Canon 5D Mark II – Addicted2light

Review: Magic Lantern, for photographers

Posted on 29 May 201313 February 2015 by Gianluca Bevacqua

I don’t do a lot of video, if anything at all. For this reason I, like many others fellow photographers, have ignored till now a piece of software that every respectable videographer uses since the beginning.

I’m talking about Magic Lantern. In short, it is an alternative firmware, free and open source, that works in parallel with the Canon one, unlocking an awful lot of features. I will repeat below the advice that the Magic Lantern team gives: like everything that works on the hardware this firmware can brick and / or destroy your camera. It is highly unlikely, but it is possible. So, if you don’t want to take the risk, please don’t install it.

“Magic Lantern is not approved nor endorsed by Canon in any way, and using it will probably void your warranty. […] Use this software at your own risk.”

That said, I haven’t had the slightest problem in installation or in use. And the Magic Lantern team label their last release, the 2.3, as production-ready, meaning that is not a beta anymore.

The last “Unified” stable release works with a bunch of different cameras:
– 5D Mark II
– 50D (you can shot video too!) & 60D
– 500D & 550D & 600D

If you feel adventurous you may try the “Nightly build” – a version still under development – that supports also:
– 7D
– 5D Mark III
– Eos M
– 1100D & T3
– 5D

Here you can find a general introduction to the project, how to install and disinstall it, ect.:

http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki

And at the following link you can get your copy:

http://www.magiclantern.fm/download

Now there are many reviews out there written from a videographer point of view. This one will be from a photographer perspective, instead.

Pros

I’m really happy with the extra features and the customizability of Magic Lantern, so much that I think that Canon should learn more than a trick or two from them and make those functions available straight from the factory, giving that there are no hardware limitations, but just laziness in writing the firmware.

Cons

The only, manageable, cons are:
1) the camera, having more code to load, takes maybe a second more to start. Not a problem whatsoever, at least with the 5D Mark II; I never turn the camera off anyway, unless I’ve done shooting.

2) the Magic Lantern team claims that, for the same reason, the camera drains a bit more juice from the battery. With the camera in standby this goes from the 5%/h of the default firmware up till the 10%/h (a whopping 27%/h on my own camera!) of the Magic Lantern one, depending on how much features are switched on.

The features

Now we will examine individually a few of the – tons! – of additional functions enabled on a Canon 5D Mark II by Magic Lantern that are interesting from a photographer – again, not videographer – point of view.

REC PictureStyle

You can choose a different Picture Style for visualization on the Live View screen, with respect to the one you will register your images with.
Really handy if you, like me, tends to shot Raw using the flattest picture styles you can get. The flat style helps keeping the contrast at bay and the highlights in shape, given that you want the maximum possible quality to be delivered to the raw converter of you choice. But at the same time, with a flat style, you can have problems judging your photos and if you achieved the correct focus. Just enable this voice and choose a nice and contrasty Picture Style: problem solved.

Zebras

Zebra stripes that appear on areas under or overexposed – or both, your choice – in real time in Live View. Really invaluable, and you can also set the thresholds for them to appear.

Focus peak

Did you hate the Sony Nex cameras, but you wished your own camera had their amazing focus peaking capability? Done.

Magic Zoom

This is my favorite function. I actually installed the thing, at first, exclusively to have this. It is – again, a bit like on the Sony Nex – a magnified view (up to 3x, and you can define how large the patch has to be) of the focus point inside the normal view that you can switch on/off just half-pressing the shutter button. This way you can check focus in a breeze and precisely, without loosing sight, literally, of the big picture. Moreover, you can also enable in the function submenu two kinds of split-focusing simulations, both of which work surprisingly well.

Cropmarks

My second favorite function. The cropmarks are masks – you can also make your own – to help you composing through the Live View. I loved my Hasselblad, so I end up a lot of time shooting in a square format. Now I can check directly on camera if the composition works. The only downside is that you can see them only when Live View is in “Movie mode”.

You can download the masks I made here (two 6×6 – one with a grid the other one plain – and two cinematic 16:9 – also one with grid and the other plain):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9763620/Cropmask_MagicLantern.zip [important: do not simply copy the following images, they are just for reference but they are not in the correct format]

And from this guy here you can learn how to make your own masks with PhotoShop (or MS Paint, if you are on Windows):

http://axelgimenez.net/make-custom-crop-marks-in-photoshop-for-magic-lantern/

Ghost Image

This can show a transparent overlay that can be generated from any image in Play mode. It is a godsend for multi-exposures lovers and to line the various shots in panoramic photography.

Defishing

If you happen to have a Samyang 8mm fish-eye lens this is for you. It lets you preview the rectified image generated from the lens.

