Messages

1

General Help Q&A / Re: Recover .DAT movie file from camera?

« on: January 19, 2019, 03:58:06 PM »

Try recover_mp4. It's a Windows command-line utility, also runs on Linux with Wine.

Thank you. So much. Saved me a very valuable memory. Thank you.

2

General Help Q&A / Recover .DAT movie file from camera?

« on: January 16, 2019, 06:19:08 PM »

So I was recording movie with ML installed when my camera just restarted itself. Reason being is the battery grip is from Meike and even though I like everything else about it, touch the battery caddy too rough and the contact which verifies it's closed (same mechanism as the SD slot lid for example) comes loose, shutting off the camera.

Now I'm with a 3GB .DAT file instead of the wanted .MOV file. I thought this wouldn't be a big deal since probably just some codec information or whatever was missing but after being not able to restore anything with ffmpeg on Linux and not finding anything but a paid service on Google, I'm quite scared.

Is there any feature in ML which allows for encoding of a .DAT file? I don't think it can be that hard since all the movie data is there and I'm guessing all one had to do is tell the camera to process this file as if you'd just stopped recording it?

Any other Linux tool or software would help too, doesn't have to be in ML or in-camera.


Thanks for any help.

3

General Help Q&A / Re: Force display rotation? (Canon 70D)

« on: December 02, 2018, 06:57:27 PM »

In the same Display menu, there is a setting where you can manually choose the orientation: Normal/Mirror/Reverse. These are the names used in Canon firmware. The UpsideDown mode is a software implementation, and doesn't work very well if you ask me (it has redraw issues).

Otherwise, I'm afraid I don't fully understand the request. Can you provide a video showing when the display should flip?

Triggering display flips/mirrors at some arbitrary angle may require looking into the level indicator, i.e. a custom feature. Or maybe some Lua API functions could do the trick. The only issue - level indicator data is not always available, and requesting it during photo capture wasn't exactly a pleasant experience from me (ERR70), but that was some years ago.

I've set the orientation to "Normal" (which is the desired one I want) and it works fine in the ML menu, exiting the menu it still works but as soon as I do anything (even pressing the menu button) the orientation changes back to "Reverse", same goes when I move the display.

I'm asking if there's a way to lock the orientation I set in the ML menu, as in, no matter how much I rotate the display after setting it, it will stay at what I selected.

4

General Help Q&A / Force display rotation? (Canon 70D)

« on: December 02, 2018, 03:45:05 PM »

I sometimes have my 70D on a tripod, with me in front of it, while the camera is pointing down. It really annoys me though how the image only flips when the LCD is angled perfectly at 180°, and not at an angle that I need to use, which is more like 130°. Is there an ML setting/option/tweak/script that can either change this (to flip at 100° and beyond) or force a specific rotation?

The UpsideDown mode (in Display settings) is useful, but when enabled and the LCD is at 170°+, the display flips again and becomes useless. Ideally, I'd like to lock-in a specific orientation.

5

Modules Development / Re: DSLR Arkanoid (arkanoid.mo)

« on: October 27, 2018, 11:57:36 AM »

Pretty sure the bug can be reproduced on any other camera that runs ML, if you follow OP's instructions (i.e. play until level 4). 70D and 5D2 are pretty much opposite (5D2 is one of the earlier DIGIC 4 models, 70D is a recent DIGIC 5), so it's reasonable to assume most other models will behave in the same way.

I've barely reached level 3 and encountered that bug a couple of times.

Looking at the source, `arkanoid_keypress` seems to be the function of interest here. A wild idea: Does there only exist the `CBR_KEYPRESS` function which, I'm guessing calls `arkanoid_keypress` on every keypress, or is there also something that registers KEYUP and KEYDOWN events?

An idea of mine would be to start moving on a keydown event and move until a corresponding keyup event is registered.

