remap dail to ML functions e.g. HDR to advanced bracketing

[blade]

On e.g the 650D there is a HDR mode, however the advanced bracketing option in ML is way better, can we remap the dial function to the ML function?

[Marsu42]

On e.g the 650D there is a HDR mode, however the advanced bracketing option in ML is way better, can we remap the dial function to the ML function?

You cannot remap "real" Canon modes because it's buggy, for example override Av with Tv. But sure you can trigger/set/enable/disable certain ml functions like bracketing and disable other Canon options when the dial is set to "hdr", but it's a rather specialized function since only the newest Rebels got it. But writing a module for this is absolutely possible, since it's only some menu items, detecting the dial position and then setting ml variables it's not even complicated.

[blade]

So for HDR it would be a nice addition, and i would find it very useful.

If I understand it correctly it would be possible for e.g. the 650d and 700d to use the dial to select HDR, and then deactivating the canon settings and enabling the bracketing settings as selected in ML. That would be nice!

I do not use any of the standard canon settings on the dial, so if i could map focus stacking to the macro dial setting that would be perfect.

So how can we make this a real thing?

[Marsu42]

I do not use any of the standard canon settings on the dial, so if i could map focus stacking to the macro dial setting that would be perfect.

You can make the camera do anything you want with any button or dial that can be hooked by ml, you can even make the camera start the arkanoid game on the hdr dial setting if you want.

But imho if you don't do a module yourself I don't see anyone else implementing it, the ml development has recently more been focused on large basic enhancements (raw video, dual iso) than usability tweaking - a usability patch with a menu and c modes for the Rebels has been sitting in the patch queue for ages and doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

If you can do any progaming yourself: it isn't that difficult to do, I recently wrote a hotkey module because I wanted to toggle settings like drive, af, metering with the cursor keys and get an audio feedback so you don't have to look at the camera. It's basically looking through the existing source code, look how they do it and do likewise.

EDIT: If you want someone else to pick it up, you at least have to come up with a detailed proposal, i.e. exactly what the camera should do when & a menu item structure (menu item names, values) so someone can really just quickly implement the idea.

[blade]

Marsu,

Thank you for the insightful response..
 
Me coding myself is likely a no go...  I would love to learn, however i have no coding experience what so ever. I have to little spare time to learn it at the moment. However if someone would like to pick this up I would love to team up and get this to work.

What strikes me is that that for the dial i only use 3 settings... P - AV amd M...   the rest of the dial is unused. If we (the ML community) can get this to work, it would be a great user improvement. I would use it for HDR, but i would be nice if you could use the dial for personal presets.

So below i have made a more detailed setup...   please let me know if this would sill be feasible.



For my application I would like a module that would do the following:

A module with the following settings

--> If dial is set to "HDR" / "macro" / "etc"
--> set image to "raw" / "JPG" / "etc"
--> set exposure to "Manual" / "av" / "etc"
--> enable "advanced bracketing" from ML
--> enable "zebra" or any other useful setting e.g. other module like ETTR?
--> enable LV

If the camera is turned on, and modules are loaded, i would expect this:

Turn dial to HDR,
--> Raw, manual , turn on "advanced bracketing" , turn on Zebra, turn on Live view.

If I press shutter, the HDR set is shot as set in "advanced bracketing"

Turn dial to anything else, and all settings that were enabled are turned off .

So If I set the dial back to "P"
All settings are reverted to the canon settings and "advanced bracketing" is turned off.

 
 
 

[1%]

I have had movie remap working so it is kinda possible... but on newer cameras the remaps seem to stay. i.e on 6D switching photo mode to movie mode means that mode is now movie mode forever (until you clear all settings)... I actually want to do something like this and get rid of the insipid "dummy" modes.. ie sports/portrait/etc.

