Canon DSLR Hack Allows It To Shoot RAW Video 171
When the Canon 50D DSLR camera was released back in 2008, it could take nice pictures, but it had no support for video recording. Now, through an enterprising hack by members of the Magic Lantern forums, the 50D can capture RAW video. From the article:
"The tech inside the 50D looks like it borrows a lot more from its higher-end siblings, like the 5D Mark II, and it’s possible we may actually get better RAW video quality out of the 50D than we do out of any of the non-CF Canon cameras. ... The camera doesn’t have playback or audio recording as it was never designed to shoot video, but this isn’t too different from the RAW recording on the other Canon DSLRs at the moment."
Now that is a kickass hack! (Score:4, Informative)
Now that is a kickass hack! Seriously, taking hardware with limited functionality and actually adding (not just restoring) functionality to it that was not planned for it is pretty cool.
This is not like the "triple core" or "double core" CPUs being "hacked" into quad-cores when the crippling was just the setting low of a line or setting of a jumper on the chip. That was back when they were making all the chips quad cores and then crippling them as needed to meet market need: more dual cores were being purchased because of the lower price point, so the manufacturer just intentionally "disavowed" the extra cores on those chips, just to make a sale at that price point.
Of course, due to some hardware limitations, it can just record bursts of 59 frames at a time (probably RAM buffer limits since the RAW video takes up hella lot of data):
The 50d can already shoot DNG silent bursts with maximum resolutions of 1592x1062 (buffer is full at 59 frames) in 1x mode and 1992x1080 (buffer is full at 53 frames) in crop mode thanks to @smeangol http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5481.msg37526#msg37526 [magiclantern.fm]
@coutts has found the stubs for the 40d which means it is 'likely' that the 40d can do raw video and DNG bursts however it will need porting and developing.
@Smeangol is having some success in porting the raw recording feature however some other developer assistance may be required to iron out bugs.
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Re:Now that is a kickass hack! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not like the "triple core" or "double core" CPUs being "hacked" into quad-cores when the crippling was just the setting low of a line or setting of a jumper on the chip.
I beg to differ. That is precisely what this hack resembles. Quoth the article:
The tech inside the 50D looks like it borrows a lot more from its higher-end siblings....
Translated, that means the camera already has the hardware required for the task; it simply lacked the firmware/software to implement it. The camera wasn't "crippled" per se, but the "extra core" was already there waiting to be utilized.
Re:Now that is a kickass hack! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, indeed you are correct. The hardware was there, but my opinion or reading of it is that it was not "crippled" but never intended to have this functionality. It does not have enough RAM to buffer frames continuously at uncompressed DNG format rates for continuous video recording to SD card, whereas other cameras that were designed specifically for video recording have enough memory to be capable of doing this.
Thus my interpretation is that this camera model's hardware specs were deemed insufficient by the manufacturer for this specific capability, and considering that it can only do burst mode up to $X$ frames before capping out its memory buffer, the manufacturer may have been correct. So my interpretation is not that they "re-enabled a purposely disabled core" but rather that they added functionality which the manufacturer had decided that this hardware was not capable of performing well.
Re:Now that is a kickass hack! (Score:4, Insightful)
The buffer is important, but it's more about being able to stream a metric shitload of data to a unwholesomely speedy memory card - once you can do the latter, the buffer helps smooth over hiccups but won't let you record indefinitely. The 50D's CompactFlash interface probably shares a design with a higher-end camera, Canon not wanting to waste effort in building a second, deliberately crippled version.
Being able to record RAW video is a pretty new feature on any vaguely consumer-oriented camera [wikipedia.org] - it's more sheer luck that Canon's dSLRs have features which make it possible, albeit in a hacky manner. I get the impression that on the 50D, it's grabbing data from the sensor in a manner intended for the rear display or for feeding into the (non-existent) H.264 encoder, and then streaming it out to a big file on the memory card before the memory runs out.
When you've captured the data, it's in a big, opaque file that needs post-processing on a PC to do anything with it - in this case, it gets split into sane DNG files for further processing in software like Lightroom or similar. You can record the video on the camera, but you can't (unless I'm horribly mistaken) play the video on the camera - you need to do plenty of subsequent processing to get it into video form.
