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you did not mention budget...

but a side note, why I do not use variable ND - they are 2 polarizing filters stacked together, with the pros and cons of this arrangement, and this is the problem. I use regular NDs for the same price, better picture, tough sometimes you have to change them.

MOIRE is the difference and low light (both considerably worse on 7D)

no there is not an other way, best look is to use flat profile made out of neutral - contrast -4, sharpness 0, saturation -2 (I have similar problem with my 7D, usb connector has top be changed, but I have not had opportunity to give it for repairs)

what wireless system you use, newer heard of one that is as bad as this. I had about 1 frame off but not 20. newer.

ML does not touch so much firmware, it just makes the camera to search it on card, so as long it does, no need for installing, just copy files from http://builds.magiclantern.fm/#/ coresponding to your camera

[marking the cards]

I've done up to 6 DSLR multicam for a music event. So far the most convenient way has been marking the cards and dumping them in separate folders, and each dump is in folder with time marking o the dump (12-40, 13-55, so on) it is done. After that you can rename and resort files.

when ever I start the shoot (day, event) I reset the file name number. Even tough it generates the same file names, it is easier to sort them later. I started to do that with time lapses, because at events I tend to do 2-3 at least so having them all in one folder is not wise and takes for ever to load in bridge/lightroom. Every maual reset creates the next folder like 100EOS7D, 101EOS7D and so on.

This also helps if you keep rolling till camera stops, and then use movie restart, if the shoot is not to long, the files would be the same numbers and that saves time when syncing up.

I have my cards marked with label printed, but you can just mark them with different color electrical tape. you should have like 3 cards for each camera, or at least 2 per camera.

there is chromatic aboration and there is moire, they look different and are caused by different phenomenon. Please do your research on what is what -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern

EOS-M uses so called EF-M mount with flange distance of 18mm and C mount is 17.526mm so there should and is a straight C to EF-M adapter (like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fotga-C-mount-Lens-to-Canon-EOS-M-EF-M-Mirrorless-Camera-Body-Adapter-Ring-/261148049674). Why the hassle?

Is an fd mount the same as an ef mount.

No it is not, FD mounting flange is closer than EF's so for it to be mounted on EF it has to contain optics, or it will not be focus able to infinity. There are large amount of cheep and grate FD glass, but it is useful only on m4/3 or E-mount and EOS-M (like this one - https://www.lensadaptor.com/canon-fd-canon-eos-m-adaptor).

so just look for FD to EOS-M adapters, there are many different ones. There is also rumor of Metabones making FD SpeadBooster to EOS-M, but as market would be rather small, I'm not sure it will ever become reality.

if you want to shoot RAW - camera has to have CF slot, so that drops out most of the options. I would look around for used (but not abused) 5Dmk2, 7D they seam to be pretty cheep nowadays, if you are lucky you could squeeze in also a good lens. And when you have a choice "good camera + cheaper lens" or "cheaper camera + good lens" go with the good lens one, good lenses seam to last longer than camera bodies.

in some cameras there is 640x480 mode tough utterly useless for you

tough what would be the point in using 4:3 on a DSLR, as it would be a crop out of picture anyway. There might be point in raw and it is possible to do that, see the calc: http://rbrune.github.io/mlraw/

as the lens you have is 2x anamorphic (I believe) there would be large resolution loss. and I think it would be more than just cropping the image to desired wide. also if I remember correctly this adapter is projection one, thus works only with rather long end lenses.

so in short - h.264 no, unless you use 640x480, with raw it is already there. you just need camera with ML + CF slot + fast CF card to get usable results.

Canon should be thankful for MagicLantern right now. If not for ML, there's a strong possibility I'd be jumping ship to Sony and encouraging shooters I work with to do the same.

I think this is the sole reason that canon is not fighting against ML, Sony would and is, like with the unofficial F5 4K hack. Yes Sony if a tempting beast, and they have application api tough it is rather limited (https://developer.sony.com/develop/cameras/). I do consider A7s, but in same time for photography I am hesitant to go Sony, mostly because of lenses and their prices.

Sony tends to be unergonomic, thus it does not work bare bones, neither does canon dslr. you are not just buying a camera, you by a system & workflow. and then you buy a lot of gear to mount it all together... In my small country in north of Europe (Latvia) only canon has good enough support and accessories availability for decent pricing, Sony is overpriced and Nikon has no decent support. You can mount almost any lens on sony's e-mount, but you can't mount any e-mount lenses anywhere else, so you are stuck. EF you can mount on e-mount, m4/3 active adapters exist, so it is not as straight forward as one might think.

[bootable]

1. Make cards bootable with EOScard (you can just simply tick on ML icon and Save, it does not matter what instal it would download)
2. Copy all the contents form card you have been using with ML to card you just made bootable (I suggest delete previous files and then copy)
3. check the card in camera, it should work.

tough be careful when swapping cards, switch the camera off and wait the red led before ejecting card, otherwise camera can hang. Had it couple times, ejecting battery fixed it.

with my 7D it reads only one of the batteries, try using one and different slots, how it is then?

