Magic Lantern for 550D with GUI menus & lots of extras

[Alex]

Here's the new release for 550D/1.0.8:

https://bitbucket.org/a1ex/magic-lantern/

New features:
* GUI menus (of course): press the ERASE button to display them.
* Zebra also for underexposed areas
* Simple intervalometer
* Wireless shutter trigger using the LCD sensor and your own hand
(i.e. put your hand near the LCD to take a pic)
* AE bracketing (like on 5D2 ML)
* Stack focus works (you have to go to Live View, then Play, then back
to LiveView, then start it from menu)
* Debug features, like GUI and property logging => you can help the
development without writing a single line of code!
* Piers' audio options accessible from menu
* No more need for disabling powersave (but you can, if you like)

Known bugs:
* Sometimes the menu gets overwritten by Canon's drawing routines.
* After closing ML menu, screen may not redraw automatically (half-
press the shutter to trigger a redraw)
* Playing with debug options may lead to strange behaviors of the
camera (if it happens, restart it).
* I did not try the Boot menu entries => be careful with them!

Please test it and report the results here.

Enjoy!

[Petr Sedlacek]

Amazing work, Alex! Admire your persistence. Wish I could chip in
somehow, I really want my 550D back now... It might be time to replace
the 400D :)

Pete

[Pedro Barbosa]

hi alex...inside the Zip file there is no congif file...should we use
the old ones or it's not necessary anymore?

[Alex]

It's not necessary, it will create one from Debug->Save if you don't
like the default settings.

You can use the old one, too, but my advice is to start with a fresh
one, as I've changed some defaults.

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[Pedro Barbosa]

i did want to say that there is no .fir file....sorry my mistake...it
´s not necessary too? thanks for the help

[Alex]

The fir file is the same as in the RC1 release. I believe it's
necessary (I don't know whether it's need only for first time install
or not... I didn't try to start ML without it).

[JeremyOne]

Alex,

Again, this is a great release (11 dec 2010), good work.

It seems like all the bugs I noticed in the last release went away,
but there is one new one:

If the camera goes to sleep with power save, you can't turn it back on
without removing the battery. For now I just turned power-save off.

Thanks again, I love all the new stuff.

Jeremy

[Alex]

> If the camera goes to sleep with power save, you can't turn it back on
> without removing the battery. For now I just turned power-save off.

My camera turns on by half-pressing the shutter... and reloads Magic
Lantern. It may depend in which mode it was before going to sleep.
I've tested in AV mode, with and without LiveView, and it worked.

[Patrick Burns]

AWESOME WORK Alex!  (and I'm VERY happy to see the intervalometer feature! =)  )

I've not installed ML yet on any camera, as I'm waiting for... well I guess a more "final" and mature release since I use both of my T2i's in a production environment.  But I'm reading these boards and happy to contribute with ideas (like the intervalometer).

What a shame Canon cant release a SDK to actually ENCOURAGE users to develop their own features and extensions to push the boundaries of their cameras.  Not open source... but perhaps open API?  I mean if you're Canon, why NOT take advantage of "free" labor from the user community of your product to make it that much better?   I understand them not wanting to release source code, but will never understand whats to lose for them NOT encouraging the user base to develop the features that THEY the users want to see!

(are you listening Canon???  Probably not *sigh*)

To everyone in the ML development community - keep up the great work!  Your efforts are greatly appreciated!

[Alex]

Next feature request comes from cinema5d forum: spotmeter. Code is
similar to "histozebra", so it should be easy to enable.

On Dec 12, 11:03 am, Patrick Burns <patricklynnbu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> AWESOME WORK Alex!  (and I'm VERY happy to see the intervalometer feature!
> =)  )
>
> I've not installed ML yet on any camera, as I'm waiting for... well I guess
> a more "final" and mature release since I use both of my T2i's in a
> production environment.  But I'm reading these boards and happy to
> contribute with ideas (like the intervalometer).
>
> What a shame Canon cant release a SDK to actually ENCOURAGE users to develop
> their own features and extensions to push the boundaries of their cameras.
>  Not open source... but perhaps open API?  I mean if you're Canon, why NOT
> take advantage of "free" labor from the user community of your product to
> make it that much better?   I understand them not wanting to release source
> code, but will never understand whats to lose for them NOT encouraging the
> user base to develop the features that THEY the users want to see!
>
> (are you listening Canon???  Probably not *sigh*)
>
> To everyone in the ML development community - keep up the great work!  Your
> efforts are greatly appreciated!
>

> > ml-devel+u...@googlegroups.com<ml-devel%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[Pedro Barbosa]

does anybody owns the original fw1.0.8? i found one on the internet
but i'm not sure it's the right FW... i think i'm gone disable the
DISKBOOT flag and downgrade from 1.0.9 to 1.0.8...does anybody tried
this way?

[Alex]

Pedro: if you succeed, please post all the details :)

Just enabled QScale (bit rate control) and spotmeter. Lots of thanks
to Trammell for the bitrate experiments and 5D2 code!

QScale is also saved to config file (read: pull request for the 5D2
branch). Changeset is here: https://bitbucket.org/a1ex/magic-lantern/changeset/ad23388b1f0e

Now you can do speed/quality tests like on 5D2. You can also record 30
minutes of FullHD in 4 GB at lower quality, or even use slower SD
cards (less than class 6)!

Download address is the same: https://bitbucket.org/a1ex/magic-lantern

[Pedro Barbosa]

new features are punpin out of the trees :D evry day is a new sunny
day

i´ll try to do the downgrade and if i'm successfull i i'll post all
the details...

alex...do you have the canon original fw1.0.8...i have one found on
the internet but i just want to confirm if it is the same

thanks a lot

[Alex]

No, sorry... I've got my camera with 1.0.8 preinstalled.