Don't get me wrong, it's an incredibly cool hack - partly because it gives access to a feature which few high-end cameras have even today. It's not the manufacturer deliberately locking users out of an easily-implemented feature, it's the manufacturer not even realising that such a feature was possible - albeit in a restricted, but still usable, form.
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I think this is where the prime use of this is going to land. On the lower end cameras, if you're happy with 720p, likely as not you will be able to use those for that at outstanding quality for post, but in the lower resolution.
Limitations seem to be cameras with SD cards only...you need really fast CF cards, and I think they're looking into some sort of CF to cable out adapter, so y
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Thus my interpretation is that this camera model's hardware specs were deemed insufficient by the manufacturer for this specific capability, and considering that it can only do burst mode up to $X$ frames before capping out its memory buffer, the manufacturer may have been correct. So my interpretation is not that they "re-enabled a purposely disabled core" but rather that they added functionality which the manufacturer had decided that this hardware was not capable of performing well.
The Canon 50D was announced on 26 August 2008. The very first DSLR to have video recording was the Nikon D90, which was announced 27 August 2008. Maybe Canon suspected (or knew) that Nikon would announce their video-capable DSLR the next day after their announcement. Maybe Canon should have had the foresight to introduce the first video-recording DSLR. DSLRs with video recording were not a common thing back then. In fact, they didn't even really exist. Designing a DSLR that doesn't record video, at a
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dude ??? Why are you arguing with me? My original position was that this is really a great hack ("kickass hack!" ) adding on new capabilities.
Someone replied to me and said it was like enablibg capabilities that were "hidden".
I replied to them and said "nyah. nyet. no. this is truly adding on new capabilities that were not originally designed for."
So I'm thinking we're on the same side. Am i right?
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Translated, that means the camera already has the hardware required for the task
No, it doesn't. The video captured with a hacked 50D is not usable as is. You can't even watch it on a computer. Also, back then, it would not have been possible to make this hack work since there were no memory cards that would be able to store more than a few seconds (just over two in fact, at 24fps) of video. What do you think Canon customers would have said if the Canon 50D commercial had said:
Buy the 50D and make video with your DSLR. You can record almost three seconds of video before it stops for a w
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"The video captured with a hacked 50D is not usable as is. You can't even watch it on a computer."
That's total bullshit. VirtualDub works just fine for me with my magic lantern output from my 50D.
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Such failure in human comprehension. Most people can tell what virtualdub does, plus they can make it do other things not implied by design due to the community.
Go shit yourself when you realize.
Adios.
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A better quote would be "the 50d did have the feature, disabled in the Canon firmware. ML unlocked this to enable 1080p at 30fps with the ability to use FPS override for 24/25p". However that's not to say that this is a video DSLR with the feature disabled; consumer DSLRs typically have specialist video encoding hardware to turn it into a conventional, compressed format because RAW files demand very high-end CF cards and are hard to work with.
This camera could never have shipped with usable video recording.
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Actually that last point is way off; Magic Lantern can already do standard HD video.
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I think you need to learn what tenses are.
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The particularly exciting thing about this hack is that it's not just a previous non-video-capable camera recording video, it's a camera recording 14-bits-per-channel linear uncompressed RAW video. Much better highlight and shadow recovery, white balance defined afterwards, much more information to work with [wikipedia.org] in general. Some really tricky shots are now possible.
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Tell me why the fuck you need a microphone to record VIDEO?
Tell me why you NEED a playback button? Too lazy to swap the card to your PC and check from there on a higher resolution screen like any proper videographer would do?
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Now that is a kickass hack!
Is different to the Canon Hack Development Kit [wikia.com] that I remember using quite a few years back to add extra features (manual focus, RAW mode, etc) to my point and click Digital Ixus?
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I'd be curious to know for what fraction of cases CPUs were binned for technical reasons (bad cores) and economic reasons (using a surplus of 4-core chips to fill a 2-core order).
Why are they using a Nikon lens on a canon? (Score:2)
Is the Nikkor 50mm f//1.4 that much better than the Canon equivalent?
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the canon 50mm 1.4 is far superior to the Nikkor equiliviant at least until they release a new version. The older Canon lens actually has L series glass in it, it's one of the most sought after Canon lesnes..
