Messages

Great result...I have not been lucky enuf yet to catch some good lightning. Had some medicore opportunities recently but either lightning was out of the frame or setting was not right for the situation. Typical.

I really like that last shot...slo-mo truck with with child running into focus.

Very nice work. Looks great.

hd1roam - Cool. Maybe we could plan a shoot sometime.

I recommend shooting RAW and/or JPEG images. Exposure time and interval may depend on the frequency of meteor activity as well as aperture. An interval of 3-20 seconds, and exposure of 2-20 secs as a guess on my part, might help you figure what needs to be done to satisfy your photo goals. Good luck and hopefully no clouds to screw up plans.

Fireman77,
I recommend that you do some experimentation prior to to your Aug 12th shoot.  I have done some night clouds and moon sequences and it took a bit of fiddling to get it right. I am not an expert in astrophotograghy by any means. These are just basics for getting to know your camera. Do some star shots one night. Break it into short sequences to keep wait and review times short. Take notes/review metadata/ check images on computer screen,  to see what setting looked best. The good thing about digital is that you have results immediately for review and then can tweak the image. Doing preparation like that will give you a sense of using your camera in a dark environment and a general idea of camera setup based upon the results of your experimentation. Throw in some additional experimentation during your shoot as well. For infinity focus always back off the focus ring a bit to avoid out of focus issues.  Knowing how to use your camera efficiently will always pay off when shooting in the dark or some other odd setup. I will carry my camera around for hours at a time, making adjustments and shooting, this helps me become familiar with my camera menus, ML menus and operations, which really annoys my wife, by the way. There are also some ML options for LV display that might help with eyestrain for nighttime viewing of LV screen. Look under ML menu Display>ColorSchemes. Good luck with your shoot.

Also, you may be able to recover great images in post, from images that on first look arent that great, especially if shooting RAW. I have pulled great images from stuff that looked like underexposed crap, initially. Always give the images a tweak in an editor, you may end up much happier with the final result.

vtrandal

1. FP red dots often peak then become fewer when I stop adjusting focus. (But you do not observe this behavior, correct?)
2. Green bar confirm in MZ seems somewhat random. (Instead, you see Green Bar confirm sometimes before sharpest focus, correct?)
3. Regardless of "Increase SharpContrast" setting I no longer see increased sharpness "somewhat like focus peaking" (per the User Guide) anywhere - not in LiveView, or FP, or MZ, or x5 or x10 magnification. (I am not sure I understand what you observed in this case. Can you comment more on this?)

1. FP dots do not seem to decrease in qty when I stop focusing.
2. Green bar can display when subject is not in sharpest focus. Did not experience "random" green bar display.
3. I tested Focus Peak with "increase SharpContrast" setting both ON and OFF and saw no significant difference when using FP.

I have no other observations to report on for "Increase SharpContrast" setting and how it would modify LiveView. Maybe someone else can comment on that setting.

I'm a software performance tester living in Aurora, Colorado with a long history of 35mm photography.  Transitioned to digital point and shoot, which was unsatisfying at best, and then finally dropped for a 600D last year and fell in love. Me and my 600D happy as could be, and then I find ML. Oh my, a menage-a-trois, with no jealousy, emotional distress or embarassment.
Im there.

Anyone here live in CO or Denver metro area?

Peace, Out folks

For fans of Hailku...Here is a Magic Lantern Haiku.

Oh Magic Lantern
You make my Canon better
I cant stop smiling

Hi vtrandal,
I quickly tested a couple of these on my 600D using v2.3ML - all settings and focus are manual.
Focus Peak in LV and I have no complaints about dot display along high contrast, in-focus areas. set to yellow dots. Tested with "increase SharpContrast" ON and OFF

Magic Zoom - My MZ setup is FOCUS+ZRec with green bar confirm - I did see a few instances of green bar confirmation just prior to sharpest focus. I stopped focusing at green bar confirm and then I was able to pull a better focus by doing 10x zoom and continue until sharpest focus achieved. I am testing in low light conditions in my house which may be a factor. I will do some tests in full sunlight. Most of the time at green bar confirm, the subject was in sharp focus.

Regarding green bar confirm staying green. In my setup, Magic Zoom disappears after focus operation.

At no point in my testing did I see Focus Peak dots within the Magic Zoom window. Is that actually supposed to happen? In fact, focus peaking dots disappear from LV when MZ is displayed during my testing.

Those are my results with a 600D.

EDIT:
Did more green bar confirm tests in sunlight. Green bar confirm may display prior to sharpest focus. 

It seems that your problem is trying to use Magic Zoom and Focus Peak at the same time. As stated in my last post, Focus Peak dots are not displayed when magic zoom window is being displayed. In your setup (+) zoom, MZ is displayed until you hit the button again. You should have focus peak dots when MZ is not displayed.

Nice work. Modify your vimeo links. https should be http

Lovely work. I would love to see a tutorial on your post work for image sequences.

If the option is not available you probabaly hid it via the MENU button. Go to that setup and hit MENU and try to re-display the option. It should tell you hidden options for each menu item. If not that. not sure what is going on.
Good luck.

Beautiful shots. So it appears you are shooting from a parachute. How did you rig your camera for this shoot?

Looks great. So did you manually adjust focus during timelapse? or did focus automagically ramp via setup in ML? If automagically, can you explain setup? thanks
EDITED:::
Nevermind. I see that focus ramping can be setup in the bulb/focus ramp menu from the Shoot menu.

I thought I would share this just to make sure that everybody is benefiting from this preference setting. Like many of the options in ML, Prefs>LV Display Presets opens a new world of goodness when you understand what it actual does for you. Set this option to allow you view up to 4 unique LiveView display settings that can be cycled thru using the INFO button (600D).
This example is for demo purposes on a 600D. Setup each preset with your preference.

ML Prefs>LV Display Presets
Set the value to 2 (4 is max value)
Jump over to Overlay menu in ML
Set Zebras ON
Set Vectorscope ON
Go to Global Draw
At Global Draw setting notice the little Q
Hit Q - Now you are in the second display prefs preset
Set Magic Zoom to ON
Set Crop Marks to ON (also can setup whether to display cropmarks in PLAY mode here)
In LiveView toggle between LV Display Presets using the INFO button

Make sure you pay attention to which display preset you are using and when editing each display preset. (0-3)
You can setup 4 display prefs as you see fit. Immediately go to your camera and start using this great feature.