[Alex]

Most features are already there, waiting to be enabled. They were not
active because the video RAM address was not known, and the GUI
handling code was a bit different from the 5D2. Once those were found,
the extra features were relatively easy to enable.

The new ones are the intervalometer and the remote trigger with LCD
sensor :)

Behind the scenes, there was a lot of work for understanding how the
camera works, to develop analysis scripts (the firmware is huge)...
Also, many thanks to AJ and Arm.Indy; I've used lots of bits from
their findings.

[Pedro Barbosa]

good news

i downgrade to 1.0.8 and run your last fw...everything works ok :D

i disable bootdisk flag in config file of your 1.0.9 fw and them i've
done the downgrade...finally i run your last 1.0.8 fw and
now...everything still ok

downgrade is possible

[Alex]

Good! I'll add that to the wiki.

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[Pedro Barbosa]

i'm playing with the qscale and even at -16 the camera never stops...i
made 15sec clips with +8,-8,-16 and the buffer bar never show...my
cards are all silicone power class 6

qscale +8 = 8.3 mb 15sec

qscale -8 = 22.2 mb 15sec

qscale +8 = 73.3 mb 15sec

[Alex]

Nice to know this :) On my debugging card (an old 512 Lexar without
class info) it stops after a few seconds at -12 or so.

* Last entry is qscale -16.

Does bitrate vary with frame rate / resolution?

[Pedro Barbosa]

i didn't try other framerates..i only tested 24p but as soon as i can
i'll test with other...both 720p and 1080p and maybe 480p just to try
figure the diference between diferent qscale

[Pedro Barbosa]

http://www.google.pt/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=27&ved=0CFgQFjAGOBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcfile30.uf.tistory.com%2Fattach%2F203CA6014C35174561199A&ei=dPIETdePOsn54AaZ6ZyRCg&usg=AFQjCNFxZ0MSrUKpcMMo0AzUUh86R3IKwA&sig2=zQ-fTmoOn2apP2OhaADOvw



this is the link of the canon original 1.0.8 firmware...hope it helps

[arm.indy]

So there might be a check added by Canon to prevent downgrade if
bootflag is enabled...

Indy

[Alex]

With Arm.Indy's help, I'm upgrading to Magic Lantern 1.0.9 and porting
the new features there. Therefore, downgrade will not be necessary any
more (if everything goes well).

[arm.indy]

you are upgrading to -Canon firmware- 1.0.9 !

ML does not yet remplace official firmware, just improving it ;-)

[Renny Hayes]

Frikkin' awexome. This camera now beats practically anything else I've
ever used. The only thing I was missing was on-the-fly gain control,
and now that's solved.
I'd say "keep up the good work," but it would appear that just about
all the good work has already been kept up. :D

[JeremyOne]

I just tried waking up with the shutter and it worked, I must have
missed that part of the instruction. I guess I was confused that all
the other buttons (including the power switch) seemed dead.

If you are hooking to the shutter event specifically, it might be nice
to also listen for a couple other buttons, like menu and/and the power
switch. However that is not a big issue once you figure out what
button to press.

Great work as always,
Jeremy

On Dec 12, 12:05 am, Alex <broscutama...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > If the camera goes to sleep with power save, you can't turn it back on
> > without removing the battery. For now I just turned power-save off.
>
> My camera turns on by half-pressing the shutter... and reloads Magic
> Lantern. It may depend in which mode it was before going to sleep.
> I've tested in AV mode, with and without LiveView, and it worked.
>

[Alex]

... I did not try the power switch (since that was already on). When
the camera slept, I've always powered it on by half-pressing the
shutter.

I did not handle any new buttons do this (just passed the events
unhandled by the menu back to the original firmware). In fact, I don't
know (yet) how to detect shutter button press and power switch (i.e. I
see events coming from them, but don't know how to decode).

P.S. The 1.0.9 port for the new features started to work!

[Pedro Barbosa]

i've been testing the diferent bitrates and the best we can get is
qscale -16 with the iso at 800...iso 1600 stops recording...

at qscale -14 and -15 we can go to 1600 iso...

lower bitrates work with all iso at all resolution and frame
rates...at least with me and my class 6 silicone power ds cards

[Matt Dennie]

I have compiled a video of all the qscale settings as well as their bitrates. Here is the link:

http://vimeo.com/17742479

[Alex]

... it seems we'll be able to see the video tomorrow...

Only 40 mbit/s at -16?

I don't know whether values outside this range make sense, since I'm
clueless about how h264 is configured (I've just copied the code from
Trammell's 5D2 branch and it worked from the first try...)

[Matt Dennie]

I just recorded a scene at -12 at iso 100 and got 30.56 mbit/s. However, after only changing the iso to 200, the bitrate increased to 43.32.

Also, at -16 and iso 100 I get 36.8 mbit/s, at iso 200 i get 40 mbit/s, and at 1600 I get 85 mbit/s (the buffer filled after 2 sec.), all at -16.

I have also noticed that the inverse is true. If I am recording at 1600 I need to turn down the qscale to about -10 of -11 to avoid buffer overflows, but if I switch to iso 100, and do not change the qscale back up to something like -15, then the video will drop to like 30 mbit/s.

Does anyone know what would cause any of this?

[Alex]

The encoder "thinks" that ISO noise is useful detail, and is
increasing the bitrate :)

[Matt Dennie]

Is there a way to turn off the manual qscale setting in the current version of ML (other than going back to the dec 11 build)? If not, that would be very useful for people changing iso frequently while shooting.