Big News with Magic Lantern and what it means to you.
RAW video on a DSLR - something that even the brilliant and considerably more expensive Canon C300 does not have the ability to do.
Shooting RAW gives another world of control when shooting stills as we all know, one can imagine it would do much the same for video, so a whole new world of possibilities for video shooters for free or next to nothing.
But this development has many implications - even if you do not shoot video.
Magic Lantern adds a whole load of functions to your Canon, which are of interest to stills shooters too, from an intervalometer to a customisable menu giving you the option of hiding the myriad feature that you never use, you can read all about it here.
We are all winners in this, but it has much wider implications, the biggest of which being that Canon are behind the curve of what is going on in the more adventurous sectors of the market.
I am sure that they know their excellent products are capable of the wonderful things that ML bring to their cameras, but choose not to implement them.
Perhaps there are good reasons, like the danger of frying your CMOS sensor?
But perhaps there are not?
The bottom line is Canon are not offering some users the features that they want and open up creative vistas.
Why no intervalometer as standard?
Why no customisable camera menu to hide all the stuff you don't use?
Right now EOS cameras are being 'developed' after market by ML, who are adding features that should have been there in the first place.
On one hand this is great for Canon, having such a fanatical enthusiast following, though I'm sure there have been some pretty fraught high level meetings at Canon HQ with the question being asked 'what do we do?' I hope their first port of call is not to try and lock their camera's down via firmware updates or call the lawyers.
They should really ask how it came to this?
If they asked me for advice (which I do not think they will be doing anytime soon) I would advise them to listen to what users want and face up to the fact that the smart phone has changed the landscape and they need to get with the program.
The Magic Lantern situation has pointed the way to new camera design, cameras that use apps and communicate with the cloud.
Samsung are making great strides in this area but so far have not fully applied this technology, a camera that has apps written for it....think of it?
Tim Cook stated that Apple has a 'surprise' in store for the Autumn, I find myself wondering if it might be a camera? After all they exist to be disruptive in established sectors.
And right now it is a sector which is ripe for a revolution, with so much old thinking at play.
The steps Canon have taken so far have been tentative to say the least, with wireless capability limited to a few(mainly compact)cameras.
Wireless is why I chose the excellent bargain basement Canon 6D over the 5D MkIII, saving myself the thick end of £1000 into the bargain(more of this at a later date, but it is enabling me to shoot pictures which one cannot be done any other way. My partner Lucinda is shooting a wedding in a couple of weeks time and will be shooting the exchanging of vows shot with a tripod mounted Canon 6D, on quiet mode, placed where no photographer is allowed, monitoring and triggering with her iPhone. Awesome technology that you can buy over the counter, plug and play - if you are a Canon user and want to do some really smart, different, shooting buy one now - it is a steal )
Winners in all of this?
The real winners in all this are you and I, with the exciting features that have been added, and exciting products which can surely only be just around the corner....