6

Modules Development / Re: DSLR Arkanoid (arkanoid.mo)

« on: October 09, 2018, 05:49:03 PM »

I love this game but starting level 4 it got a bit buggy. When I'd press the arrow keys it would move only a tiny bit and then stop. It won't go away until I restart the camera, then the issue would re-appear shortly after. Once in level 5 even a restart doesn't help anymore. See the video, I'm always keeping the button pressed and not letting go unless I hit the other button.



I know using the main dial or the top dial is an option too, but have you ever tried to play with that? It's near impossible. Camera is a EOS 70D.
A really cool idea would be to be able to use the touchscreen. Maybe just touching the right side of the LCD "emulates" the right key, and the left side the left key.

Edit: After leaving the camera on for a bit but not doing anything on it, it was working again int he same level. However after 1-2 minutes of playing (same level still) the lag appeared again, making it impossible to continue playing.

7

General Help Q&A / Re: A lot of bugs on a EOS 70D, some major too

« on: October 09, 2018, 05:17:29 PM »

I need the entire MPU log, covering a regular startup process with that battery grip. If possible (i.e. if it appears in Canon menu), write down the expected battery percentage, too, so I'll know what to look for.

Confirmed the fast zebras bug.

Here is the entire log: https://pastebin.com/3QTG6kv4

Something weird: The battery % in the canon menu (correctly identifying the battery in the grip) said 80%. I then shut off the camera and loaded the startup-log build onto SD. I then checked the canon menu again (without SD card) and the battery was magically at 99%. I don't know how this happened. After putting the SD card back in I waited until the log was generated, then checked battery % in Canon's menu again: 99% still. After playing a bit of pong it's now at 97%. Very confusing why it reported 80% before. (It should be indeed above 95% as it was fully charged)

This is at the bottom of the log:

Code: [Select]

20.134.998     CtrlSrv:ff19b3ac:83:03: PROP_BATTERY_REPORT copysize (96)<-(96)
20.135.186     CtrlSrv:ff19b55c:83:03: PROP_BATTERY_HISTORY copysize (76)<-(76)
Which confuses me further, but maybe I'm just reading it wrong. From a simple guess I'd say it reported 96%. This was when canon's menu said 99%.

On a side question: I just looked at the ML experiments download page. For the crop_rec_4k module there is no 70D download, however when scrolling down to the manual_lens_info downloads, there is one for the 70D that says "crop_rec_4k" too. Does that mean it includes both? Does that include the lua_fix too? Having this many branches is quite confusing, but I guess making these experimental changes as simple modules won't work because of compability issues with the nightly builds. (?)

8

General Help Q&A / Re: A lot of bugs on a EOS 70D, some major too

« on: October 09, 2018, 03:45:45 PM »

10) also reported on 5D3; no battery grip here to test, but you should be able to get a log file with MPU messages; that log should contain the complete info to reproduce this situation in QEMU, as the battery level is reported by the MPU.

Which part of the MPU log do you need?

Also I tested around further and I'm able to reproduce the menu bugs (my GIFs) every single time when I enable liveview. I tried to disable overlays completely in ML but the issue still persists as long as liveview is running while being in the ML menu. If liveview is off, it works perfectly fine, no flickering.

The shutter speed issue didn't occur again, I tried several settings to reproduce it but since I changed to the build you've linked earlier I wasn't able to reproduce the issue.

Another issue I noticed: If I use the dark red theme (probably happens with others too but didn't test) and zebras (1% on over- and underexposure, Luma Fast) the zebras will flash constantly all over the Liveview, indicating that the entire image is underexposed. If there IS actual under- or overexposure in the image, the zebras don't work (still flashing all over the LCD, not on top of overexposed image parts).

9

General Help Q&A / Re: A lot of bugs on a EOS 70D, some major too

« on: October 08, 2018, 09:36:00 PM »

Ok, about 2): Managed to turn it on using the other SD card with the newest build. Went to firmware installation and waited 60 seconds to uninstall ML again, put ML on SD card again using another card read (first one seemed to mess it up) and it worked. Still weird how the camera behaved. This wasn't the first time I had to try this many times to just turn it on, even with no SD card in it.

