Hi Everyone,
I've been playing with Magic Lantern on a Canon 5D2 and Canon T3i and must admit I am impressed! I was reluctant to try it at first on the 5D2 (fear of bricking the camera) but I found a used T3i at a great price and thought what the heck. Hats off to the programmers! Anyway, after using it a few times I noticed that they greatly simplified (read: reduced the number of button presses) to use the manual white balance feature.
On my 5D2, you first had to take a photo - underwater that is easy. Unless for some reason it won't focus on the card in which case you don't get the photo. If you get by that step you need to press several buttons (even if you have the whitebalance set as a custom quick menu). And after selecting the image you need to confirm it which required spinning the wheel on the back. Also, there are some quirks where if you were currently MWB'd and do it again, depending on the previous one it may not be correct. So that meant to be sure you needed to switch back to auto to take the photo. That is way to many button presses and knob turns underwater.
Fast forward to Magic Lantern. I first found on the T3i, if you press the "Display" button on the top right of the camera the rear (L|R) arrow keys become dedicated to ISO the rear (U|D) arrow keys manually bump the WB color temp. And the center button push initiates and MWB in live view mode so no need to take a photo! The best part is that it only requires two button presses and no need to rotate a knob.
On the 5D2 it took a few extra minutes to figure it out but you can also accomplish MWB with just two button presses even though it has a rear dial instead of the four arrow buttons on the rebel cameras.
I'm sure all you magic lantern users already knew this but for those who are hesitant to use a DSLR for video or were unaware of magic lantern, this free "hack" does a lot to make things easier. I also really like the ability to quickly set the Cinema-scope borders in case you plan to shoot 2.35:1 footage. The on screen histogram is smaller but much more usable. And the magic focus is much better than the built in 5x or 10x zoom.
I plan on trying this for my next winter scuba trip. I really like the footage from my last trip but MWB was such a PITA.
I've been playing with Magic Lantern on a Canon 5D2 and Canon T3i and must admit I am impressed! I was reluctant to try it at first on the 5D2 (fear of bricking the camera) but I found a used T3i at a great price and thought what the heck. Hats off to the programmers! Anyway, after using it a few times I noticed that they greatly simplified (read: reduced the number of button presses) to use the manual white balance feature.
On my 5D2, you first had to take a photo - underwater that is easy. Unless for some reason it won't focus on the card in which case you don't get the photo. If you get by that step you need to press several buttons (even if you have the whitebalance set as a custom quick menu). And after selecting the image you need to confirm it which required spinning the wheel on the back. Also, there are some quirks where if you were currently MWB'd and do it again, depending on the previous one it may not be correct. So that meant to be sure you needed to switch back to auto to take the photo. That is way to many button presses and knob turns underwater.
Fast forward to Magic Lantern. I first found on the T3i, if you press the "Display" button on the top right of the camera the rear (L|R) arrow keys become dedicated to ISO the rear (U|D) arrow keys manually bump the WB color temp. And the center button push initiates and MWB in live view mode so no need to take a photo! The best part is that it only requires two button presses and no need to rotate a knob.
On the 5D2 it took a few extra minutes to figure it out but you can also accomplish MWB with just two button presses even though it has a rear dial instead of the four arrow buttons on the rebel cameras.
I'm sure all you magic lantern users already knew this but for those who are hesitant to use a DSLR for video or were unaware of magic lantern, this free "hack" does a lot to make things easier. I also really like the ability to quickly set the Cinema-scope borders in case you plan to shoot 2.35:1 footage. The on screen histogram is smaller but much more usable. And the magic focus is much better than the built in 5x or 10x zoom.
I plan on trying this for my next winter scuba trip. I really like the footage from my last trip but MWB was such a PITA.