 I'm not sure how that would work out and will have to experiment. I'd be much happier with 2 P/M modes (esp EOSM.. that 3rd dial needs to be a different photo mode). For "HDR" mode it would be another M mode and then I guess enable HDR to go with it. BTW this is better off as built in functionality and not a module.. I think it just has to switch whatever to the new mode and enable the ML feature.

[blade]

1%, so a module is not the best way, I take your word for it! However this would also mean that its harder to get into ML, as I see that all developers are swamped in RAW etc.

Nonetheless...

I think using the "dummy" modes for ML would be perfect.

Lets see if I understand you correctly. If you would remap movie mode to e.g. sports, switching to sports would  always switch to movie mode, even after power off and on? This looks like a feature, not a bug ( depending on what you would like to accomplish).

I think it has a lot of potential, you could use the dial to switch between normal movie and RAW movie, that would be a nice user interface improvement.

It would be nice if we could make ML presets (templates)  and map these to dial settings.

e.g.

For Macro, I would like to have:

-RAW
-focus peaking
-AV
-LV on
-Map to "dummy mode" Macro

For HDR

-RAW
-Zebra
-ML advanced bracketing on
-LV on
- map to "dummy HDR" mode

Etc etc.

[Marsu42]

I have had movie remap working so it is kinda possible... but on newer cameras the remaps seem to stay. i.e on 6D switching photo mode to movie mode means that mode is now movie mode forever (until you clear all settings)... I actually want to do something like this and get rid of the insipid "dummy" modes.. ie sports/portrait/etc.

If you'd finally solve this, it'd be great - I'd really like to use the braindead "creative" dial settings on my 60d for something useful, i.e. as extended ml c settings.

I see two problems though that alex mentioned: 1. mode remapping bricked his camera, 2. switching ml configs based on the dial (I requested this for the "real" Canon c settings) is difficult since you have to re-initialize everything to be on the safe side... you can find both threads here for reference:

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6430.0
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7653.0

[blade]

Marsu,

For the different C modes it would look like this right?

You are in AV, and have C1, you want to witch to C2, but also want an other ML config. This seems to be difficult as there appear to be possible conflicts and stuff that may have to be reset...

For the soft toggle (bricking camera's) I understans that it may depend on the settings that were in the dial you map to that may cause problems.

So what would be the problem by not remapping a canon function but overwrite/update stuff in the "dummy" dial set?

These dummy settings only have a limited amount of settings possible so we would be able to figure out what may cause problems. If we can change the properties of these function, e.g. from .jpg to raw, from P to M. we would gain a lot of possibilities. If we could then add ML setting we are done...sort off....

It would already be nice if we could change the .jpg setting in RAW for the "dummy"dial options....

To me this seems a bit different to the other 2 (failed) options you referenced.

[Marsu42]

So what would be the problem by not remapping a canon function but overwrite/update stuff in the "dummy" dial set? These dummy settings only have a limited amount of settings possible so we would be able to figure out what may cause problems.

The creative/hdr modes (what you seem to call "dummy", afaik the detection #defines aren't even in the source code yet) might not be affected by the remapping problem per se since they are all full-auto P afaik ... but at least I certainly don't want to use that but usually shoot Av or M, so remapping would be necessary. The Canon C modes aren't really a solution here, since less expensive cameras like my 60d only have one C mode and Rebels have none at all.

Fyi: I've written a module which "remembers" settings for the Av/Tv/M/BULB/P modes so they can all have different settings. You could add any ml or canon items here to be switched, i.e. bracketing on/off like you want, but my problem here is to come up with a general menu structure, so for the time being you can just choose drive/metering/af-mode/af-pt(s)/iso/ec ... this is basically a "whitelist" approach for select settings other than general custom c modes that switch everything except some "blacklist" problematic items. It works good enough for me.

[blade]

Marsu,

Where can I find your script? I would love to try and see if I can make it work for me... I use M mostly only for HDR, so it would be an improvement.

I see that for what I would like, a remap would be needed, and that it may cause some "bricking" Lets hope a developer finds a nice way to use the creative modes for ML.