Spotmeter

Guess what? It is a spotmeter active 24h/7 in the middle of your image that gives you values in a 0-100% scale or in the RGB 0-255 values. If you love Ansel and the zone system you should be more than happy now.

HDR Bracketing

It is an extended shutter and / or Iso bracketing. You can variate the shots up to 5 EV, let the camera auto-detect the number of necessary frames, preview the fused frames and even generate an Enfuse script to align and merge the files once they are on the computer.

Intervalometer

Exactly what you think. You can program it with a delayed start up to 8 hours, decide the duration between two shots or stop after X pictures.

Bulb / Focus ramp

It is a feature for people who like to shoot time-lapses. It adjusts the exposure level while the light changes (hint: think “sunset”).

Bulb timer

You can now program exposures up to an 8h (yes, hours) length.

LCD Sensor Remote

This is awesome. You can actually shoot the camera, and even enabling mirror lock-up, just waving you hand in front of the LCD. No touching necessary. Goodbye vibrations and cable releases! Wait, it’s not all, because…

Audio Remote Shot

…you can also release the shutter just snapping your fingers! And naturally you can also use this for shooting bullets piercing water filled balloons. 🙂 But wait (again), because you can also…

Motion Detect

…have the camera shoot all by itself if it detects movement – or, in alternative, changes in the exposure levels – in the framed area. And for this – and the Audio Remote function – you can even tune the sensitivity.

Trap Focus

Similar to the preceding function, and well known to every sport photographer. You focus where your subject should pass, and wait. When it will be in focus the camera will shoot all by itself.

Stack Focus

If you do macro, you know you need this. With this function you will be able to capture a series of pictures of the subject, each of which with a little displacement of the focus plane. Once downloaded on the computer you will have to join them – the camera does not do this for you – and you will have a nice, impossible-to-get-otherwise, extended plane of focus.

LV Contrast / LV saturation

This two let you tweak the aspect of the pictures as they are displayed during Live View (but not how they are registered). This way you can, for example, pump the contrast to focus more easily or desaturate the image to compose straight in black & white.

LV Display Gain

With this one you can push the Live View display up to 7 stops more. It means that you can focus withe relative ease in pitch black darkness (astro & concerts photographers, are you listening?).

Image Review Settings…

Here you have a subset of options:
> SET+MainDial: with this you can compare two images, one on top of the other, with a diagonal split (look at the example below)
> Image Review: this alone can convince you to install Magic Lantern. You will not have to press “Play” anymore to zoom in an image, but just push the “zoom in” button
> Quick Zoom: even better. With this enabled one push on the “zoom in” button and you are at 100%; one other push and you are back at the image fitting on the screen.

Live View Zoom Settings…

Another interesting subset of options:
> Zoom 5x & Zoom 10x: you can enable / disable them indipendently
> Auto exposure on Zoom: switch the preview on autoexposure if you zoom, so you can check focus even if you legacy lens is stopped down to f/16 and you don’t have the “Exposure simulation” on in the Live View options
> Increase SharpContrast: increase sharpness and contrast when you use the Live View zoom, to facilitate to check for focus errors
> Zoom on Half Shutter / Zoom with Focus Ring: you will be able to engage the Live View zoom just half-pressing the shutter button or – with certain Canon lenses – just rotating the focus ring.

Shutter Count

This – duh – counts the numbers of shutter & Live View actuations of the camera.

Ambient light

It is not calibrated, but it reads the EV level of the ambient light hitting the back of the camera. I may be mistaken, but I think that, doing a bit of homework, I should be able to use this function as a “poor man” incident light meter when I’m too lazy to bring a proper one.

Another welcome function is the tiny percentage value that appears over the battery indicator in the rear screen, so you’ll know that those nice full-bars battery is actually going down pretty fast…

Last thing: please keep in mind that:

– in addition to this already really long list, Magic Lantern gives you also literally dozens of video-specific functions that I didn’t mentioned here

– almost each of the photographic functions listed above it is customizable to a great extent.

So the only way to get to really know this software is trying it firsthand.

In conclusion, a great firmware that needs only to suck up less battery power to became a perfect one.

Rating: [5 if they will manage to limit the battery drain]

Review: Core Image Fun House raw converter

Posted on 30 June 20128 December 2013 by Gianluca Bevacqua

Today we’ll talk about an Apple Aperture little brother: Core Image Fun House. A little brother that is also free!