Using the build you linked now.

1) The LCD bug is gone. It works fine now.
2) The color scheme bug is gone now. No flickering anymore.
3) The menu bug seems gone now, I can select just normally all the values now and change it with the up/down keys.
4) The shutter speed bug seems to be gone too, however this one appeared randomly before. But so far, it works.

There seems to be a change between those two builds that causes most of these bugs. I'll test further.


Edit: Nevermind on 2) - It worked fine until I restarted the camera. Nothing else was done or changed. It worked perfectly, until reboot. The other three bugs seem still fixed.

Edit 2: 3) isn't fixed either, but I've found out the "random" behaviour: If liveview is disabled, it works fine. But if liveview is enabled, it acts weirdly as in my GIF.

Edit 3: The same seems to apply to 2). If Liveview is turned off, it works perfectly fine. Once I turn on liveview, it acts as weird as in the GIF.

10

General Help Q&A / Re: A lot of bugs on a EOS 70D, some major too

« on: October 08, 2018, 09:22:26 PM »

1) But one of the "modules" that disappear, is the module menu itself. As in, I can't load or select any modules at all. Is that expected to happen? And what would one do to fix that? I tried restarting it 6 times until it came back..

2) Doesn't really let me install it. I've unpacked it and placed it on the SD card, camera won't turn on at all anymore. Tried another SD card with the newest experimental build again and after turning it off/on a couple times it worked. Switched cards again, doesn't work. Switched cards back, doesn't turn on at all anymore. Without an SD card it doesn't turn on either at first, but after trying around 10 times with battery out/in a couple times it works. I doubt this is normal. Not sure exactly on how to load the other ML firmware, or how to turn on the camera reliably at all at this point.

4) I'll try this again with the other ML image once it works.

5) Is this expected? Because this doesn't always happen and seems like a bug to me. Why does it just happen sometimes? It gets really annoying with menus like "Picture Style" for example.

7) Sorry, it was due to Wi-Fi being enabled. Is there any reason behind canon disabling the port while Wi-Fi is enabled, even when not in use?

8) I can record one, but it's really just that it's always skipping one stop when increasing the shutter speed, nothing else happens and there's no weird screen behaviour or anything.


Another issue I noticed is that when using a battery grip, ML reports "100%" and full battery icon all the time, even when the Canon info screen would show the empty battery warning already. Without using the battery grip it works fine in ML too.

11

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: October 08, 2018, 08:03:18 PM »

@a1ex if it is the enclosure and cover of the SD slot in the camera reducing the range .. then an SD card extender would work ...
e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SD-card-to-SD-Card-Extension-Extender-Cable-Log-Logging-Truck-GPS-Motorbike/183442448338 or maybe https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/SD-Male-To-SD-Female-SDHC_60751903392.html?spm=a2700.7724838.2017115.424.6f255038VfUkvq tho the latter might be a micro one ?

Cool idea, didn't know these exist, might come in very handy to have one of those for other things.

My 70D won't turn on if the SD Card lid isn't closed though, don't know about other Canon's but on mine I couldn't use that.

12

General Help Q&A / A lot of bugs on a EOS 70D, some major too

« on: October 08, 2018, 07:58:36 PM »

Looking at the bug tracker having currently over 400 open issues, I figured I might create a topic first. Maybe some of these are already well-known, or easy to fix for myself. If I should open a bug report for any of those or all of those, just let me know.

So I got my new EOS 70D and installed ML on it (magiclantern-lua_fix.2018Sep17.70D112.zip) and at first glance, everything was fine. Until I noticed a bunch of bugs, some of them really annoying:

Please note that within "everything was fine" and "everything was ok" and "all hope is lost" I didn't do anything, not even taking pictures. Still just playing around with the menus, but didn't change any settings (except for focus peaking and zebras, those being on or off don't affect these bugs though).


1) Some menu items (of ML) disappear sometimes. E.g. the lua scripts and the modules tab just disappeared earlier on me. Had to restart the camera around 6 times until it re-appeared.

