The recent developments with the Canon DSLR hack known as Magic Lantern have been downright astonishing. At one time these DSLRs were just decent H.264 video/still hybrid cameras, and now they've become RAW video monsters with an unbelievable increase in detail and clarity. While the Canon 5D Mark III is the only one capable of taking full 1080p advantage of these advancements, it's likely every Canon DSLR will be able to shoot RAW video down the line. But how did we get to this point so fast? Was it some sort of Canon conspiracy? Check out the video below to get a better sense of the insane amount of work it's taken to get to where we are now.
A1ex from the main Magic Lantern development team put this visualization together:
It's clear from the video that these developments were not by accident. This has taken a lot of work from a lot of dedicated people working for free in their off hours in order to experiment and squeeze every last ounce of potential out of these cameras. Those thinking this has been some sort of conspiracy on Canon's part can take a look at the video above and see the exponential increase in development over the last 6 months. Just as with anything, developments can be slow in the beginning, but as things get going, they can really take off.
We should all be very thankful for those working behind the scenes on the Magic Lantern firmware, giving us free upgrades and making our cameras better than we ever thought possible.
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