# Magic Lantern insecurities...



## sanj (Aug 31, 2013)

Hello.
Is there ANY reason I should consider not installing magic lantern on my 5d3?
Large file size and faster cards is not an issue, IQ is.

Please advice.

Thank you!


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## Axilrod (Aug 31, 2013)

No, it's easily reversible so I doubt it could do permanent damage. The difference in IQ is pretty massive, really it's the level of editing you can do to the image, its' the difference between RAW and jpeg pretty much. If the shot is really underexposed you can pull it back up with virtually no loss in image quality.

The only thing is, the workflow is extremely cumbersome and I would definitely not use it for a professional gig until you have a lot of experience with it. I have a buddy that shot a whole music video using it and had no idea what he was in for in terms of post and it ended up being a nightmare.


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## kennephoto (Aug 31, 2013)

Magic lantern drains my batteries when the camera is off, that's kind of annoying to pick up my camera the next morning and having a dead battery.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Aug 31, 2013)

sanj said:


> Hello.
> Is there ANY reason I should consider not installing magic lantern on my 5d3?
> Large file size and faster cards is not an issue, IQ is.
> 
> ...



Not at all, it's soooo much better so long as you don't mind dealing with the files.
I've the pre-pre-alphas since nearly the beginning and it hasn't eaten my camera.

The only thing which I'm beginning to think might be a bug is battery drain. I swear I keep seeing the red light on the camera flash when I have ML loaded onto an installed card and I swear that my batteries have started draining like crazy, even with the camera sitting around, for the last number of ML versions. Maybe it always did that, but I'm starting to get a weird feeling.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Aug 31, 2013)

kennephoto said:


> Magic lantern drains my batteries when the camera is off, that's kind of annoying to pick up my camera the next morning and having a dead battery.



Hah. Interesting, I was just commenting on that. So I guess it is ML then. They have done something weird in these last releases then.


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## neuroanatomist (Aug 31, 2013)

Don't do it - one of the CR Commandments is _I am your Canon, thou shall have no other firmware before Me_, or something along those lines. 

I'll probably put it on my EOS M at some point...


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## Marsu42 (Aug 31, 2013)

kennephoto said:


> Magic lantern drains my batteries when the camera is off



Ugh?! How's that? If anything it's gps that drains battery on t he 6d, otherwise it's a bug and you should post it on the ml forum...



Axilrod said:


> No, it's easily reversible so I doubt it could do permanent damage.



Wrong - the alpha of ml on the 5d3 _is not reversible right now_, you cannot remove the boot flag _yet_ (like on all other supported camera models). So if you want the option to remove ml w/o trace, don't use the 5d3 build yet...

... but as Canon never bothered anyone about the bootflag you should try ml anyway, it's beyond awesome 



neuroanatomist said:


> one of the CR Commandments is _I am your Canon, thou shall have no other firmware before Me_,



Actually we should thank Canon for allowing ml to use their internal devlopment hook to boot the ml firmware on the card - *Panasonic recently disabled any 3rd party fw*: http://www.eoshd.com/content/518/why-panasonic-want-to-block-hacked-firmware


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Aug 31, 2013)

Marsu42 said:


> kennephoto said:
> 
> 
> > Magic lantern drains my batteries when the camera is off
> ...



Part of me wonders if Canon marketing understands that it is a good thing or whether they hate it and have been going to engineering and asking them to lock it out and engineering is just going "que? que?" and putting uncomprehending looks on their faces and walking away  because they are PO at how marketing has had them cripple so much of the awesome hardware they made. Or something. Probably not, since I'm sure business types would never let an engineer get away with that, they probably have them locked in a dungeon, but who knows hah.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Aug 31, 2013)

I also need to look into whether it is not the Kenko DGX TC+70-300L combo causing the drain and not ML (also mine is not so bad that it goes full to gone in one night).


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## Marsu42 (Aug 31, 2013)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> Part of me wonders if Canon marketing understands that it is a good thing



After a recent trip to the local electronics market/discounter shop and listening in to the conversations of people buying 7d-6d type gear I think what Canon marketing knows is: 90% of their customers don't care or have a clue, and those who do buy 1d type bodies with enough fw featues out of the box.