In a previous post, the Raw Converters Mega Test, I wrote about a Photoshop sharpening technique called 4 rounds sharpening. It consists in the application of 4 different rounds (as the name suggests) of smart sharpening and unsharp mask, each with different values, to be able to sharpen both the micro and the macro contrast. It works like a charm, but requires Photoshop and it is a bit time consuming. Even if you make an action of it, still takes a few seconds for each image even on a fast computer, not to mention on a slow one.

But here came the good news for Mac users. There is this little program that comes with Xcode 4.2.1 (not with the last version, but you can install both at the same time without problems): Core Image Fun House. You have to do a free registration as developers with Apple, and then you can download the program here (use the search box to find the 4.2.1 version):

https://developer.apple.com/downloads/

The installer put it in the “/Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools” folder of your hard disk. But if you are not interested in compiling software you may also delete all the Xcode bunch and keep only this software (and maybe some of the others not graphic-related but still useful apps, like AULab, FileMerge, IconComposer or Repeat After Me), moving it in the Applications folder.

It can be used as a full featured raw converter. Think of it as the little brother of Apple Aperture: like this one it works through stacks, and each stack can be used more than once.

Core Image Fun House stacks

It’s obviously a lot less refined in respect to Aperture but, hey, it’s free! To see how it works as a raw converter please check the crops in the Raw Converters Mega Test here. It is every bit as good as the comparison winners, given that they are in fact based on the same Core Image technology: Preview / Aperture and Rawker. The only difference is that the sharpening settings are more extended with this one compared to Apple Preview, so if you want you may jump a passage and do everything in one software.

Aside from some nice graphic effects, like the CMYK halftone filter, the best I found till now, or the possibility to add text to an image, things that may came in handy doing posters, brochure, covers and so on, it has two kind of sharpening: a normal unsharp masks and a “sharpen luminance”. This one will do the trick. The bad news: Core Image Fun House doesn’t provide a zoom, so you cannot check what you’re doing with the sharpening. The good news: use it at the maximum value (2.0) and you’re set. At this value it sharpens the images with the same accuracy of the 4 routes sharpening routine discussed above, but: it doesn’t require Photoshop and it is nearly instantaneous.

To save the sharpened files you don’t have to use “Save” or “Save as…” but “Export”, otherwise you will save the photo in a file format specific for the program, that include the original raw file and the settings used for the image. Handy, but I strongly suggest to use a more universal format, at least concurrently. Last quirk: the program does not have a way to set the preferences for an output format, instead it defaults every time to jpg. So you will have to remember to switch to tiff each and every time. Luckily the tiffs are at 16bit. There are also a few interesting filters that the program provides, beside the cited halftone.

Core Image Fun House

You may want to take a look, especially if you don’t have Photoshop or Lightroom, at the following:

– Geometry Adjustment (Crop, Perspective Transform, Straighten)

– Blur (Noise reduction: better than Photoshop, but worst than Lightroom; Zoom blur: nice for special effects)

– Color Adjustment (Color Controls, Exposure, Gamma, Hue, Temperature, Tone, Vibrance, White Point)

– Stylize (Depth of field: you may see an example on the first photo of the post; Highlights and Shadows)

The only downside that I can think of is the fact that the program does not support batch processing, but it is a minor one from my point of view.

Rating:

Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part V

Posted on 31 May 20121 June 2012 by Gianluca Bevacqua

If you haven’t read the first four parts please take a look at them, because there you may see the images unsharpened and sharpened with various tools, and you’ll learn about the specifics of this comparison.

Raw Converters Mega Test part I

Raw Converters Mega Test part II

Raw Converters Mega Test part III

Raw Converters Mega Test part IV

Now that we have seen, in the previous parts, who the winners are it’s time to draw some conclusions.

– Adobe Photoshop CS5 / Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

Pretty good raw conversion quality with industry leading performance for all the other aspects. Both programs are easily usable in a workflow that includes other softwares as raw converters when it’s mandatory to obtain the maximum quality.

Rating:

www.adobe.com

– Apple Preview

It’s a Mac software, so what can you aspect? It’s easy to use and does the job, and an excellent one. A bit limited for “creative” interpretation of the pictures, but really great as a plain raw converter.

Rating:

www.apple.com

– CaptureOne Pro 6.3.5

Many professionals used to use this program. I, quite frankly, nowadays I don’t see the need. The results are pretty good, but not better than Lightroom, and it costs a lot more doing a lot less. More, the interface is confusing, and it litters the file system with useless proprietary configuration files for each and every image. Too little for too much.

Rating:

www.phaseone.com

– Corel AfterShot Pro 1.0.1

The interface is well studied, but it’s not the 2003 anymore. There are better softwares out there, also free.

