Magic lantern review (version 2.3)
First of all, as this is a third party software, if you put it on your camera, you are doing it at your own risk. I had no permanent problems with it until now, and I haven’t found any mentions of problems with it, but you newer know. Also if you are not familiar with you camera, don’t try using it. It will overwhelm you with a staggering number of new features which will confuse you. Also Magic lantern is only for specific Canon cameras, check the creators website for a full list.
For the last few weeks I’ve been using the Magic Lantern firmware instead of my Promote control, so here are few of my thought on it.
Magic lantern (http://magiclantern.wikia.com) is not a firmware in a real sense. It’s an upgrade to a firmware, because it does not override you current camera firmware. It just notes in the camera, that it should run it from the card. This is actually the first great thing about it. As it runs from the memory card, you just have to use a different card to turn it off (or hold the set button, while turning the camera on, as Wojciech Toman noted :)).
When you have Magic lantern on your camera, you still can access all the camera settings from the normal Canon menus and everything works as without it (as long as you don’t change any of the ML settings).
Magic lantern provides many new settings for your camera, but as I use it for HDR bracketing, lets take a look at those features. Once you turn on HDR bracketing under the shoot submenu, you can change the following settings:
- Frames – the number of frames the camera takes at one time, from 2 to 9. You can also choose automatic, which tries to determine how many you need from the first photo (I prefer to set this myself)
- EV increment – the distance between two shots (from 0 to 5)
- Sequence – the order in which the photos are taken. There are three options here (0+-, 0++ and –0) but only the 0++ is usable, as it take the photos in the order from the darkest to the brightest.
- 2-second delay – turn on self timer, very useful
- ISO shifting – if the camera should use a higher ISO to shorten the longer exposures
- Post scripts – this is for those who use Enfuse to combine the brackets, it creates a script to make it simpler.
This settings work really well, I would just really like a better photo sequence (-0+, so you can set up the 0 shot and it still starts from the darkest photo) an ability to turn on a longer self timer.
You can also turn on Mirror lockup to avoid more camera shake. But in my experience, this doesn’t work that well. The camera does a mirror lockup before each shot, not just one at the start. This adds a lot of time to you bracket series. I would suggest using this only with long exposure night shots.
With these setting taking HDR brackets is really easy. Here I made a little video showing my exact process while taking them:
Overall, I have to say I really like it. It gives me most of the settings I get from the Promote control and I don’t have to bother with a remote and additional cables. Still there are some problems with it. The settings work most of the time, as it is not 100% reliable. I had to reset my camera few times (pulling out the battery) to get things to work again. Also you have to turn off the camera when you are changing memory cards, and still it doesn’t start sometimes (and you have to pull out the battery again).
Usage update after few months
So now I have been using the Magic Lantern for more than three months and I love it more and more. I have to say, that most of the problems I experienced at the beginning were due to me using it incorrectly or mostly very fast :) The two main problems, camera not turning on and settings not working all the time were caused by me taking out the card too quickly after I turned the camera off and pressing the shutter button without pausing in the middle positions. As I use manual focusing all the time, I don’t have the need to focus using the shutter button and this was the result :)
Also what I have noticed, that the more battery usage is mostly from me using the screen more as I would without the firmware. So it’s a result of changed habit, the new firmware brought with it.
And here, as an example, one of the bracket series I took with the help of the Magic Lantern firmware
So lets look at the overall pros and cons of magic lanter:
Pros:
- ads the ability to take more brackets than the standard firmware
- can be used together with the standard firmware
- ads a staggering amount of new tweaks to your camera
- can be removed easily or turned off
- cost’s you only a small donation or it’s free (based on version), so much cheaper than a dedicated remote
Cons:
- it’s a third party software, so there is always a chance that it can damage your camera
stops working sporadically (not as a complete firmware, but parts of it, for instance it takes only one photo when HDR bracketing is turned on)can cause that you camera wont start (but taking out the battery for few seconds always helps) – check out http://www.magiclantern.fm/bestpractices, to avoid this- you can easily forget that you turned something on as it’s not shown in camera info screens
it uses more of the battery – check out here http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=1573.0 for more about this
Conclusion:
This is a cheap option compared to a Promote Control. It works fairy very well, and for me it replaced the Promote for now. But I still have the Promote in my bag, as a backup and for situations where I really don’t want to touch the camera.
BTW there is one more way of disabling Magic Lantern – it is sufficient to hold SET button during camera start-up (so no need to use different card :) )
Good point.. I know I have read about that.. but forgot to mention it :)
I have managed to set up magic lantern and take my first test shots, when I check my card on my pc I see the 7 shots but also an extra file named HDR_3665.SH
I wonder would you mind telling me what this is for and do I just delete it?
Many thanks
Hi David. The extra file is a script for a program called Enfuse. Enfues is a exposure blending program and the script is a list of all files in one bracket series. If you don’t want it, just turn the Post Script option under HDR setting off. And you can delete them if you want :)
Hi Miroslav
Ah I see, many thanks for letting me know. Much appreciated, I did not want to delete them in case they were important…
regards
David
Hi Miroslav
I wonder if you might assist me again…
As you know I managed to take my first 7 shots with magic lantern, today though I decided to test 9 shots. Went for a walk, placed my canon Efs 10-22 lense on my canon 550d and set up the magic lantern for shots but cannot get it to work.