I am thinking they are poor as hell and are simply borrowing lenses from ramdom places and have adapter rings.
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Some have opined that the Nikon 1.8 and 2.0 are sharper at the f/2.8 the video was shot at.
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The older Canon lens actually has L series glass in it
There's no such thing. The "L" designation is just a marketing/branding designation by which Canon identifies their higher-end products; it's not a particular type of material or manufacturing process. The only thing that makes one lens "L series glass" and another not is whether Canon decides to call it so, and puts a red ring on the lens.
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Video autofocus is a relatively recent innovation-- and manual focus is relatively silent. An aperture ring is useful because otherwise the camera is apt to change it for you, with unpredictable results.
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Old, manual-focus, non-zoom lens are in many ways better than modern lenses for filming, and cheaper and lighter than modern equivilents.
* Good manual focus rings, you dont usually want AF for film (technically because not many DSLRs can do autofocus in video, and also because autofocus does not always do what you want it to do in video, eg rack between to faces as they talk). AF lens tend to be poor for manual focus, the whole focus range may only take a small rotation, so it is hard to be preciese.
* Large
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"Not as sharp as a modern lens. But this does not matter, HD is only 2 megapixels where as modern lens need to be sharp at 20 megapixels"
This is utterly false. Most older lenses are far FAR higher quality and clarity than the new ones. Older Canon lenses are built better and are clearer than the plastic junk they sell today.
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Just put an older lens, like a canon 50/1.0, on a modern camera and enjoy you cell-phone pic like sharpness.
like a f/1.0?
Why the f/1.0? The f1.0 produces a razor thin focal plane, and lets in a lot of light. Unless you were shooting in the dark, or needed than shallow depth of field, you'd probably pick another lens-- a sharper lens. Either way, the result is beyond the cell phone's capabilities.
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"Even the best old lenses were build for film specifications, with blur spot sizes of 20-30 um."
Film is still higher-resolution than most consumer cameras. Also, that blur spot size you mentioned is running right up on the diffraction limit. Can't do much better, that's just plain optical physics.
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Diffraction limit spot size at f=8 for 560nm light is d ~ 1.22*lambda*f = 5.3 microns (first null of Airy disk). A 30um circle of confusion is basically a spec for 4x5 inch prints (at ~300dpi), not the limits of film or lenses. So, you can do a lot better than 30um (by ~10x, for the very best commercially available lenses diffraction limited at ~f4). Color film is not higher resolution than 24+ Megapixel digital cameras; but that is besides the main point --- good quality older lenses significantly exceeded
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"Diffraction limit spot size at f=8 f"
We're talking about sizes far smaller. What in the fuck was your dumb-ass saying, again? We had silver-coatings to resolve an image far better
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You can't put an old canon lens on a new canon camera (without an adaptor containing an extra lens element).
I don't know what you mean by "old", but my father's old Canon (film) SLR's EF-mount lenses pop right onto my relatively new Canon EOS Rebel T2i (EOS 550D for you non-Americans) which takes EF-S-mount lenses. It seems that you've got it backwards; you can't put a new Canon lens on an old Canon camera.
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The EF mount was introduced in 1987. The EF-S mount was introduced in 2003 source [wikipedia.org]
Nikon has been using the F mount since 1959. However, only certain lowend Nikon DLSRs (D40,D3100, etc) can actually use the oldest lenses. More expensive models are limited to using AI lenses (made after 1977).
However, this expanded lens compatibility comes at a price-- no metering on non CPU lenses, and no autofocus on non-AFS/AFD lenses.
So, if you have a Nikon D3100, as I do, you can use the Nikkor-S Auto f/1.4 50mm (1962) [mir.com.my], w
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EF-S is a subset of the redesigned-from-scratch EF lens mount from 1987 - still considered terribly modern 'cause it's fully electronic with no mechanical linkages between the camera and lens. New EF lenses are definitely still being designed, but yes - EF-S lenses won't fit on an EF-only camera, be it
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GP post is correct when referring to Canon FD-series lenses, the manual-focus predecessor to the autofocus EF mount. The FD lens mount was closer to the film plane than the EF mount, so you can't fit old Canon FD lenses onto EF (or EF-S, same physical dimensions) mounts without either additional compensating optics, or physically modifying the lens mount to shorten the optical path. Some FD telephotos have enough extra adjustment range for the focus that they can be used with thin, optics-free adapters.