[Marsu42]

Where can I find your script? I would love to try and see if I can make it work for me... I use M mostly only for HDR, so it would be an improvement.

I submitted the module once and it was going nowhere, I'll re-submit it eventually when I've got it more polished which might take a while since in the current "good enough for me" state it's not easy to find the motivation to work on it until its prettied up with nice menu structure yadayadayada.

But if enough people think it's interesting, I'll submit it again, so I'll put you on the list :-)

[1%]

I like the idea of the module to save settings for different modes.. so I don't have auto ettr/auto expo in P mode.. and then leave the mode switching to core... it stays past reboots on digicV on digic IV it goes back I think. EOSM has 3 dial positions, dummy, normal, movie... so I'd like dummy to be P and normal M, etc. 60D you're kinda SOL unless you do it all yourself as I don't have on and a1ex said it bricked.. 600D is almost identical and never had issues so i dunno.. guess its theoretically possible to soft brick.. main problem with that is settings get reset and i dunno about side effects on digicV and cross modes (m/p/av in dummy might end up combining modes). I have to try it.

*Ooook

Tested EOSM... it doesn't stay past reboots .... but I run the command and dummy mode is gone. No obvious side effects thus far.

[Marsu42]

I like the idea of the module to save settings for different modes.. so I don't have auto ettr/auto expo in P mode.. and then leave the mode switching to core...

I implemented the code in a module and it works, the problem is to come up with a list *which* settings to remember as you should be able to toggle each on/off in the menu, it could be endless looking at the ml features.

My current list is drive/metering/af-mode/af-pt(s)/iso/ec, I could add bracketing on/off as this mostly makes sense in M mode, anything else you desperately want toggled along with the dial modes?

Btw. since is implemented in a module these dial settings currently aren't saved since modules don't support array config variables [yet] other than the core

[blade]

Btw. since is implemented in a module these dial settings currently aren't saved since modules don't support array config variables [yet] other than the core

So, setting bracketing on for M, and then rebooting would turn it off agian?

[Marsu42]

So, setting bracketing on for M, and then rebooting would turn it off agian?

Yup, it'd be reset to the default state specified in the module. But I hope this issue will be fixed by a dev sooner or later :-o

[kazeone]

I think this would be a neat feature to have but I was wondering does it merge the photos for you like the Canon HDR setting does? I read the wiki on the ML features but it wasnt to clear and I didnt have any luck. ^^;;

[Marsu42]

but I was wondering does it merge the photos for you like the Canon HDR setting does?

No, the ml implementation doesn't do that and won't do that because merging hdr in postprocessing from raw is far, far superior to an in-camera version. Admittedly, it's "nice to have" in camera for quick shots or previews, but nobody I've ever encountered really uses it - well, you do, so I'll add "1" on my list :->

[kazeone]

well like you said it would be nice to see the results, what about a RAW+JPEG and then just the JPEG gets merged so you have an idea of the shot?

Also if you cant preview it then what do they mean by this?
"To preview HDR images in camera, set SET+MainDial: ExposureFusion from Prefs menu, Image review settings, then go to playback mode, hold SET and turn the main dial (wheel)."
Is that still for individual photos if so why not just preview them normally, what does making that change to the preview do?

[Marsu42]

well like you said it would be nice to see the results, what about a RAW+JPEG and then just the JPEG gets merged so you have an idea of the shot?

This feature request was declined, find & look at the thread and re-request it there if you have new ideas.

Also if you cant preview it then what do they mean by this?
"To preview HDR images in camera, set SET+MainDial: ExposureFusion from Prefs menu, Image review settings, then go to playback mode, hold SET and turn the main dial (wheel)."

Afaik this does _fusion_ and not _tonemapping_, i.e. it doesn't blend the pixels from the source shots (n pixels -> 1) but gives a composite of them (1 pixel -> 1 pixel) by replacing cutoff parts. Btw often this is the better solution to hdr anyway, even in postprocessing.