Plus the competition isn't any better, even Sony dslrs with an evf show a complete lack of imagination about what you can do with a dslr - so why should Canon bother and rock the boat?

The ml research shows that the Canon tech guys put a lot of features inside the digic processors, it's just that even their own firmware doesn't use it... more features mean more testing, bugs and support costs.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 1, 2013)

Marsu42 said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > Part of me wonders if Canon marketing understands that it is a good thing
> ...



I more meant whether they realize ML is actually a plus for them (I noted that the 5D3 price shot back up to near intro price just a few weeks after ML RAW came out, coincidence or cause and effect? what else could have suddenly driven demand up enough to support the high price again? i wonder)

Because in video you get eaten alive quickly.


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## sanj (Sep 1, 2013)

Thank you so much for taking time to reply. Appreciate.


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## cayenne (Sep 10, 2013)

Marsu42 said:


> kennephoto said:
> 
> 
> > Magic lantern drains my batteries when the camera is off
> ...



Can someone explain what this bootflag is, and what setting it with ML and not being able to get rid of it means to me?

Also..from what I know..Canon has never actually 'opened' the books/doors to the ML crew. From what I understand it is a completely 100% clean room reverse engineer?

Anyway, I saw that ML redid their site, but I'm still having problems finding a definitive guide showing:
1. How to install on 5D3
2. Workflow for RAW video
....without jumping over post after post at different dates piecemeal.


cayenne

Thanks!

CC


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## Don Haines (Sep 10, 2013)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> kennephoto said:
> 
> 
> > Magic lantern drains my batteries when the camera is off, that's kind of annoying to pick up my camera the next morning and having a dead battery.
> ...



I noticed the same thing on my 60D..... I really liked magic lantern, but after two weekend canoe trips where I drained my battery plus a spare ( shot perhaps 200 pictures to drain both batteries), I removed magic lantern from my camera. Without it I get at least 600 pictures per battery.


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## Marsu42 (Sep 10, 2013)

cayenne said:


> Can someone explain what this bootflag is, and what setting it with ML and not being able to get rid of it means to me?



The bootflag is just a tiny bit in the firmware that tells the camera to load additional firmware from the card, this is most likely what Canon uses during firmware development. Not being able to get rid of it like on the 5d3 right now means that Canon could see that you were using ml if you send in your camera for service.



cayenne said:


> 1. How to install on 5D3
> 2. Workflow for RAW video
> ....without jumping over post after post at different dates piecemeal.



5d3 and raw video are both beta, so either you do some research yourself or simply wait for an official release with a nice, polished documentation - these unpaid people can only do one thing at a time, code or write docs, but feel free to help out - apply in the ml forum


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Sep 10, 2013)

Marsu42 said:


> LetTheRightLensIn said:
> 
> 
> > Part of me wonders if Canon marketing understands that it is a good thing
> ...



You are not listening in the right spots. Go to all the video/movie blogs and talk to those sorts. They were the sorts who made the 5D2 fly off the shelves. Overhearing people at the BB counter doesn't mean anything.

Because they have all sorts of competition coming in from all over. Video/movie guys are not fanboys and if you think people get harsh in the stills dominated forums check out what the movie types say....
some of the hugest names were already saying years ago they couldn't believe Canon was deciding to handle it this way.

Also note that the 5D3 price suddenly way spiked after the ML RAW release.


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## Marsu42 (Sep 11, 2013)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> Because they have all sorts of competition coming in from all over. Video/movie guys are not fanboys and if you think people get harsh in the stills dominated forums check out what the movie types say



Interesting to know - as I don't video I have no idea about these customers. But it makes me feel a bit more moderate because around here I'm usually one of the most critical members towards Canon corp policy 



LetTheRightLensIn said:


> .... some of the hugest names were already saying years ago they couldn't believe Canon was deciding to handle it this way.



The imho most probably explanation for that was posted here some time ago from a guy who knows his way around large companies - he said that he believes the Canon execs are the conservative, quarterly shareholder value types who play it safe and milk what they have ... and that the only way to change this is to replace these people, willingly by old age or by getting fired.


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