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I've never heard of or seen FD mounts until this very day.
Also, I didn't know the EF series only goes back to 1987.
On the bright side, this conversation has me feeling much younger
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"Not as sharp as a modern lens."
I will bet you solid money my Minolta lenses from the 70s and 80s are far higher quality than today's stuff. There's a reason for the $500+ (back then) price tag.
ML on 60D (Score:2)
Canon seems to be hacker friendly (Score:2)
Canon must not mind people hacking on their firmware. There is another project, the CHDK project, that allows you to replace the firmware on most Canon point and shoot cameras, again coming up with great features not originally on the camera. Things like:
RAW, bracketing, full manual control over exposure, zebra mode, live histogram, grids, motion detection and Scripting using ubasic and Lua scripts.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK [wikia.com]
It is the reason I will only buy canon cameras.
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CHDK and ML dont replace the Canon firmware. They are actuall firmware addons that run alongside and require the Canon firmware (hence why you can still use the camera with an sd card that doesnt have CHDK or ML on it).
CHDK actually came first and ML used their work and methods to get similar stuff done to DSLRS.
both are amazing software and i actually used CHDK back in the day while i was saving up for my first DSLR and recently put ML on my t3i for a few of the focus f
Awesome, but the wrong hardware. (Score:2)
Awesome, but an SLR is simply inadequate for video. What you really want is a mirrorless system, preferrably one optimised for digital sensors. The only one nowadays is Micro Four Thirds, with Olympus, Panasonic &, soon, Kodak cameras. Of these, Panasonic is the more video oriented, and its flagship hybrid GH line cameras have already been hacked, so I would be interested if someone replicated this hack there (or at the nearly equivalent Olympus OMD EM line).
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You won't be shooting much video on it, it's an unofficial hack and has a lot of problems.
But in certain areas, this is useful. Think astrophotography, where it's common to "video" the telescope image (with suitable equatorial mount) to form image stacks that can then be processed to form a single, high-quality, composite image. You can get photos of Saturn's rings, say, that are at magnifications impossible to see in the telescope itself or to get a steady shot of through the atmosphere.
Sure, you could j
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So, a mirrorless system camera is even easier to hack, besides being more adequate for video (not blacking out the visor while shooting). Four Thirds all the way for me
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Yes, but then the visor is blocked, because it is an optical viewfinder. One has to use the screen, which calls for some kind of sunlight protection. Mirrorless cameras are simply more practical.
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It doesn't matter. If you're doing any serious work with a Canon (or any DSLR (and I'm lumping mirrorless in here, too)), chances are you're also using an external LCD to monitor your video and not through the tiny-assed viewfinder, or through a diopter viewfinder over the built-in LCD. I would argue that if you're interested in the RAW features this hack provides, you're in this particular market. Don't get me wrong, I shoot through a hacked Panasonic GH2 and mirrorless is the way of the future, but dis
Re:im confused here (Score:5, Interesting)
No, not really. This is a camera, designed for stills. It has the capacity to capture video (unlocked by this hack) but no ability to capture audio, or playback the video, meaning it's not really a functional video camera. That is, while it has the technical capacity to capture video, it has none of the supporting features that make the ability to capture video useful.
It's like plugging your headphones into your microphone jack and talking through them. Yeah, they have the technical capability to record sound, but the rest of the device isn't designed to make that capability useful.
Re:im confused here (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention the capacity issues... These cameras are eating up something like 500-600 megabits per second at full resolution, and the ones people are most excited about doing this on (like the 5DIII) cost as much or more than video cameras that are designed to record to high bit-depth compressed format like ProRes 4444 (which is 12-bit).
I guess there's some value in getting more out of your existing gear...
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So if you don't have a lot of money and you really need video at that quality, then working around the restrictions of a hacked DSLR may very well be worth it, and can open up possibilities that wouldn't otherwise be accessible to you.
Oh yeah, I'm not seeing there's no point to the hack - I'm just saying that Canon not providing video out of the box wasn't done out of malicious intent.
