CHDK and Magic Lantern are fantastic, I really wish there was a Nikon equivalent.
There is, but it's more limited: https://www.dslrbodies.com/cameras/general-nikon-camera-info...
Magic Lantern Is Back
31–40 of 170 posts
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#32Yes! As a software developer in the photography space, we are deeply in need of projects like this.
The photography world is mired in proprietary software/ formats, and locked down hardware; and while it has always been true that a digital camera is “just” a computer, now more than ever it is painful just how limited and archaic on-board camera software is when compared to what we’ve grown accustomed to in the mobile phone era.
If I compare photography to another creative discipline I am somewhat familiar with, music production - the latter has way more open software/hardware initiatives, and freedom of not having to tether yourself to large, slow, user-abusing companies when choosing gear to work with.
Long live Magic Lantern!
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#33This news is probably my excuse to buy my forth EOS; the first three were 100% only because of Magic Lantern. Can't understand why manufacturers make this hard as it sells hardware.
Magic Lantern is fantastic software that makes EOS cameras even better, but I understand why manufacturers make it hard: Camera manufacturers live and die on their reputation for making tools that deliver for the professional users of those tools. On a modern camera, the firmware and software needs to 100% Just Work and completely get out of the photographer's way, and a photographer needs to be able to grab a (camer…
You have an interesting point about consistency and I'd like to provide a counterargument. While control consistency is very important, the actual image you get from a camera varies significantly between models as the manufacturers change tone curves, colour models, etc. JPGs from the camera are basically arbitrary and RAWs are not much better. The manufacturers don't provide many guarantees, it's just up to you and downstream software to figure out what looks good.
Funny that so much thought goes into designing the feel of a camera yet the photo output is basically undefined...
Also another thing, Magic Lantern adds optional features which are arbitrarily(?) not present on some models. Perhaps Canon doesn't think you're "pro enough" (e.g. spent enough money) so they don't switch on focus peeking or whatever on your model.
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#34I was trying to understand what this project is. It's some sort of open firmware for Canon camera that you put on the flash card (SD). The home page has info: https://www.magiclantern.fm/
Yes its truly noteworthy project. They exploited Canon cameras by first managing to blink red charging LED. Then they used the LED blinks to transmit the firmware out. Then they built custom firmware which boots right from SD (thus no posibility to break the camera). The Magic Lantern firmware for example allows many basic cameras to do RAW 4K video recording (with unlimited length) - feature which is not even in the…
There's a fun step you're missing - it's not firmware. We toggle on (presumably) engineering functionality already present in Canon code, which allows for loading a file from card as an ARM binary.
We're a normal program, running on their OS, DryOS, a variant of uITRON.
This has the benefit that we never flash the OS, removing a source of risk.
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#35 Around 2020, our old lead dev, a1ex, after years of hard work, left the project. The documentation was fragmentary. Nobody understood the build system. A very small number of volunteers kept things alive, but nothing worked well. Nobody had deep knowledge of Magic Lantern code.
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#36Around 2020, our old lead dev, a1ex, after years of hard work, left the project. The documentation was fragmentary. Nobody understood the build system. A very small number of volunteers kept things alive, but nothing worked well. Nobody had deep knowledge of Magic Lantern code. Sounds like a bit of a dick move. Part of being a lead dev is making sure you can get hit by a bus and the project continues. That means docu…
Uh, sure, maybe in a professional setting where you’re getting paid. But this was unpaid volunteer work. If, as a community, we start enforcing professional grade standards on people who are just contributing their free time to give us neat toys and tools, I kinda worry it makes the whole thing the whole thing less fun or sustainable. And if that happens, we probably stop getting these free toys altogether.
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#37> We're using Git now. We build on modern OSes with modern tooling. We compile clean, no warnings. This was a lot of work, and invisible to users, but very useful for devs. It's easier than ever to join as a dev. Very impressive! Thankless work. A reminder to myself to chase down some warnings in projects I am a part of...
It’s not too difficult, if you do it from the start, and by habit.
I have an xcconfig file[0], that I add to all my projects, that turns on treat warnings as errors, and enables all warnings. In C, I used to compile -wall.
I also use SwiftLint[1].
But these days, I almost never trigger any warnings, because I’ve developed the habit of good coding.
Since Magic Lantern is firmware, I’m surprised that this was not already the case. Firmware needs to be as close to perfect as possible (I used to write firmware. It’s one of the reasons I’m so anal about Quality).
[0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Checkbox/blob/main... (I need to switch the header to MIT license, to match the rest of the project. It’s been a long time, since I used GPL, but I’ve been using this file, forever).
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#38Thanks 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…
Just wanted to say thanks for keeping this alive! I used magic lantern in 2014 to unlock 4K video recording on my Canon. It was how students back then could start recording professional video without super expensive gear
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#39I was hoping it was these guys: https://youtu.be/x3Y1dAcHK5Y
But this is actually really cool because, as it turns out, I've got an old Canon Eos DSLR that I haven't used for a long time and didn't know this thing existed before.
Re: Magic Lantern Is Back
#40This is good news One of those projects I wanted to take on but always back logged. Wild that they've been on a 5 year hiatus -- https://www.newsshooter.com/2025/06/21/the-genie-is-out-of-t... -- that's the not-so-happy side of cool free wares.
No time like the present :)
It is actually easier to get started now, as I spent several months updating the dev infrastructure so it all works on modern platforms with modern tooling.
Plus Ghidra exists now, which was a massive help for us.
We didn't really go on hiatus - the prior lead dev left the project, and the target hardware changed significantly. So everything slowed down. Now we are back to a more normal speed. Of course, we still need more devs; currently we have 3.