Download firmware

Support the project!

Thanks to your help, we have covered all our funding needs for now.

Please consider donating to EFF for us, because they do a great job in defending your digital rights, including the right to run third party software on your own devices!

THIS IS DANGEROUS AND MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA. NO WARRANTIES. NO GUARANTEES. DO NOT TAUNT. IF IT BREAKS, YOU GET TO KEEP BOTH PIECES.

Be careful using this for production work: Please test your camera and the firmware extensively before committing to using it on a set or any "one-take only" events. It has proven fairly stable in use, but there are still some rough edges.

Please review the FAQ. You have questions. It has answers.

General Instructions

• Very important: remove the battery after each test run. Sometimes the tasks are not properly shutdown when it enters power save mode, leading to the CPU to stay in a tight loop and run down your battery.
• Copy the magiclantern.fir and magiclantern.cfg file to the root directory on the CF card
• Select "Updated firmware" from the menu
• Camera reboots directly into LiveView mode
• Press Picture Style button once LiveView is displayed to bring up the Magic Lantern menu
  • Use the joystick to move between items.
  • Click the joystick to select items to toggle them.
  • Press Picture Style to exit the menu.
• You must reload the firmware after every powersave event or card removal

Release 0.1.6

After a month of development and testing, release 0.1.6 is finally ready! Some of the new features:

New audio menu

• Custom cropmarks bitmap file
• Live histogram while recording
• Time remaining estimate indicator
• Automated Focus pulls
• Focus stacking
• HDR exposure bracketing
• Lens data (hyperfocal distance, DOF, etc)
• Cleaner, multi-level menus that timeout automatically
• Audio monitoring can be turned off during clip review
• Internal mic can be used (must enable audio.mic-power=1 in config)
• Output audio volume control
• Configuration file can be saved to magiclantern.cfg

Release notes

Zebras, histogram and custom cropmarks

General

• Unchipped ("Chinese") batteries still do not work
• First second of audio may be at wrong levels
• Lens info only works with modern Canon lenses

Bracketing

• Bracketing does not work in Manual mode. You must use either Av or Tv mode.
• Bracketing must be done in Liveview Mode (will lock up the camera, remove battery to reset)
• The camera will attempt to focus between each shot; use manual focus mode instead

Depth of field info

Focus pulling / stacking

• Only works in Liveview Mode
• Occasionally locks up camera (remove battery to reset)

HDMI output

• Zebra and cropmarks will not display correctly
• Histogram may be calculated incorrectly
• Only outputs 480p while recording (quicktime file is still 1080p)

Download link

• magiclantern-0.1.6.zip

If you have any problems, please report them on the issue tracker. If you are interested in building your own version, you can download sources under the terms of the GPL.

Please note that this firmware requires Canon firmware 1.1.0 ONLY. If you have upgraded to 1.2.4, please be aware that this release will not work at all with it. The next release will have support for 1.2.4 or the follow-on release with the new video modes.

Good luck!

Thanks

CHDK

Without their hard work on understanding Canon's point-and-shoot cameras, this would not have been possible. They did the hard-core reverse engineering on their cameras using only a LED to blink raw machine code and built an entire community on top of it. And since they released it all under the GPL we were able to learn from their efforts.

Jon Fairhurst @ Poorly Projected Pictures

Jon did the alpha testing to find a decent set of input gains and to compare the Magic Lantern firmware against other recorders. He also handles much of the tech support and has a few thousand posts over at dvinfo.net.

juicedLink

Robert at juicedLink provided guidance on the audio testing procedures and provided a CX231 preamp for testing.

Cinevate

Cinevate has donated a matte box and rails system. Their DSLR shooting rigs turn the 5D into a cinematic camera system.

Chris Barcellos @ MYF Media

Chris does a great job of bravely beta testing the Magic Lantern firmware and has been providing tech support.

SmallHD

SmallHD has provided a DP1 HDMI field monitor so that Magic Lantern can be extended to support external displays.

Glidetrack

Glidetrack produces high quality, low cost and very compact tripod mounted tracks for dolly shots. It's amazing how much a tracking shot adds to the cinematic feel.

5D Film Making

5dfilmmaking produced a much better intro video for the Magic Lantern project and can teach you to make better films with your 5D (or 7D or other DSLR), too.

Donors

Thanks to everyone who made a donation via PayPal or through equipment donations! You can donate via PayPal to help keep the project going, too.

Older releases

• Release 0.1.5
• Release 0.1.4

Good luck! And don't forget to read the FAQ