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Magic Lantern Is Back

magiclantern.fm

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Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#151

Post by names_r_hard »

fooker wrote: post #147
names_r_hard wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I'd love an astro conversion. I've had a fun idea knocking around for a while for astro. These cams have a fairly accessible serial port, hidden under the thumb grip rubber. I think the 6D may have one in the battery grip pins, too. We can sample LV data at any time, and do some tricks to boost exposure for "night vision". Soooo, you could turn the cam itself into a star tracker, which controlled a mount over seri…

> turn the cam itself into a star tracker Hmm, that's a neat idea. The better language for it is 'auto guider'. Auto guiding is basically supplying correction information to the mount when it drifts off. Most mounts support guiding input and virtually all astrophotographers set up a separate tiny camera, a small scope, and a laptop to auto guide the mount. It would be neat for the main camera to do it. The caveat is…

I am definitely an astro noob :) LV sampling was just the first idea I thought of. We could also load the last image while the next was being taken, and extract guide points from that (assuming an individual frame has enough distinct bright points... which it might not... you could of course sum a few in software). It's a larger image, but your time constraints shouldn't be tight. That way you're not getting any extra sensor heat. Some CPU heat though, dunno if that would be noticeable.

For networking, this module demonstrates the principles: https://github.com/reticulatedpines/magiclantern_simplified/...

A simple python server, that accepts image data from the cam, does some processing, sends data back. The network protocol is dirt simple. The config file format for holding network creds, IP addr etc is really very ugly. It was written for convenience of writing the code, not convenience of making the config file.

You would need to find the equivalent networking functions (our jargon is "stubs"). You will likely want help with this, unless you're already familiar with Ghidra or IDA Pro, and have both a 6D and 200D rom dump :) Pop in the discord when you get to that stage, it's too much detail for here.

There's no real list of things people want (well, they want everything...). The issues on the repo will have some good ideas. In the early days of setting that up I tagged a few things as Good First Issue, but gave up since it was just me working on them.

I would say it's more important to find something you're personally motivated by, that way you're more likely to stick with it. It gets a lot easier, but it doesn't have a friendly learning curve.

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#152

Post by fooker »

names_r_hard wrote: post #151
fooker wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> turn the cam itself into a star tracker Hmm, that's a neat idea. The better language for it is 'auto guider'. Auto guiding is basically supplying correction information to the mount when it drifts off. Most mounts support guiding input and virtually all astrophotographers set up a separate tiny camera, a small scope, and a laptop to auto guide the mount. It would be neat for the main camera to do it. The caveat is…

I am definitely an astro noob :) LV sampling was just the first idea I thought of. We could also load the last image while the next was being taken, and extract guide points from that (assuming an individual frame has enough distinct bright points... which it might not... you could of course sum a few in software). It's a larger image, but your time constraints shouldn't be tight. That way you're not getting any extr…

Does LV sampling work when ..say.. a 120 second image is being captured?

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#153

Post by [deleted] »

fooker wrote: post #152
names_r_hard wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely an astro noob :) LV sampling was just the first idea I thought of. We could also load the last image while the next was being taken, and extract guide points from that (assuming an individual frame has enough distinct bright points... which it might not... you could of course sum a few in software). It's a larger image, but your time constraints shouldn't be tight. That way you're not getting any extr…

Does LV sampling work when ..say.. a 120 second image is being captured?

[deleted]

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#154

Post by dingaling »

CarVac wrote: post #86
names_r_hard wrote: post #29

Thanks to all who are sharing their appreciation for this niche but cool project. I'm the current lead dev, so please ask questions. Got a Canon DSLR or mirrorless and like a bit of software reverse engineering? Consider joining in; it's quite an approachable hardware target. No code obfuscation, just classic reversing. You can pick up a well supported cam for a little less than $100. Cams range from ARMv5te up to AA…

I would love to add it to my 1Ds3. I recall reading that once upon a time Canon wrote ML devs a strongly worded letter telling them not to touch a 1D, but a camera that old is long obsolete. (I literally only want a raw histogram) (I also have a 1Dx2 but that's probably a harder port)

The 1Ds3 still renders wonderful images but the UI feels so limited now. ML would transform it.

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#155

Post by F3nd0 »

names_r_hard wrote: post #73
chownie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C genuinely is easy to pick up. I feel like this is a bit of an https://xkcd.com/2501/ situation. C is considered easy to pick up for the average user posting HN comments because we have the benefit of years -- the average comp sci student, who has been exposed to Javascript and Python, who might not know what "pass by reference" even means... I'm not sure they're going to be considering C easy.