Re:im confused here (Score:4, Insightful)
So most of the Hollywood high end cameras are also non functional? Because a panavision camera cant record audio. That is why they do the clapper thing and have an audio recording setup.
IT makes it unusable to consumers that want to film their kitteh. But then shooting RAW video is useless to 99% of the people that have video cameras.
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/* it has none of the supporting features that make the ability to capture video useful */
erm, what?
I record sound externally and sync in post. Having in-camera recording makes syncing much easier, for sure, but it's not a necessity. I'm more concerned about the frame drops and system stability than lack of audio.
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There are lots of uses for a less expensive/less capable camera- for instance this would make a great crash cam. Also, as others have mentioned professional movie makers almost always use a separate audio recording device.
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"That is, while it has the technical capacity to capture video, it has none of the supporting features that make the ability to capture video useful."
That's what production/post-production is for.......
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An 8x10 view camera built in 1910 can produce better images than any consumer-grade digital camera.
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That's not entirely true- the apertures needed to get the most photos into focus really degrade the sharpness of 8x10. In some cases you are right but in most practical applications not so much.
This is not news anymore (Score:3)
Most device manufacturers do not have a lot of budget on their firmware development, so, what they do is to have a generic-enough firmware developed, then they add and/or delete a couple of options, depending on the price point of their device model, package it as the firmware for that particular model
Back in the olden days when we were using USRobotic dial up modems we used to buy 2400 baud modem and then re-flash them to run at 4800 or even 9600 baud
The magic lantern community has been around for a long t
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Most device manufacturers do not have a lot of budget on their firmware development, so, what they do is to have a generic-enough firmware developed, then they add and/or delete a couple of options, depending on the price point of their device model, package it as the firmware for that particular model
Back in the olden days when we were using USRobotic dial up modems we used to buy 2400 baud modem and then re-flash them to run at 4800 or even 9600 baud
Dating back to at least 1990: http://steveblank.com/2009/04/16/supermac-war-story-7-building-the-whole-product/ [steveblank.com]
Re:im confused here (Score:4, Informative)
No, they are not. There are many reasons this was not enabled on the original camera, but let's take a look at some of them.
This is not today usable to anyone but the most hard-core video enthusiasts. Think about it. This is raw video. The recommended cards to use are 1000x cards (which were not available at the time and quite expensive today). You should have 64G cards or bigger in order to put more than a couple of minutes worth of video on the card. Then you need to post-process what is basically a bunch of images. After Effects is not something the average user has. Also, the camera doesn't have microphone input, so there is no way you can get audio in the video from the camera. Etc, and so forth.
This is for movie makers who are happy bringing dozens of CF cards at $300 a pop on a shoot. Most people doesn't spend $3000 on a camera, let alone 10 compact flash cars so they can shoot for an hour.
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What part of The camera doesn't have playback or audio recording as it was never designed to shoot video is unclear to you? It's a still camera. Someone hacked it into an impractical video camera with no sound. Maybe the sensor will survive being powered for far longer than it was designed to, or maybe it will overheat and be irreparably damaged. It's a cool hack and that is all that it is. Nobody is getting cheated here.
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One of the few intelligent points in this entire conversation.
Re:im confused here (Score:5, Informative)
Most of these are probably sitting in closets or got recycled by now.
This isn't a disposable point and shoot, it's a $1400 dSLR discontinued less than 3 years ago, with a still competitive specification. I'd hazard a guess that most of them are still in active use. Also, from the article "The tech inside the 50D looks like it borrows a lot more from its higher-end siblings, like the 5D Mark II, and it's possible we may actually get better RAW video quality out of the 50D than we do out of any of the non-CF Canon cameras." ('non-CF' cameras would include the current 60D model and below).
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""The tech inside the 50D looks like it borrows a lot more from its higher-end siblings, like the 5D Mark II"
The ergonomics are borrowed from the single-digit cameras, as is the easily-swappable viewfinder. HOWEVER the sensor and AF are more closely related to the XXD/Rebel line than the 5D. Also, IIRC the 50D had a magnesium body.
