There are obviously some active developers again who don't want to let the Magic Lantern project die, but want to revive its development. For those who don't know what this is about: Magic Lantern was a very busy project a few years ago, which expanded the functionality of many Canon SLR models with very interesting functions through a few hacks.
The most spectacular extension was certainly the possibility to record RAW video, which at that time was otherwise only possible with very expensive cine cameras. However, the project remained more of a playground for tech nerds, especially since the team wanted/had to obtain all its knowledge from reverse engineering the cameras. Thus, newly found functions always arrived with a significant delay.
Meanwhile, RAW video is no longer an exclusivity feature of expensive cameras, but is (among other things thanks to Blackmagic) even readily available on the used camera market for no-budget filmmakers.
At the same time, in 2020, the driving developer a1ex left the project, leaving behind only fragmentary documentation and an incomprehensible build system. A very small number of volunteers then kept the codebase alive, but nothing "worked properly". None of those who remained had such deep knowledge of the Magic Lantern code as a1ex formerly did.
However, the remaining active team members accepted the challenge and had to relearn how everything worked. And so they began to repair the existing code and add support for new cameras without damaging the old ones.
Meanwhile, there is an updated website and a better documented code repository again. Which in turn brings with it a new build system and ultimately cleaner, faster and smaller code.
Anyone who has followed Magic Lantern in the past will probably recognize a few old acquaintances in the new core team: The new "Fantastic Four" are g3gg0, kitor, names_are_hard and WalterSchulz, who can even be found occasionally in our forum.
Now there was a new Midsummer Release, which consists mainly of a commitment to four "new" camera types. These are in detail:
- 200D (Kiss X9, Rebel SL2)
- 6D2 (6D Mark II)
- 750D (Rebel T6i, Kiss X8i)
- 7D2 (7D Mark II)
In any case, we look forward to hearing more from Magic Lantern in the future and are excited to see what will happen here in the coming months and years.
Bild zur Newsmeldung:
;)