When you’ve got one of Canon’s amazing video-capable DSLRs, you know you’ve got a formidable camera. What you will not know is so that you can add some incredible features, without charge, with an open-source firmware add-on called Magic Lantern. Here’s how.

Photo remixed from originals by Miss Katrina Beers and Carole Smith

Note: in case you’ve got some degree and shoot camera, remember to inspect or guide on turning your point and shoot into a great camera . When you’re simply new to DSLR video, you’ll wish to discover ways to record great video together with your DSLR .

What is Magic Lantern?

Magic Lantern probably best explained by its creators inside the video above, however is basically an enhancement that works on top of Canon’s firmware to supply great new features for your video-capable Canon DSLR that you simply’d expect to determine on a qualified video camera. Let’s say, you’ve got much finer control over audio, can overlay a zebra pattern to peer overexposed areas of the frame, add custom crop marks for diverse aspect ratios (like 2.35:1), arrange programmable focus, and more. It’s incredibly easy to install (which we’ll walk you through in a minute) and may allow you to do things with a DSLR that have generally only been possible with cameras that will cost more than your yearly wages. To get additional information directly from the source, download the firmware; one could check compatibility together with your particular Canon DSLR at the Magic Lantern Wiki . Now that you simply know what it’s capable of and where to get it, let’s dive into installing and using it.

How to Install Magic Lantern

Magic Lantern works on more than the Canon 5D Mark II, but since that was the first camera it was made for and it’s the person who I’ve got, that’s what we’re going to exploit as a model. You want to do the required research about your camera model and its compatibility before you begin this process. While nobody, up to now, has broken their camera with Magic Lantern, it’s not beyond the world of possibility. Just learn before you start fiddling with it.

Magic Lantern isn’t a firmware upgrade or replacement, but rather software that runs alongside the installed firmware. This implies it ought to be compatible along with your camera’s firmware version. Within the 5D Mark II, Magic Lantern is compatible with firmware versions 1.0.7, 1.1.0, 2.0.3, 2.0.4 and a couple of.0.8, but you must match up your camera’s firmware version with the version of Magic Lantern that supports it. As an illustration, Magic Lantern 0.1.6 only supports 5D Mark II Firmware 1.1.0. Later versions won’t work and your camera will freeze up.

The Magic Lantern download page only has version 0.1.6, 0.1.5, and zero.1.4 available, so in case your Canon firmware version is later than 1.1.0 you get the pleasure of looking to determine where to download the most recent version of Magic Lantern. To make things easy on yourself, updated your 5D Mark II to version 2.0.8 (that’s the newest as of the time of this writing) and download version 0.1.9 via the Google Groups posting . While you ever like to find other versions of Magic Lantern, the Magic Lantern Google Group is your best place to seem.

Once you’ve download version 0.1.9 (or the version you needed), you’ll unzip the download and notice these files:

Copy the magiclantern.fir file to the basis of your CompactFlash (or, for some of you, SD) card and put it back into the camera. In case you’ve upgraded your firmware on the 5D Mark II before (and likelihood is you could have), this process should seem familiar. So should the following steps.

All you want to do is go into your settings where you upgrade your firmware (while you’re using a 5D Mark II, it’s the last option under the third yellow wrench as pictured above). That option should just be the version of your firmware. Select it, tell the camera it is advisable to upgrade, and while you confirm it’ll seem to reboot. If it’s been more than 10 seconds, take your battery out and put it back in because you did something wrong. If the camera is functional again within a couple of seconds, congratulations! You only loaded up Magic Lantern.

How to exploit Magic Lantern

The moment you go into Live View mode for your camera you need to notice some changes (like audio signal meters along the pinnacle of the frame and zebra patterns on overexposed areas), but that will start messing around with the settings it’s a must to press the Picture Style button to bring them up. Are you wondering which button which is? Me too. I just pushed a host of buttons until I found it, but here’s a graphic to avoid wasting you the hassle (unless you prefer pushing buttons):

On the 5D Mark II, it’s the button below the MENU button. From there you’ll have a whole lot of settings to play with, and you may navigate through your options along with your camera’s joystick (and select by pressing in on the joystick). Let’s check out them all from left to right.

Audio

The audio panel was one of the most original reasons Magic Lantern was created within the first place: Canon didn’t provide any control over audio levels. While better control came with firmware update 2.0.3, you still get rather more control from Magic Lantern. You are able to set the output volume of the camera’s audio, increase the gain to make the recorded sounds louder (you can also do easily in post), and set the gain for the left and right channels of the audio input separately. You may as well turn auto gain control (AGC) on or off. Turning it on will make the camera adjust the audio levels automatically based on the loudness of the audio getting into the camera. Finally, you may choose the source of the audio, that’s essentially a toggle between the camera’s internal microphone and the 1/8″ external input source on the side of the camera. By default, Magic Lantern ignores the camera’s internal microphone.

Video

The video section offers you control over the zebra patterns. One could turn them on or off and set the edge. It’s also possible to specify crop marks for different aspect ratios, but you could create a BMP file and load it onto your CompactFlash card with the firmware. An example is included including the firmware you downloaded. You may also toggle the histogram and waveform displays on and stale from this panel.

Brack(et)

Bracketing is what you utilize to take multiple exposures with one shutter press. This is often accepted in HDR photograhy . By default, your camera will takes three exposures: one normal, one under-exposed, and one over-exposed. It’s also possible to specify how over- and under-exposed each of those shots will likely be by selecting a variety. Magic Lantern takes this slightly further by letting you specify a much broader range between photos and likewise take more than three. Currently you could go your entire way up to 13. I’m unsure why you’d need that many, but the option is there while you’re inside the mood.

Focus

What is maybe my favorite component to Magic Lantern is the focusing features. What this option does is rack focus mechanically. In case you don’t know, rack focusing is moving the lens’ focus from one point of focus to another. Say once you’re recording video of somebody walking from one point in a room to another. Likelihood is they’re not walking in a straight line and are coming in the direction of or moving farther far from the camera. You’ll wish to adjust focus as they walk and this is often difficult to track. The focal point panel permits you to set a start and end focus point and how long it is going to take to head from one point to the alternative. This manner you may make the camera perform the rack focus operation for you. Ways to do it’s hard to provide an explanation for but much easier to look, so study the video below for detailed instructions:

Debug, Boot, and PTP

These last three sections are sections you would ignore. Unless you’re participating inside the development of Magic Lantern, stay out. Everything you wish to have and want can also be found to the left, although while you’re involved in things like the temperature of your CMOS image sensor you are able to poke around within the debug menu for that and other neat information.

That’s all there is to it. Now you’ve got a lowcost video-capable DSLR with features that rival cameras that cost more than college tuition.


You may contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can even follow him on Twitter and Facebook .

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This post is tagged: aspect ratios, compatibility, magic lantern, new-features-, video camera, zebra pattern