Magic Lantern - 550D/T2i port from Trammell Hudson on Vimeo.
Magic Lantern is well know for making a costum firmware updating the Canon 5D mark2, so it would get better functions to film and afterwards Canon decided to make an identical safer firmware. But between now and then there are few camera releases by Canon, however they miss a key function people really wanted which is to be able to control the sound. Actually the 5D mrk2 has gotten the function so you can use the onboard mic or an external mic without a sound mixer.
This week I've check the progress on Magic Lantern's Wikia and found he released a beta which includes sound control. However did not saw anyone trying the firmware yet, however today found on Youtube a video a test of the Magic Lantern on a 550D however the video does not show anything but only let you hear the sound difference. However I hope there will be more people testing and showing it.
I either would want to try the firmware so I would able to film and get some decent sound or hope Canon would pick this up and release a safer version. Cause pretty much its unfair for the new Canon EOS 60D to be able to control the sound while 7D and 550D is missing this function.
If you are interested in the Magic Lantern firmware and want to try it you can visit http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/550D , however I have to warn you that the firmware is not official release by Canon and have a possibility to break or ruin your camera. Also you will no longer have a warranty.
Future
What is also interesting is the Magic Lantern developer Trammell Hudson is not only adding simple sound control feature but also real film feature like zebra stripes to show over exposure area, but also histograms to check the exposures and colors.
Trends
What I also see is pretty much the future of many products which is people building apps for them. We now have computers and cellphones with apps, but if camera technology in the future wants to compete with mobile phones who are competing with camera's at the moment. The mobile phone at the moment getting upper hand in all sort of extra effects and filters. And with Canon EOS 60D with added fun filters like toy or miniature, you can see they are trying to add more to the camera. However this is now all inhouse own design and programmers, however if they made the camera's more open so people could develop own apps for them, the camera's would develop much faster, with new features and wanted features.
At the moment iPhone 4 is actually one of the major competitor for normal photo and video camera's. With full HD film abilities and 5mp its quite a good camera, also people can develop apps for it and also for movie and camera function. Also one of the biggest things might be that you can edit movies within the camera which can be partially with few of the Canon DSLR which can cut the movies but not stitch together. So hope future of DSLR they would get open sourced to develop new features by consumers and mostly surprisingly is that consumers could develop interesting features that own development team might never had though of.
Especially when I use my Canon EOS 550D I do not use any of the auto settings. Basically the full auto, night, portrait, sports and creative assistant settings are never used by me and very useless too, main setting I use is full manual and aperture priority . Mainly those are settings for amateurs who never use DSLR camera or use it for the first time, however I found people actually if they have a DSLR, it would be full auto instead of turning the dial to the other settings. I actually have many ideas and features I would like to be added to make life easier to take certain pictures or filming. For filming I would like to be able to cut and stitch movies together, also if filmed in 60p would able to be changed into slomo inside the camera instead of afterwards using a software.
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