Via magic lantern I turned HDR on and set it to 9 brackets.
Trouble is that this time the green HDR button is now red, also at the bottom of the magic lantern menu it says in red…
!Turn off Canon bracketing (AEB}!”
This happened to me the other day, the only way I could get my HDR button green was to re-format my card and again load the magic lantern files onto the card.
I wonder do you have any idea where I am going wrong?
Many thanks
Kind regards
David
Hmm.. maybe stupid question, but did you tried to turn of the Camera AEB in the normal camera menu? I did a quick test and when I turned it on, I had the same message you have and when I turned it off again, the message was gone :)
Hi Miroslav
Yes I had my camera set to AV mode, does this mean we cannot use it in AV Mode?
I just tried in Manual mode and it worked with 7 shots. However.. the shots are terrible, full of tons of noise, totally useless?
Before magic lantern I have been using AV mode and taking great 3 bracket shots, I must admit I am struggling here…
In AV mode I did not have to worry about setting shutter speed, now I am lost as to how to set it. The M mode right now is set to 1/125
Again thanks for your help..
Hi Miroslav
Fixed… I managed to get things working by using the Auto HDR mode, thank you for all your help.
Kind regards
David
Hi Hi Miroslav
Thanks to your help I am now able to take some very nice HDR shots, one thing though I am having trouble with consistanlty is…
I keep getting blown clouds in the form of light grey blobs… I just can’t seem to figure out what I am doing wrong. I press the button down half way before shots but the bright areas such as clouds still keep blowing out into grey patches?
Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Many thanks
David
You have to correct the clouds in postprocessing, when you combine your shots. It’s hard to have nice clouds in HDR photo, so you have to recover them from one of the original shots.
Thanks for the info. I’ve just heard about Magic lantern after I purchased my Promote Control. Wished I didn’t have ordered Promote until I tried Magic Lantern out on My Canon EOS T4i which is still in Alpha. All I really want is the camera bracketing of shooting more than 3 exposures. Oh well.
My question is if the sequence hits the 30″ wall does it go beyond it or just keep taking 30″ shots? The Promote Control goes to bulb automatically and when doing moon shots over a city and the moon is sharp at 1/125 but you need that 1 min shot at the end it does it for the f/stop you have set.
It completely removes the 30 second limit if you do bracketing. It just does bulb even if you camera is set to manual.
I wish camera makers would remove the 30″ wall when doing bracketing! One reason I got the Promote Control that and the 45 shot limit. By the way you being a true HDRI shooter is 2ev spread between frames the best or a 1ev spread? I like 5ev above and 5ev below at 1ev spread so once i get on the computer I can pick and choose (I like to do sun/moon rise/sets) less noise. I only ask because there is no book or on line info about info HDRI programs get from each frame for tone mapping. Just an off the cuff statement from a tutorial I watched once that a 2ev spread was the norm but when looking at Nikon’s and Canon,s they both really did a +/- 2ev but Nikon let you do it at 1 ev spread but with more frames. Maybe not the right place to ask.
I wish that from the first day I had a camera :). And it’s just software, so it’s stupid that they limit it. I plan to switch from the canon, and not having magic lantern will be tough. I found that I don’t really need that many shots. Even when shooting into the sun. I usually do -2 to +2 in 1EV increments, or -3 to +1 if I have a really bright object in the shot. I used to do 2EV stops, but quite often I also do manual blending as a part of my workflow and I use the 1 step increments there. I don’t remember exactly right now, but I think I tried it few years ago, and I think that if there is better graduation in color transitions (like the sky) if you use more brackets. But can’t claim it for certain.
I just went to A7s it will do up 5 shots at 3ev this will cover the ev spread of a full moon clear focus at f/8 1/125 – 1/60 to a 30 second shot but what is really nice is uping the ISO 5,000 and a shutter 1600 for the same focus point and getting a faster shoot sequence to avoid much ghosting of the moon. Even though in camera noise reduction does not effect a raw file it’s processor does something above 3200 to the raw getting rid of dark noise making final image more like iso 100 making PP’ing less of a chore, but I still use my T2i with the Promote Control it may be old but still has clean output and hey the EF-S 10-22mm (16-35mm) is fun and only now do other full frame 16-35mm come out an inside outside lens, the new A7rII will be 50MB so get both for the price of a top Canon or Nikon and use all your old lenses to boot.
I wonder if the a7s has different bracketing than the a7r, as that according to what I have read, does only 0.7ev difference when doing 5 shots. I will probably switch to the a7r, as I need and upgrade quite quickly, and can’t wait for the a7rII. I actually don’t like in camera noise reduction, as I hat to wait for the camera to do it, and I like to use it right away again :)
Yes, the A7r it will let you do 3 images at 3 ev max and many below http://docs.esupport.sony.com/dvimag/ILCE-7_ILCE-7R_guide/en/contents/TP0000226583.html?search=bracket This user guide is best for Sony info the owners manual is written by someone who is not a photographer!!! and at 36 MP fun but the II will be 50 MP. In camera noise reduction has no effect on RAW files just the Jpeg but what you view on the LCD is a Jpeg image so you have to wait even if it is turned off in camera so I have read and learned over time.