Magic Lantern v2.3 represents an important milestone - professionals from all around the world are already trusting it for their paid work. 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.

Review by Marcus Waterloo on DSLRNewsShooter.com

Video review and tutorial by Clint from Everything Studios

Install tutorial by MediaUnlocked

Reactions: Planet5D, Cinema5D, NoFilmSchool, PetaPixel, Snapsort, PhotographyBay, Caleb Pike, Eric Gustavo Petersen, Roberto Rodriguez Jr, Premium Beat, HalfSilk, UnitedByPhotography, SlashCam (DE), ALTFoto (ES), Fotografiando-T (ES), IonixHD (ES), Xavier Boluda (ES), DigiFotoPro (NL), blog.pepf.nl (NL), Printscreen.hu (HU), 365.com.mk (MK), Linux.org.ru (RU), Magiclantern Japanese info (JA)

Behind the scenes: Rustic Red Studios

New or improved features

Fast zebras

The latest implementation of zebras has zero lag and zero CPU usage - as a result, Magic Lantern simply feels snappy and more responsive. (read more)

Customizable menu and shortcut keys

Do you feel that certain menus are a bit too complex for you? Do you spend more time than you would like to as you scroll through more than 100 features? No problem – just press the MENU key while the Magic Lantern screen is active and you can begin to hide the functions you don't use. Those features are not gone forever, they are temporarily hidden so you get quicker access to the ones you use daily.

Don't forget that we have implemented context help for all ML features – just press INFO or DISP, depending on your camera model, and read the user guide right from the camera!

Would you like to adjust audio levels or change the white balance temperature on the fly? New arrow key shortcuts can help you with that. Configure this new function in the Prefs menu. After that, you will have these ease of access tools at your finger tips and no longer need to enter the main menu to change these simple things.

Automatic HDR bracketing

Magic Lantern was already well-known for advanced bracketing features used in shooting HDR photos, this update takes it to the next level. Set your camera mode to M, set the number of frames to Automatic, choose your desired EV step size and take the first picture. Magic Lantern will analyze the scene and take as many (or as few) shots as needed to cover the entire dynamic range.

• Number of bracketed shots: unlimited.
• Fastest exposure time: 1/4000 or 1/8000 (as fast as your camera allows).
• Slowest exposure time: unlimited (bypasses the 30-second limit by enabling bulb mode when needed).
• ISO: fixed or bracketed.

A powerful timelapse tool

The intervalometer received a number of handy parameters like: delayed start (up to 8 hours), stop after a fixed number of shots (100 ... 5000), and advanced exposure and focus ramping.

This new implementation brings big improvements for bulb ramping: the algorithm is no longer based on trial and error – based on control systems theory, it is now mathematically correct! We have also implemented an idea discussed by Tom Lowe himself – dedicated sunrise or sunset modes.

If the automatic ramping gets stuck in some tricky situation, we have full manual ramping for exposure and focus. You can use the manual exposure ramping either as standalone (for manual exposure pulls) or in combination with automatic ramping (to avoid turning night into day, for example), and you can change every setting on the fly!

Our own bulb ramping demos

More timelapse examples

Advanced FPS control

Do you ever feel the need to have complete control over the Frames Per Second rate? Have you ever wanted to shoot 24.000 fps instead of 23.976? Maybe you need to record an action scene at 22fps and speed it up to 24fps for more dramatic effect? How about the idea of just pressing Record to start filming a timelapse video instead of still frames?

All of this is possible – these new FPS controls can go as low as 0.2 fps (one frame every 5 seconds) or as high as 35 fps in 1080p on select camera models (such as the 60D and 600D).

Advanced ISO control

Okay, I know you won't believe this one. We can improve video image quality - not by much, but you will get cleaner shadows, smoother highlight rolloff, and cleaner ISOs (ISO 80, ISO 50, ISO 1000 pulled from 1600). (read more, in Spanish)

Mix this capability with the excellent Flaat picture styles, and you'll get the highest amount of detail that your sensor can deliver in movie mode.

Magic Lantern can also boost the ISO digitally up to 819200, which makes LiveView usable in complete darkness.

These expanded ISOs are available in the ISO submenu - adjust ML digital ISO.

Contrast and saturation adjustments for LiveView

If you shoot with Flat Picture Styles, you'll love this. You can preview a contrasty and saturated image, while recording with flat picture style. This allows you to view the displayed image closer to how you might want to see the finished product, while the recorded image offers the best profile for working with your favorite color correction tools.

You can also preview in gray-scale, which may help with focusing – especially if you get distracted by colors. Or you can preview with very high saturation, which helps judging white balance under difficult lighting.

Image analysis tools in photo mode

All the well-known LiveView image analysis tools (zebra, histogram, waveform, spotmeter, focus peaking) are now working in photo mode too. You can let Magic Lantern display them just after taking a picture, or on request, by pressing a shortcut key.

Very fast playback zoom

For photographers this function is invaluable – simply press Zoom-In one time, and Magic Lantern will zoom all the way in. With fast 100% zoom you will be checking critical focus much faster than with standard firmware and multiple button pushes before you get to full zoom. Press Zoom-In again and you are back at full view. This option is fully configurable – you can choose to zoom in center, on current AF point, or remember last position.

And, last but not least:

A great support community

Magic Lantern now has a place where you can get help, ask questions, share your photos and videos, report bugs, suggest new features, and share your own improvements and extensions - right here, on www.magiclantern.fm.

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Download

Magic Lantern relies on your financial support as we work hard on turning this valuable tool into a rock solid piece of engineering. We are committed to improving the user experience and extending the software to new camera models as they become available, such as the new 5D Mark III and 650D / T4i; but we need your help.

Magic Lantern 2.3 works on: 5Dmk2 2.1.2, 50D 1.0.9, 60D 1.1.1, 500D 1.1.1, 550D 1.0.9, 600D 1.0.2

Download Magic Lantern 2.3

Mirror for when bitbucket is in trouble

Download Magic Lantern 2.3 as torrent

Note: the images and videos featured on this page were created by Magic Lantern users, and we are using them here with their kind permission, and with link to their original page. Thank you!

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License

    Copyright (C) 2009-2012 Magic Lantern Development Team

    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.