2) The LCD is sometimes kind-of f*&ked. Currently I only have this in the arkanoid game (which worked fine until yesterday!) but it happened in the menu before too.



Note that this is only on the LCD itself. Taking a screenshot of this (using the ML VRAM screenshot feature) shows the expected normal image.

3) When in the ML liveview and half-pressing the shutter button, I get these super annoying overlays from Canon:



This is how it should look:



4) Changing to any other display theme results in heavy, constant flickering: (GIF didn't catch it, but it's NOT only in the ML menu. It's everywhere.)



5) Not able to change anything in the ML menu at all. After pressing set, I can still cycle through the menu points instead of changing the option:



6) ML overlays do not appear (at all) while Wi-Fi is enabled, even when Wi-Fi isn't in use.

7) USB connection doesn't work at all anymore. "dmesg -w" on the computer shows nothing. Camera on or off, SD card in or out - Same results. The same machine and cable worked fine two days ago in both darktable and the file manager. Will try on another machine soon, but worked on current 2 days ago. No changes (not even a reboot) have been made to PC in-between.
Was due to Wi-Fi being on, not a ML bug. Is there a way to have Wi-Fi enabled and still keep USB port functionality using ML?

8) Shutter speed changes are sometimes ignored by the ML overlay. In normal overlay (canon liveview) it works fine. In ML sometimes I get this weird behaviour:
I decrease the shutter speed by one stop: It works. Camera's top LCD shows the change, so does ML.
I increase it by one stop: Camera top LCD shows the change, ML doesnt. I increase it another stop, ML shows it.
So basically ML's overlay is skipping one stop, but only when I increase the shutter speed. Decreasing works fine all the time.


Happened since the beginning, always: 3), 4), 6)
Happened since yesterday, but constant: 1), 2), 7)
Happens sometimes, since beginning: 5), 8)

I'm sure there's been more that I forgot by now. I'll update as I find more. On a side note: Is there something I should backup just in case ML ends up bricking the camera itself?
I love ML so far but these bugs are really annoying, especially 5), 4) and 2) being quite major issues. If any more information is needed to debug, please ask.

13

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 29, 2018, 05:07:28 AM »

Of course it depends on what you're photographing but if you were specialized and experienced you'd rather not ask here for an advice.

This is true!

What I did was get my old camera and calculate which zoom level I need on it to "simulate" a given eq. focal length on the canon's crop sensor, and then compared the pictures afterwards. I've found that I've been so used to the FOV smartphone cameras and my old camera on 1x zoom (eq. focal length of 24mm, so the same as a 15mm lens on the APS-C) have that even an 18mm lens seems "zoomed" to me. I'm considering to get a Canon 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6 IS STM for that reason, even though the aperature is quite low. I've also looked at the metadata of a lot of pictures I took in the past, and it seems that 24mm equivalent is what I'm shooting on most. (Either that, or all the way to 800-1200mm)

I figured that a 10-18mm would also make a good addition to the 35mm I got now, and a 55-250mm later as that would give me pretty much all the focal length ranges I'd ever need.

14

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 28, 2018, 11:49:32 AM »

Decided to go with a 35mm prime lens (Yongnuo F/2.0) as a start, and getting a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM in near future.

The camera arrived and looks great, absolutely perfect condition and I'm really happy with how it feels. Can't wait for the lens to arrive now!

15

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 25, 2018, 01:19:48 AM »

No, I never had interest in mega-zooms. Check some reviews and make up your mind based on them. From my experience: looking for a good lens might take a while. For me it was easy to decide which body to take but I'm picky about lenses. You need to try them out, to know if you like them. And this means either borrowing or buying. What matters are parameters which you won't find in spec
[...]

Thanks a lot for all that information! I've looked up all those lenses and out of the affordable ones I really like the Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM and the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM.

