As i lost a few sentences on my first DSLR - the Canon EOS 600D - aka Rebel T3i - in the last post, i want to talk about an open source firmware that really lifts this entry shooter up a level. Magic Lantern is a totally free and open source software, that runs on your DSLR, as long as it is a Canon. There might be something similar for Nikon users, but i am not aware of it. Sorry.
The software, or firmware itself, does actually not live on your camera but on the SD-Card you store your images on. It can be downloaded from following site:
http://www.magiclantern.fm
The site is rich of explanation and a forum is linked as well. So it should not be too hard to get into it. On youtube there are plenty of installation guides and tutorials as well. The creators of the firmware claim that they do not give any warranty that the code does not corrupt your camera. This is an important statement for legal reasons. But worry not. I have not heard of any case in which the software has done harm to the camera or its internals. It is hard to imagine how this should be even possible, as the code runs directly from the SD-Card. If powered on without card, the camera runs on its default OS no problem whatsoever.
Magic Lantern is used by many Pro-photographers for its manifold of functions and configurability.
Let me give you a few examples. You can google them for deeper explanation or watch a youtube video. Just a few key-words here:
- HDR bracketing: The Camera takes a configurable amount of photos with a gradient in exposure time. In your retouching program (i use Lightroom 6) you can just throw the files in and create a HDR image in a few minutes.
- Intervalometer: You wanna do this crazy - cool time lapse videos you see on national geography or on BBC? No Problem. The intervalometer setting takes a certain amount of pictures, in an configurable interval. You can even let the exposure time or aperture adjust as the time goes by to compensate for fading light.
- Boost live-fiew gain: Ever had the problem to shoot at night and had no idea how to manually focus on anything as the scene around you was pitch black? Fear no more. With magic lantern you can set a gain on the live - view screen. The firmware will boost the iso on the sensor to the maximum value (a value you never would want to shoot with), resulting in a crazy amount of grain in the image. BUT! In most cases it is enough to distinguish some objects in front of you and voila. Now you can focus.
- Quick zoom in review mode: How many times have you reviewed your images on the camera and clicked on the zoom button a thousand times to test if the picture is sharp at maximum zoom? With magic lantern you can freely adjust the behaviour of the zoom buttons. For example: Click once and the image will zoom to its maximum or to the point you focused on.
Remember. None of above mentioned features are available in the standard Canon menu. And that was just the beginning. The manifold of functions is really stunning. So, if that sounds like you wanna play around with it. Have fun ;)