I've taught several different languages to both 1st year uni students, and new joiners to a technical company, where they had no programming background. Honestly, C seems to be one of the easier languages to teach the basics of. It's certainly easier than Java or C++, which have many more concepts. C has some concepts that confuse the hell out of beginners, and it will let you shoot yourself in the foot very thorough…

I agree. For me as a beginner, C was relatively easy to learn the basics of. Sure, I never went on to get familiar with all the details and become proficient in it, but the basic concepts really aren’t that hard to understand. There’s just not too much you need to wrap your head around.

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#156

Post by omegacharlie »

names_r_hard wrote: post #102
CarVac wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to add it to my 1Ds3. I recall reading that once upon a time Canon wrote ML devs a strongly worded letter telling them not to touch a 1D, but a camera that old is long obsolete. (I literally only want a raw histogram) (I also have a 1Dx2 but that's probably a harder port)

Canon have never had any contact with ML project for any reason, to the best of my knowledge. The decision to stay away from 1D series was made by ML team, I would say out of an abundance of caution to try not to annoy them.

Might be time to reconsider. Canon are (supposedly) not planning any further flagship DSLRs and I see little wrong with modifying your own property.

Independent of that: how dangerous is ML dev to the cameras themselves (in terms of brick potential)? Permanently bricking a camera in the price range of the 1DX is not exactly my idea of a good time. :-)

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#157

Post by names_r_hard »

fooker wrote: post #152
names_r_hard wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely an astro noob :) LV sampling was just the first idea I thought of. We could also load the last image while the next was being taken, and extract guide points from that (assuming an individual frame has enough distinct bright points... which it might not... you could of course sum a few in software). It's a larger image, but your time constraints shouldn't be tight. That way you're not getting any extr…

Does LV sampling work when ..say.. a 120 second image is being captured?

I don't know of a way to do that. I don't think the cam will ever display an image on LV while a capture is in progress. The readout process from the sensor is fundamentally decoupled from the capture. You could probably interleave long exposures with short ones at greatly boosted ISO, and display only the short ones on LV.

I was assuming it would be possible to quite accurately model the drift over time, and adjust the model based on the last image. The model continuously guides the mount, and the lag in updates hopefully wouldn't matter - so you can use saved images, not LV. In fact, we can trigger actions to occur on the in memory image just before writing out.

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#158

Post by names_r_hard »

omegacharlie wrote: post #156
names_r_hard wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canon have never had any contact with ML project for any reason, to the best of my knowledge. The decision to stay away from 1D series was made by ML team, I would say out of an abundance of caution to try not to annoy them.

Might be time to reconsider. Canon are (supposedly) not planning any further flagship DSLRs and I see little wrong with modifying your own property. Independent of that: how dangerous is ML dev to the cameras themselves (in terms of brick potential)? Permanently bricking a camera in the price range of the 1DX is not exactly my idea of a good time. :-)

Over the years, a few devs have temp soft bricked cams, requiring various non-standard methods to restore them to working order. I think all attempts succeeded so far! I don't think any permanent physical damage has been triggered by devs. It is definitely a real risk, but we try to work with the OS when possible, and the OS was written to try to make these things hard.

I don't think I'd want to learn the ropes on a cam too expensive to psychologically say goodbye to. Maybe save that for the second port.

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#159

Post by fooker »

names_r_hard wrote: post #157
fooker wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does LV sampling work when ..say.. a 120 second image is being captured?

I don't know of a way to do that. I don't think the cam will ever display an image on LV while a capture is in progress. The readout process from the sensor is fundamentally decoupled from the capture. You could probably interleave long exposures with short ones at greatly boosted ISO, and display only the short ones on LV. I was assuming it would be possible to quite accurately model the drift over time, and adjust…

> quite accurately model the drift over time

This indeed seems like something someone would have written software for!

Re: Magic Lantern Is Back

#160

Post by omegacharlie »

names_r_hard wrote: post #158
omegacharlie wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be time to reconsider. Canon are (supposedly) not planning any further flagship DSLRs and I see little wrong with modifying your own property. Independent of that: how dangerous is ML dev to the cameras themselves (in terms of brick potential)? Permanently bricking a camera in the price range of the 1DX is not exactly my idea of a good time. :-)

Over the years, a few devs have temp soft bricked cams, requiring various non-standard methods to restore them to working order. I think all attempts succeeded so far! I don't think any permanent physical damage has been triggered by devs. It is definitely a real risk, but we try to work with the OS when possible, and the OS was written to try to make these things hard. I don't think I'd want to learn the ropes on a…

Thank you for the insight. Best of luck to you and the future of the project!
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