Canon’s iconic EOS 7D offers a lot that other DSLRs from Canon don’t, such as a weatherproof body, some of the fastest autofocus in the industry, and full HD monitoring while recording video to name a few. One thing other cameras from Canon have that the 7D doesn’t is support for Magic Lantern. But all that may change soon.
Magic Lantern, to those who may be unfamiliar, is an aftermarket suite of software that runs on top of Canon’s original firmware. It offers some incredible tools for both filmmakers and shooters alike, such as audio meters with monitoring, intermediate, and enhanced ISO and Kelvin values, exposure zebras, HDR modes, crop marks, and ghost overlays, not to mention all kinds of useful focus assisting tools. While exploiting a loophole in the firmware is necessary for the code to run, developers often stress that Magic Lantern shouldn’t be considered a hack because it loads off the memory card and doesn’t actually change or modify the camera’s firmware. Subsequently, Magic Lantern can be removed by simply swapping or formatting the memory card it’s installed on and carries very little risk.
Originally developed by Trammel Hudson for the 5D mark II, Magic Lantern has since been ported to nearly every Canon DSLR on the market with a team of dedicated developers and enthusiasts. Except for the 7D, that is.
The reason why is a technical one in that the EOS 7D is different from other popular semi-pro DSLRs that Canon makes. When the EOS 7D was released three years ago, the only way to achieve those fancy features other DSLRs didn’t have was by using two DIGIC 4 image processors running in tandem. Folks behind Magic Lantern had reverse engineered and figured out the single-chip system, but harnessing the dual-processor layout to run both Magic Lantern and the original Canon firmware at the same time remained enigmatic until recently.
Hudson had made some progress two years ago before hitting a brick wall when his camera refused to accept any further updates, after which his efforts were shifted to the 5D and Rebel T2i. About a month ago, a developer who goes by g3gg0 (or geggo) solved the problem with a donated EOS 7D from Hudson. As of this week, an alpha version of Magic Lantern for the EOS 7D is up on the team’s official site.
This is particularly exciting for fans of DSLR video, as the 7D is well known for its use in recent films. The ergonomics of using a DSLR for video are often famously difficult to work around, but Magic Lantern was originally conceived to help with that. Not all features are supported or working yet, but it seems like only a matter of time for the kinks to be worked out at this point.
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