Rating:

www.corel.com

– Digital Photo Professional 3.11.4

One may think that Canon should know a trick or two about its own cameras, but if so it is not shown in this software. Good results, but nothing to write home about, and limited conversion options. It may came in handy if you save a dust removal image on the camera, to apply it to the raw files (that you can save again as raw and than open with a better app). At least it’s free.

Rating:

– DXO Optics Pro 7

If your camera / lens combination is supported maybe it’s worth a shot. But try it first because, for example, with the (supported) Fuji X100 both Rawker and Preview do a better job…

Rating:

www.dxo.com

– Gimp / Ufraw 2.6.12

If you are on Linux go for it, but the 8bit limit it is not a good thing. When it will sports a full 16bit support the rating will become a full 4.

Rating:

www.gimp.org

– perfectRaw 0.6

Forget about it; it was a noble attempt, but the years do not pass in vain.

Rating:

www.ojodigital.com

– RawDeveloper 1.9.4

Pretty good results, but it lacks an histogram and it costs too much for what it has to offer.

Rating:

www.iridientdigital.com

– Rawker 2.3.4

The interface could use a radical redesign, but quality wise it’s one of the winners, and it’s fast and it’s free!

Rating:

raifra.fh-friedberg.de

– RawTherapee 4.0.8

Another one of the winners, in various categories, and overall one of the best. Probably the one with the best interface, with the exclusion of Lightroom.

Rating:

rawtherapee.com

– RawPhotoProcessor 4.5 64bit

Great results, but Rawker and Apple Preview do almost always better quality wise and RawTherapee beats it in the usability department. Overall still a good choice for low Iso images.

Rating:

www.raw-photo-processor.com

Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part IV

Posted on 31 May 20121 June 2012 by Gianluca Bevacqua

If you haven’t read the first two parts please take a look at them, because there you may see the images unsharpened and sharpened with the native tools of each raw converter, and you’ll learn about the specifics of this comparison.

Raw Converters Mega Test part I

Raw Converters Mega Test part II

Raw Converters Mega Test part III

Here I used the images from the second part, the ones sharpened with the tools of each raw converter, and I furtherly sharpened them to taste in Photoshop CS5.

Please keep in mind that some of the images may look a bit oversharpened here at 100% on screen, but than they will look good once printed.

To my eyes: it’s a tie, the crown goes both to RawTherepee and Apple Preview / Rawker.

RawTherapee “paints” the scene with a fine spaced, natural looking brush that looks pretty good at 100%, but once printed it looks less sharp that Apple Preview. More, to obtain this result in RawTherapee, like I wrote in part II, takes a lot of processing time, almost 1 full minute per picture, while Apple Preview takes only a couple of seconds for the conversion. Rawker, if set at -2 points of sharpening from the maximum value (not shown here), it’s every bit as good as Apple Preview (not a suprise, given that they share the same raw conversion engine).

On the plus side RawTherapee has excellent tools to correct chromatic aberration that Apple Preview (and almost all the others, at least good like this) lacks.

Once again a good performance from Corel AfterShot Pro, but once again penalized by the insurgence of non-existent chromatic aberration.

If you want to evaluate for yourself the images you may click below to download one of the PSDs. You have to open them in Photoshop or in Gimp, in this last case using the option File -> “Open as layers”.

The “landscape” PSD contains all the crops of the four parts of the review stacked as layers.

The “portrait” PSD contains instead crops from the three best converters (RawTherapee, Apple Preview and Rawker) when used with, guess what, a portrait image.

Landscape PSD 21.4Mb (right click and “Save as…” to download)

Portrait PSD 3.4Mb (right click and “Save as…” to download)

100% crops, sharpening for the best result

Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part III

Posted on 30 May 20121 June 2012 by Gianluca Bevacqua

Raw Converters Mega Test part I

Raw Converters Mega Test part II

Here I used the images from the first part, the unsharpened ones, but I worked them with a 4 rounds sharpening routine in Photoshop CS5.

The routine, the same for all the pictures, consists in:

1) SmartSharpen amount 10, radius 10, “remove lens blur”, “more accurate” checked

2) SmartSharpen amount 40, radius 1, “remove lens blur”, “more accurate” checked

3) Unsharp Mask amount 20, radius 0,5, threshold 0

4) Unsharp Mask amount 39, radius 1, threshold 11

This routine sharpens both the macro and the micro detail; obviously the values above would need to be tailored to each image (but are a good starting point); I kept them constant to allow the comparison between the crops.

Please, keep in mind that some of the images may look a bit oversharpened here at 100% on screen, but than they will look good once printed.

To my eyes: Apple Preview and Rawker win hands down, closely followed by RawDeveloper.

100% crops, 4 rounds sharpening