fills up) and can I increase the bitrate for sustained recordings?
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planetMitch
21. Mar, 2011
Nope
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Richard Allen Crook
21. Mar, 2011
Mitch, can the focus assist circles be activated while recording?
Wow, this is quite a cool upgrade! Any weird crashes or freezes so far that you have experienced? I remember the other version would require a battery pull after an occasional freeze.
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planetMitch
21. Mar, 2011
Yes, magic circles can be activated while recording!
similar problems – periodic crashes, tho they are working on those – this is probably an early release in terms of fixes… but they wanted to get it out
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Adam J McKay
22. Mar, 2011
Is there anyone that can tell me why the firmware no longer allows for variable bit rates? I have asked on a number of forums and nobody seems to have an answer. What happened? Can someone link me to a thread? Anything?
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planetMitch
22. Mar, 2011
From Moira:
Qscales are in the process of being implemented but they are not ready yet and probably wont be for a time. But variable bit rate will be in a future release unless there are major problems with it.
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Christian Mazza
22. Mar, 2011
When will the 7D get some love??
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Peter
04. Apr, 2011
I recorded a concert the other night with AJ5.0 firmware. Ended up with a some large broken qucktime files and a CF card thats now corrupt. When I put it in the camera, everything freezes. I cleaned the card from the firmware and reinstalled 2.0.8, but the error continous.
I remember that at the censor got really hot when i recorded, so I had to turn of the camera a couple of times. This is when I think the corrupt qt files occured.
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planetMitch
04. Apr, 2011
I sent your reply to AJ – here’s what he said:
Thanks Mitch.
That is the first overheat to failure that I have heard of – but useful to know all the same.
+) Extra heat (and power) is dissapated in proportion to the screen_update speed.
+) Initially it is circa 10Hz
+) If the camera gets too hot -> this is reduced to 3Hz
+) Before thermal shutdown, this is reduced to 1Hz.
At the frequency of 1HZ, if still overheating it is likely that default software would still overheat.
–
The best way for people to raise issues is send them to:
https://bitbucket.org/hudson/magic-lantern/issues/
Or even join the other Beta Testers in the Magic Lantern google group.
Regards,
AJ
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