I'm thinking of getting both, but that'd leave the entire 18-55mm section out. A 40mm prime looks good to me, but pricey. Getting the 10-18mm Canon and the 18-200mm Sigma I found might be the best choice for now and very good in price, but the 55-250mm is just slightly more expensive ($30), offers a better range and aperature and seems more sturdy overall.

Man, getting lenses is terrible. Too many choices. I guess I'll really have to try to borrow some to get a real feeling for what would work best for me.

16

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 24, 2018, 01:54:41 PM »

IMO a good choice and a very good deal but not because of the reasons you have mentioned.

Well, first off thank you very much for your input. This is my first DSLR so please bear with me. I've really looked into all the technical aspects of everything only after I made this post so as the time of writing it I didn't even know what "focal length" meant.

Uh, where did you get the two first arguments from? There is absolutely no significant difference in image quality between 70D and 700D. I've compared the shadow noise and ISO performance of both and couldn't tell any difference. I also don't know how a "better processor" could influence the photos. It's just pure marketing.

I mean, it does have a higher resolution, that can't be worse to the least. A better processor never hurts, no matter if it's in a PC or a router or a camera. Especially in combination with ML I'm sure there's several features that make this a good selling point for the 70D (e.g. io_crypt). But I've never had any of those in my own hands so I can only tell from a bunch of youtube videos and blog posts. I don't see why a faster processor wouldn't have several real-life advantages though. Didn't mean to imply that the processor influences image quality. Obviously it doesn't.

Because it's easier to design and manufacture a lens with a narrower focal length range that keeps reasonable image quality than doing the same with two times greater "zoom range".

But do not consider it as a golden rule which always apply. The new 18-135 IS STM is far superior than the old 18-55 ones. Technology matters here and it continues to be developed.

I've watched a bunch of STM vs. regular motor videos on youtube recently and I'm definitely going for STM/USM/HSM whatever it's called. The difference is crazy.

I'm going to see if I can find some good local offers for the 18-135 IS STM lens, I'm currently looking at a Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM, do you by any chance have any experience with that one? I've found one nearby for a great price and it seems pretty solid to me. (Which again is purely based on impressions gained from youtube reviews)

Getting better body to save on lens is simply wrong. A good lens matters more than the body, as it is primarily the lens which influences the image quality.

I know that, but this is my first DSLR body and it will be my only one for a lot of years, so I rather get one now that won't make me miss any feature (like fast continous shooting) with a super budget lens than the other way around. I'm definitely gonna invest in a better lens one day, but as stupid as it sounds I'm putting "hacking my camera" above "taking the sharpest and greatest pictures with my camera". I come from a JPEG-only 1/2.3" 16MP camera with a 24-1200mm F2.9-6.5 that has a lot of CA and noise even on the lower tele-end, but it's been more than sufficient for me. I'm not a professional photographer by any means. I've had my current camera for almost 4 years now (fixed lens) and if I wouldn't have come across magic lantern I would've continued to use it for probably at least another four years. There surely will come a day on which I'll be able to afford a really good telephoto lens or even a telescope that I can put my DSLR on, but until then I'm truly more interested in seeing how much I can hack around with ML than taking super professional business-grade photos.

17

General Help Q&A / Infrared on the EOS 70D

« on: September 24, 2018, 04:17:48 AM »

So, I'll have my 70D soon and was deciding whether or not to get a battery grip. One of the things I liked the most about them is that some have an IR-receiver built-in and come with a remote.

However I was just thinking why I've seen so many IR remotes from canon, but never an IR receiver with them. And then I remembered seeing a red-ir-receiver-like-looking LED/window on the front of a canon camera before (I think it was the 5D). Before I thought it was some AF-assist-light or something. So I looked it up and wow - the 70D has an IR-receiver built-in!

That's great! Now, a few years back I got myself one of these beautiful apple remotes. I basically got it for free (had a gift card and didn't know what else to get) but ever since it's been in my drawer for the last 5 years now as I didn't have any use for it. Until now. It's compact yet seems very sturdy thanks to its full metal body and I think it'd make a great remote for a camera. The problem is: It's not programable.