Even in the current XXD (60D, aka "super rebel") the sensor may taken from the 7D (with fewer data lines) but the feature set (including AF) is more closely related to the XXD mod
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Not even close to a competitive specification in relation to this discussion
You're missing my point. I'm replying to the AC's suggestion that most of these cameras will have been junked or shelved by now, which seems unlikely. With the very obvious exception of video, the _unhacked_ camera stands up pretty well in 2013, and has a decent second-hand value (many still photographers have only a passing interest in video). For those who are interested, this looks like a worthwhile hack, especially if it eventually produces 'better RAW video quality' than anything short of the semi-pro
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The onboard microphones on DSLRs pretty god awful. You probably shouldn't use them anyway and would be wise to invest in separate audio recorder/mixer. Even if the microphone was decent you still lack decent gain control, it's usually stored in a lossy codec, and most of the other components are lower quality and introduce lots of additional noise to your recording. It's just not capable of recording good audio.
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"Shooting video with no sound is not something most people are willing to do."
Um, what? It's pretty much standard for video production. Video gets shot on a video-dedicated device, audio gets recorded on devices dedicated to audio (DAW+Mixer+tons of microphones) and then you sync/cut/edit both streams in production.
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Canon has issued statements declaring that Magic Lantern does not void the warranty. ...just one more reason to like Canon. :)
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As an aspiring independent filmmaker, I've been following this with great interest (disclosure: I shoot through a hacked Panasonic GH2 and will most likely add a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera to the line-up this summer). In 2009, you couldn't find Compact Flash cards fast enough to write the data that RAW requires, and even if you could, the pricing would be astronomical compared to the cost of the camera. REmember that these are DSLRs, not dedicated video cameras. It was a selling point that Canon e
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are camera companies ripping people off and people are having to hack thing themselves to get an actual functional product?
by this logic, processor manufacturer's have been doing this since day 1.
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Re:im confused here (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the sensors used in Canon and Nikon cameras are manufactured by Canon and Nikon on Canon and Nikon Lithographic processes, and are used exclusively in Canon and Nikon cameras. You can't buy the sensors for use in your own camera and what is available commercially is substantially inferior to those produced by Canon and Nikon (and Sony).
In fact there are cameras with free software firmware, including digital cinema cameras similar to what this hack does, however the quality of the sensors used in them is inferior, resulting in an inferior camera. Also Canon and Nikon DSLRs have extremely good opto-mechanical assemblies, which would be hard to match.
Nikon is a leader in precision engineering, they built one of the first ruling engines which is a pretty critical piece of precision machinery for bootstrapping photolithography as it is used to produce linear diffraction gratings which is critical to all photolithographic processes, additionally Canon and Nikon are two of the very few (I can also think of Minolta, Carl Zeiss, ASML and Applied Materials) companies worldwide that produce steppers which are used for patterning semiconductor wafers. The precision construction of lens and mirrors is the dominant limiting factor in geometry reductions in photolithography, so it follows that companies with a long history of making quality optical components and devices are also leaders in the field of photolithography. As I'm sure you are aware, this type of equipment and processing is extremely expensive (billions of dollars).
So nothing is stopping you, except billions of dollars of capital you don't have.
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Nikon uses Sony sensors.
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So nothing is stopping you, except billions of dollars of capital you don't have.
And this is where the idea of intellectual property makes sense. If someone invested billions in creating something, he's entitled to profit from that.
It's not like those billions were lying around. People worked to save money and invested it in shares of those companies, that's where the billions came from.
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And this is where the idea of intellectual property makes sense. If someone invested billions in creating something, he's entitled to profit from that.
Spending money does not entitle you to profit, I wish people would understand that. You could spend billions of dollars to research something useless. IP law gives creators the privilege of monopoly control, not the right. That privilege is meant as an encouragement to share what they've created instead of keeping it secret. When encouragement is no necessary that privilege does not make sense. People invent thing because the want to or need to. IP law doesn't encourage people to create things. What
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Might as well enjoy it. We're all going to die.
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Canon uses Canon sensors.
Nikon uses Sony sensors.
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This is about the stupidest thing I have ever read. Exactly how is it unethical to sell me a product that I want, that does exactly what I want it to do for a price I am happy to pay, unethical?
If it were advertised to do more but didn't, that would be unethical.
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"It can be unethical when" is a qualification that was not applied to the AC's original statement. Quite often it's banded around like it's an axiom or a matter of orthodoxy.
