Although we now have the underwhelming 5D Mark IV, history has shown that the 5D line has a long lifespan after release, and now the folks at Magic Lantern are helping to pull 2012’s Canon 5D Mark III into 2017 with the addition of 4k shooting.

Initially regarded as a hoax after an experimental build went live on April 1st, the team of camera hackers have confirmed that the build is in fact real, and that although it’s still in development, it’ll bring a host of new features to the ageing 5D Mark III.

For those unfamiliar, Magic Lantern is an alternate or hacked version of Canon’s firmware that allows the hardware to perform functions it isn’t capable of out of the box. Magic Lantern warns that this build, similarly to all of its previous builds, will almost certainly violate your warranty, but that shouldn’t be a concern an older model like the 5D Mark III.

This is great news for owners of the previous generation, especially as many of Canon’s newer models of prosumer cameras (we’re looking at you, 80D) don’t support 4k video shooting.

The new shooting formats currently supported by Magic Lantern’s current build include the following;

The build adds the following recording resolutions to the camera:

• 1920x960 @ 50p (both 1:1 crop and full-frame - 3x3 pixel binning)

• 1920x800 @ 60p (same as above)

• 1920x1080 @ 45p and 48p (3x3 binning)

• 1920x1920 @ 24p (1:1 square crop)

• 3072x1920 @ 24p (1:1 crop)

• 3840x1600 @ 24p (1:1 crop)

• 4096x2560 @ 12. 5p (1:1 crop)

• 4096x1440 @ 25p (1:1 crop)

The release notes also note that stills shooters will benefit from a 'full-resolution LiveView' mode that shoots 5796x3870 at 7. 4 fps, but that this mode will likely cause rolling shutter at higher speeds.

More information on this Magic Lantern build can be found here.

2017-4-7 03:00