So my first question would be: Is it possible to change the frequency and delay the camera is looking for with magic lantern?

And my second question: So far I've only found it possible to use remote shutter or remote 2s-shutter with an IR remote. Can ML add more possibilities to this, e.g. using it to control other options?

18

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 22, 2018, 09:18:16 PM »

Working on it, but it's going slowly, as I'm targetting all old and new models and each one has its own quirks.

That's impressive. All of this work is. I've did some hardware hacks here and there before, but nothing close to hacking a DSLR. I'm more excited for that than for actually taking pictures with it, lol.

No wifi development from my side, as none of my cameras have this capability and I'm not a networking power user either, but Maqs documented the network interface on 6D (likely similar to 70D, 1300D and other models):
http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/6D/Networking

Your request is doable, but it does require some time to sit down and experiment on a network-enabled camera.

That's one of the things I want to look into myself once I became familiar with how the basics of ML and the Canon firmware work. Maybe there's something one can work out in combination with Wi-Fi SD Cards as some of those are already running Linux and can be rooted, but working directly on the camera seems a bit more appealing to me.

Another thing I want to look into is getting this astro module to work on the 70D. I just noticed your latest comment there, once I got my camera and got familiar with everything around ML I'll be happy to help with that wherever I can!

19

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 22, 2018, 02:25:38 AM »

Well, that went quick. I got lucky and just got a 70D that's been barely used for just $400, which is $100 below the avg. for even way more used models over here.

It didn't come with a lens and coming from an SLR-Like camera with no changable lenses I know nothing about them, especially when it comes to brands, quality, motors, STM and stuff like that. I'm also wondering if there are big differences between kit lenses for older cameras like the 350D and newer ones, like the 70D for example. Those older ones are dirt cheap ($20) while having the same specs as newer ones costing around $60.

I've also heard that zoom lenses like 18-135mm are worse in quality than let's say a 18-55mm and 55-135mm lens, but I've never heard why that is so. Can someone enlighten me?

I'm thinking of getting a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS with an UV filter first. Both are $42 together which sounds like a very reasonable price. Would that be a good first choice? For the same price I could also get the "II" version of the same lens (without the UV filter though, but those are cheap so I'd rather get a better lens). Are there any remarkable differences between I, II and III when it comes to this lens (or any lens in general)?

The alternative I'm thinking about is investing a bit more in a Canon EF-S 18-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS ($150) to be more flexible on the tele end, but I'm not sure if going with the cheapest option there results in a good quality.

20

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 22, 2018, 12:03:09 AM »

I've upgraded from 700D to 70D and would never want to go back. ML support is great, even for video recording I prefer the 70D. Best reasons: ergonomics (second wheel, AF point selection with 4-directional keypad), AF Microadjustment, Dual-Pixel AF, real-time preview with correct framing in 3x zoom RAW recording, 3rd party flash firing in Live View.

Thank you (and everyone else) a lot for the input. I've decided to go with the 70D. Better image quality and processor and the shutter speed and continous shooting buffer were my main points and I think it's worth the extra money as I usually keep and use things like that for many years.

I'm hoping FPS overwrite is coming to the 70D though as that's a really cool feature, but as long as the intervalometer is present on the 70D it's not that neccessary to me.

Also as a side question, is there any wifi developement going on? E.g. would it be possible to take a shot and have it sent to a pre-defined server (in combination with the io_crypt module something simple as netcat or any raw tcp stream should be fine, for unencrypted images ssh/sftp would be better of course)? If there isn't something like that present at the moment, would it be possible in theory?

21

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 21, 2018, 05:42:45 AM »

Really? What about this build on the experiments downloads page?

I completely missed that. So, is there any major functionality of ML missing in this build?