Re:im confused here (Score:5, Insightful)
It can be unethical when the manufacturer or a group of manufacturer makes sure that the products you can buy are only available with certain limitations and at a fixed price.
Conversely, even though the hardware may be capable of doing many things with the right software, those software features cost money to create. So the vendor has a choice:
1. Give everyone those software features, raise the price for everyone to cover the cost of creating them.
2. Give those software features only to the people willing to pay for them, therefore keeping the price down for the people who aren't.
(2) seems like a better option for everyone - the consumers who aren't interested in paying for a feature get to keep the cheap price they desire; the consumers who are interested in paying for a feature gets that feature; the vendor recoups the cost of (and profits from) development of that feature.
The slashdot crowd seem to think that just because software distribution is essentially free, software creation is too.
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Making non-free software is unethical.
No it isn't. EOC.
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Re:im confused here (Score:5, Funny)
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Hate to break it to you, but the RMS line of thinking isn't practical for most people. And sadly, he doesn't seem to grasp why it isn't practical for most people. During one of his speeches, a person in the crowd once asked him how software developers should make their living in his ideal world, and his answer amounted to something along the lines of getting room and board from universities for free in exchange for ideas (which is essentially what he does.) Hate to break it to you, but that simply isn't pra
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To me, RMS is by and large a nutcase.
Some may argue that, but he's still the guy responsible for kicking off free software as a phenomenon.
It's open to question whether Linux would have been released under something like the GPL if Stallman hadn't created that in the first place. Bear in mind that it was originally distributed under its own license, which restricted commercial usage.
He wonders why Hurd will probably never make it
Does he, or are you putting words in his mouth?
My understanding is that Stallman is generally positive about the Linux kernel itself (even if he dislikes the use o
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Possibly because it's shorter, or because they're lazy. Whatever the reason, I doubt it's got much to do with them being ideologically opposed to Stallman.
Because it is shorter, and because modifying Linux with GNU implies that there is some other Linux out there that does not use primarily GNU tools, thus creating unnecessary specificity. Also, because Linux is actually the thing that turned GNU tools into something that could actually be called a complete operating system. They could have called it simply GNUOS or something, but since Linus made the piece that made it all work, his kernel gets the credit. It is the missing piece and it was the foundation
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"OMG no Linux" isn't nearly as scary as it sounds [..] it wouldn't be the calamity it sounds like
Note that I said that "It's open to question whether Linux would have been released under something like the GPL if Stallman hadn't created that in the first place", not in the scaremongering manner you presented it as.
And your point regarding OS X seems a little strange... you're saying the fact that OS X (based on Mach and BSD, the latter BSD-licensed) hasn't taken over the market from the GPL-licensed Linux proves something in favour of the former (i.e. BSD licensing) rather than the latter (i.e. the G
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The camera could have been designed with no ability to accept updates or external software. Your religion of free software would have been irrelevant then: even if the source were known, you'd be unable to apply any changes to the camera.
Canon is quite forward-thinking in allowing the software to be changed.
On a related note, Canon has invested a great deal of time and money optimizing the de-Bayering of the RAW images. No free algorithms to post-process pictures combines the sharpness and relative freedom
Re:Let's DMCA the pants of this guy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Canon's actually pretty cool about the use of custom firmware [diyphotography.net]. Plus projects like CHDK and Magic Lantern (and the thing that hacked the 300D into something fancier) have been around for quite a few years, and Canon hasn't tried squashing them.
(Although apparently their hacker-friendly nature most definitely stops [canonrumors.com] when it comes to the EOS-1 line.)
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That would be the 10D. I had that hack in my 300D. Not all features of the 10D worked as the hardware simply wasn't there but many did and it added some nice new features.
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I remember that --- yay for mirror lockup and flash exposure compensation!
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If you have the shit, just do it! (TM)
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Sure, if you want to lug that big thing around. a 3CCD setup in S35 format would be enormous. And cost an insane amount of money.
Even the Sony F65, RED Epic, and the Arri Alexa use single sensors. The 3CCD thing is really a prosumer thing, and a leftover from the olden days of vidicons and other vacuum tube cameras. I'd make a bet that the companies that have produced cameras that Academy award winning cinematographers used on those features know a little bit more than you do...