Your achievable bit rate is also limited by card's controller in camera, and the SD card controller in Canon DSLRs is slow, so 6D is not a camera for decent RAW. According to this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgQ2MOkAZTFHdFFIcFp1d0R5TzVPTVJXOEVyUndteGc#gid=5 SD card's speed is limited to 40 MB/s in camera. You can use this to determine the resolutions and frame rates you can achieve: http://rbrune.github.io/mlraw/

newer pick up a serious job without experimenting on a new workflow, you will hit kinks and hiccups and then it will cost you much more, than experimenting before.

as for grading, use flat picture profiles, like TechnicolorCinestyle or MarvelsAdvanced. I will not go in to detailed fight between both, but I prefer Marvels for day to day work, and Cinestyle when I have to mix DSLR footage with pro video cameras. Make sure that you expose well, ETTR is recomended. Get the x-rite color passport, or at least something similar, if you will have it before every shoot or together with slate editor will be much happier, or you will have less work for your self.

simply switch off the raw shooting while composing/checking focus and then switch it back on. this is a normal raw behavior because the zoom function is used for remapping how the sensor is read so no lines would be skipped, sadly the debrayering is cpu consuming (and ml cant directly access the canon fw one, as i have understood, maybe I'm wrong) hence the b&w.

that's right 5Dmk3 has All-I so you should use that and you will be fine, 7D doesn't, and there is clear benefit of ramping up. I do not own 5Dmk3 so I can't prepare the tutorial for that, tough I have shot with that camera many times and it is really good. Footage feels softer (because of pixel binding, tough no moire then), but you can sharpen it well.

is it while shooting RAW? for RAW that is the way it is, it is called crop mode, for 1:1 pixel binding and no moire

I've tested recent relise, and it is fine. Haven't had a power down / cf eject / freeze in couple recent releases, tough I never could really pinpoint he cause, previously it froze up if I ejected card on switched off camera and putt an other one, had to eject battery as well. not always, could not understand why, but it happened once in a while. for last 2-3 releases, have never had this bug.

but yes, I've tested it, seams stable.

if you select the 24 in canon menu, then it is indeed 23.976, if you have no particular reason you should not touch the fps override.

I think that you already somewhat have the answer for you question, shoot in 1920x1080 h264.

+) RAW has benefits in dynamic range and color detail.

-) RAW is rather cumbersome workflow, and I'm not that sure you would really benefit form it (you would not ask the question, if you know that you for sure would)

?) is everything else up to spec? enough storage, fast enough computer to edit with. what's about dailies? It is not only a question of format but a whole workflow an philosophy.

I gather that you have only one 800x card? how then you can shoot without having a break every half an hour to download the footage?

I would just shoot in a flat profile and ramp up the bit rate for h264. but check every clip in play on camera, because few times it did not ramp it up, but down on my 7D. with my 400x cards I can go 1.3-1.5x stable, and there is a notable difference in finer detail.

Remember - what ever the short the film is about, it is first about the story and how well you can tell it, gear is secondary. Think of the workflow, witch one would help and witch one would hinder it?

The cable should be correct, tough i don't see (https://builds.magiclantern.fm/#/features) that 6D would have this ML feature working

It more reflects the nature of open software and general ml design idea. People seam to bee keen on developing the new cool feature, not fixing ones that are important for some.

*) the biggest reason for using the DSLR to record sound is convenience, you do not have to track two devices and sync them, I have lost shots because I forgot to press the button on sound recorder, because some of them you have to press rec twice (one arms, second time runs). Especialy when you are one man team.
*) external device and dslr can drift, and it can be significant in the 12 minutes dslr is capable. Even pro cameras drift (I have had experiance that two sony PWD-DR170 DV cams drift apart for whole second (because one was on stage in heat, other back cold). It is not fun to fix that in post.
*)if you can monitor the sound on camera, even better - you can make sure that sound is good enough to be usable.
*)If an external preamp is used sound quality is good enough for interviews and with good mic, even for ambient / sot (sound on tape).

yes there are cons, but I would really "pretty please" fix the audio monitoring for 7D, it is a key feature I'm missing in my camera.

You don't need always the 32 bit, it all depends how far you are pushing the footage, and remember not all AE effects there work well with 32 bit. Of course if you shoot RAW or do time lapses form RAW (CR2 or DNG) then 8 bit in AE is somewhat bad idea. It depends where you grade, if your images are graded in ACR so that they fit in histogram well, then you should not get any artifacts unless you do some drastic curves / luts or other extreame color grade.

Other big problem in Adobe world is exporting to a codec that supports more than 8 bit (because encoding in highly compressed final format trough AE is BAD idea - slow and unstable). I have tried many and have not yet found one that I would like, Avid DNxHD was a good candidate but adobe has problems phrasing more than 8 bit deep DNxHD tough can create one with no problem. Other I have found are either too CPU consuming or too big or unstable (I'm in PC, so no ProRes for me). therefor unless I must (client wants) I try to keep to 8 bit files. I have found MXF / XDCAM HD 50 being really good, fast, not that big, 422, there for still useable for some more editing, fx, grading. (by the way youtube seams to love it really fast processing). Stability is key for me, because many times I have really tight turnaround time for my edits, and I can't lose time on crushed renders (when each would they take 2-4 hours or more).

in what bit depth you use After Effects 8 / 16 / 32 ? there is a big difference!