22

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 21, 2018, 02:25:50 AM »

if you do mainly photography, i cant say much coz i don't do photography and i have no knowledge about photography. but when it comes to videography 70D is a hero. others are all kids when it comes to auto focus, lowlights etc. i had use 550D and 650D in the past and they all are kids when u compare with 70D. 70d is a semi professional camera whereas other cameras like 650D/700D are just consumer camera.
if you can't live without ML, 70d may not be your choice. now 70D is my fav camera and i wont be upgrading until i can buy a used 5D mark 3.

I'll do mostly photo so video doesn't concern me much, but having the ability to shoot well in low light might be good to have. What I personally really love about the 70D is the improved shutter speed and FPS. My current camera has a 1/7000 shutter speed and 7 fps in continous shooting mode (JPEG only though as my camera supports no RAW shooting :/) and while the 70D has that too but in RAW mode and with a greater buffer (only 6 on my current camera) and a slightly faster shutter, the 700D would be a "downgrade" to 5 fps at 1/4000. So that's a big point for the 70D.

So called "kit lenses" aren't bad quality especially for the price range you're looking at.

I should also say don't discount the 70D. Although not all of the ML features are working on it yet, most of them have to do with video.

Hm, I've heard from mostly the people selling them that their quality isn't great. Most canon 18-55mm lenses are around $55 here. I've heard good things about sigma, which would cost just slightly more.

Is there something like the feature matrix or anything for the 70D? Is there even any 70D developement going on at the moment, as the latest version was from feburary. The features I'm interested in mostly (not that I know all of them yet though!) are focus peaking, follow focus, FPS overwrite, the intervalometer, bulb timer, magic zoom, advanced bracket, vectorscope, spotmeter, .... Yeah, I think I could go on for a while here lol. Oh, and of course, the ability to run lua scripts. Whoever came up with and implemented that has my love.

Another 70D user chiming in. I got 50fps in mv720 mode at 1824x626 working, but not a coder at all so I cant really implement this in a build - but there is progress!

I am saying this because the 70D has one feature NO OTHER CAM THAT RUNS ML HAS. Dual Pixel Auto-Focus. And despite it not being a "professional" feature, you can pull off pretty neat "Steadicam" Shots on a cheap glidecam etc. for which you would otherwise need an expensive follow focus system.

BUT. Especially for the pricerange you are looking for, the 700D is a great choice. Most amazing ML video features at the moment and its got that flippy screen you kinda need for videography . As dfort mentioned, 100D and EosM are perhaps the other serious contenders.

I'll probably never use RAW video at all to be honest. I've heard a lot about the auto-focus in youtube comparison videos and it seems really stunning compared to any other camera in my price range. For the follow focus: Isn't that possible on every ML supporting camera though?

I'm really leaning towards the 70D at the moment, it's on the very edge of my budget but still within and seems like a good extra investment for what it offers. But seeing no update in ML for it since over 7 months, I'm kinda afraid there won't be any updates at all for it in the future.

23

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 20, 2018, 06:25:18 PM »

I wouldn’t ignore the EOSM 

http://photography.grayheron.net/2017/12/thank-you-sony.html

That's a great setup. I love the attached monitor one. It's crazy how such a compact camera can be this professional.
I looked further into the M series and find that the M3 would be a great camera (especially for it's popup-flash and tilt-able screen), however there doesn't seem to be any ML developement on that one.

I'd just personally prefer to have something bigger in my hands. I'm planning on getting an external flash but having one built-in is just way more convenient. And of course, the rotatable display!

As far as the difference between the 60D and 700D, there might not be much difference when you look at the specs but the 700D is way ahead in ML development mostly because it has a Digic 5 processor while the 60D is a Digic 4 camera. Lossless compression, reduced bit depth, SD card speed up, crop_rec module and other new features are working on Digic 5 but not Digic 4. Though there is still development on Digic 4 cameras we also need to devote time to getting the newer Digic 6, 7, 8 (and 4+) cameras ported.

This is what I was thinking too. I'm currently looking at a 700D with a 90-300mm lens and a battery grip for just $270. It has almost 24k shutter count, but is still in a great condition and even comes with the original box, so I'm probably going for this. What's a good recommendation for a lens in the (around) 18-55mm range? I've heard kit lenses are usually bad quality. Preferably not above $100.

