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The Genie is out of the bottle– Magic Lantern returns after a 5-year hiatus

MAGIC

After more than 5 years, Magic Lantern is returning with builds for four new cameras and other plans for the future.

What happened to Magic Lantern?

Around 2020, the lead developer, a1ex, left the project. The documentation was fragmentary.  Nobody understood the build system. A very small number of volunteers kept things alive, but nothing worked well. Nobody had deep knowledge of Magic Lantern code.

Very niche

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Magic Lantern arguably had its time, but with so many cameras now having good internal codecs and the ability to record RAW externally (some internally), its benefits are very niche. Magic Lantern also only worked on a very select number of cameras

At least in my opinion, Magic Lantern was always more for hobbyists than working professionals. Modifying a camera that was not approved or endorsed by Canon in any way and using it voided your warranty.

What does the return of Magic Lantern mean for users?

  • There will be regular releases for all cams.
  • Releases will be tested.
  • Official releases will be on the main website, never in forum threads.
  • Reported bugs will be fixed.
  • New cams will be supported.  Over time, the range of supported cameras will grow.

Camera Support

The old supported cameras continue to work. The new supported cameras have limited features, but they support two more recent generations of Digic 6 and 7. As these are newer hardware platforms, the old ML code was not designed to support this variation in hardware. Many fundamental changes in how the code supports different generations were made, all while carefully not breaking support for old cams.

Newly supported cameras:
– 200D (Kiss X9, Rebel SL2)
– 6D2 (6D Mark II)
– 750D (Rebel T6i, Kiss X8i)
– 7D2 (7D Mark II)

The new supported cameras have utility features such as:

– intervalometer
– custom crop marks
– shutter count
– 30 min LV powersave disable (good for HDMI out webcam mode)

The 200D has working RAW video, with DPAF, and Dual ISO. The RAW video output is a bit quirky, but useful results can be obtained with patience.

At ISO 100, the 200D has two stops more dynamic range than the EOS M. It has more DR than EOS M at every ISO. It has more DR than 5D3 at ISO 100 and 200.

According to Magic Lantern, now that they have a solid framework to build on, extending these cameras with more features will be easier, and extending to Digic 8 and above becomes possible. Porting working features from 200D to similar cams is quite practical.

Bonus new feature: Magic lantern now knows how to extend maximum recording time for MOV / MP4. This is enabled on 200D. 

Features that almost made it:
Trap focus on 7D2.  Lots of fiddly GUI stuff made this take too long.  When finished, porting to others cam should be easy.

Raw video on 6D2 and 7D2.  200D was easier for technical reasons. 7D2 will likely be difficult. 6D2 is somewhere in the middle. The fundamental problem is a lack of understanding of EDMAC. Improvements here may be slow, but are likely to enable other, new features, perhaps including on older cameras.

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