Magic Lantern 2.3 is here – and it looks pretty good

The testing phase for Magic Lantern 2.3 is over. Magic Lantern 2.3 release version is now here and the creators say it’s no longer a “hack”.

We can safely say it’s no longer a hack, but it’s strongly heading towards a solid piece of engineering that you can trust.
We have worked a lot on bug-fixing and usability improvements and we sincerely hope you will find it a great companion for all your shooting sessions – from hobbyist to professional.

More…

Magic Lantern 2.3 RC1 testing just started

Some promising news comes from the Magic Lantern website today.

Feature highlights of the upcoming version:
- First full support for 5D mark II
- Supports latest Canon firmware for 5D mark II, 60D, 600D and 50D
- Advanced ISO control (ISO 80, improved highlight rolloff, ISO 51200…)
- Advanced FPS control (24.000 FPS and 0.2 FPS possible)
- High speed operating through shortcuts (read more)
- New menu design
- Much improved stability (read more)

This is what they wrote:
As promised last week, we are very close to the 2.3 release. We’d like to run a release candidate testing first (RC1), so we’ll start this today.

As a special gesture to the donors and contributors to the ML project, we would like to thank them by giving them access to the release candidate in the forum section accessible to contributors and supporters. Currently we match donors and forum members by hand, so if we miss any of you, please contact me or Bart via PM.

For providing testing feedback, you will have to complete a small quiz. Your feedback will help us fix any remaining problems and announce a release date for the stable v2.3, which will be available to those who donate at least 10 euro to keep us running. After three weeks, this version will become free for everybody.

ML 2.3 RC1 works on Canon 5D Mark II 2.1.2, 550D 1.0.9, 60D 1.1.1, 600D 1.0.2, 50D 1.0.9 and 500D 1.1.1.

via MagicLantern.fm

NAB 2012: Canon’s Guido Krebs talking HDSLR, 1DC, 24p, FS700

We thank our sponsor B&H who
has made cinema5D’s news
coverage of NAB 2012 possible.

Get your gear through B&H to support this platform: www.bhphotovideo.com

In this video from NAB 2012 Johnnie Behiri has a discussion with Guido Krebs from Canon about HDSLR.

One of the points Guido Krebs talked about was the lack of 25p and 30p in the new Canon 1DC 4K cinema camera. The absence of these framerates is a particular problem to the European market which uses 25 frames on most professional movie shoots as shooting 24p and converting to 25 frames per second (50hz European television standard) is an unnecessary, time and money consuming process.

Guido says that the internal performance of the camera is currently limited to 24fps.
We also talked to Larry Thorpe (Canon, Senior Director, Professional Engineering and Solutions) and he confirmed that they don’t know if and when 25fps will become available, but that they’re working on it.

Guido also mentioned that we’ll see an entry level HDSLR with 5D mark III video capabilities this year, possibly at Photokina (Cologne, Sep. 18th 2012)

(photo on the left: Herman Chiew from Canon with his cool 24fps shirt)

NAB 2011 – Phantom has an indie product in the cooker

By: Sebastian Wöber

We’ve seen companies Megaspeed and Fastec target the indipendent filmmakers market with their new and rental-affordable highspeed cameras. But I got some very interesting hints on future products from renown highspeed camera company Vision Research (Phantom) today.

Vision Research (Phantom) really sets the standards in professional highspeed filmmaking. If you shoot highspeed for a tv commercial or movie you wanna make sure you get a Phantom. They’re very expensive cameras and you can usually only rent a package with a technician (but that depends on your rental house). One of the big advantages of the Megaspeed and Fastec portable highspeed cameras over a phantom is that you don’t necessarily need a technician but can simply take these cameras out on your own.

I met Phiroze Dalal at the Phantom booth today. We talked about highspeed cameras for indie filmmakers (=affordable, non technician) and I kept asking about Phantoms future and the indie market. Phiroze said that they wouldn’t announce their products prior to release. He then checked with another important Vision Research rep and came back to tell me that: “This will be a very exciting year for you, (…) we have something in the cooker”. He didn’t want to say that on camera nor did he give me a timeframe for the “egg”. I said I’d be back at IBC in September, which is another large tradeshow like NAB, and asked if we could expect to see something at this time. They really didn’t want to go into that stuff. He said the next months would be cruical and that he can’t say any more than that, but added that when they see a market (and obviously in hdslr there IS a market now) they wanna be part of it.

Very promising hints, I think we’ll see the highspeed battles evolve in the coming months. If you’re interested in that topic as much as I am you’ll get any new info I have right here at cinema5D. Cheers.

More…