24

General Chat / Re: Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 20, 2018, 04:44:30 PM »

Assume that the 5D3 is out of the question? It is still by far the best camera for ML and probably the only ML supported camera seriously used by absolute professionals. Most of us here are hobbyists, some more serious than others.

A used but in good condition 5D3 over here is slightly over three times the price of a 700D, so it's out of my price range, and really much better than what I even "need". I love photography a lot, but I don't see me ever doing it as a profession. Plus, I'd really love to have a screen that I can fold old like the 60D or 700D has.

It looks like you're leaning towards the 700D. From your list that will give you the best ML experience but don't discount the 100D or even the EOSM. Ok, back to the 700D, the current Canon firmware is version 1.1.5. It is also my one and only firmware update port to make it into the main ML repository. Any 1.1.4 builds are most likely outdated so whatever feature matrix you're looking at isn't up to date.

I've looked at the EOS M first actually, and while it doesn't look bad,  it's just *really* small and having thought "I wish I would've gotten a camera with a rotateable screen" countless of times in the past, I really want to go for one offering that this time. I shoot astro a lot, and having the camera pointing up on a tripod always needs either an external monitor, or knee pain to see the screen. Same applies to the 100D.
 

An audio menu comes up only when the mlv_snd module is loaded. It does have audio meters but you can't monitor audio from the camera as you're recording.

So basically, the 700D is a good choice. There has been some interesting developments on it recently. I didn't say much about the 70D because I have not had much experience with it but it is a little more of a work in progress than the other cameras, though everything here is a work in progress.

Really the only thing I'd love to have that the 70D has and the 700D doesn't is the extra dial on the back of the camera. I've never had one before so maybe it doesn't matter that much at all, but it just seems really convenient to me, even over a touchscreen. The shutter speed and continous shooting FPS of the 70D also make it even harder for me, but then again it's priced around $260 more here. (The 700D being around $320 with a simple kit lens here at the moment) The 60D is priced around the same as the 700D though, with very similar tech specs.


So, speaking only ML feature wise, there won't be much missing on a 700D compared to a 60D with newest firmwares?

25

General Chat / Begging for assistance with what camera to get

« on: September 19, 2018, 05:40:39 PM »

I know this post is long, but I'd really appreciate someone helping me out a lot.

Given that I consider most ML users absolute professionals, I hope I can still get some help with my noob question.

I love photography and post-editing, but so far I've never had a DSLR, only bridge cameras and since I didn't do it professionally, for me that worked fine.

Recently I came across the ML website (not even sure how) and I LOVED that camera emulator. Played a bit around, looked more at the website, and then saw this in the feature list:

Program your own camera!
Write Lua scripts

And my nerd self was instantly in love with ML and determined to get a Canon preferably already yesterday. I used a 500D years ago, but that's all for my canon experience. (Shooting on Olympus at the moment).

I'm considering between the EOS 60D, EOS 650D and EOS 700D (and 70D (?)). If ML were out of the equasion, I'd go with the 70D, mostly because of the better image processor. However, ML plays a big role for me since without it and all it's fancy stuff that will take me weeks to get into I wouldn't get a canon in the first place. Since the 70D is a "work in progress" and haven't gotten an update since over half a year, this one's out of question for me.

So I went to check out the feature matrix but I'm heavily confused. The matrix says the 600D can work all the audio modules, whereas the user guide says the entire audio menu is missing on the 600D and newer.

I can't see a big difference ML feature wise between the 650D and 700D, so between those I'd rather go with the 700D.

So to get to the point: Which differences will I encounter using ML between those three models? Is there by now an audio menu in the 700D or not and if not is there a chance it will happen in the future? I do mostly photography only, so that shouldn't matter as much to me, but it wouldn't hurt to have for sure.

There also seem major differences between 700D.114 and 700D.115 within the feature matrix. Is this just a firmware version or do I have to be careful when buying the camera and watch out for something?