Magic Lantern Is Back

Posted by felipemesquita 8/30/2025

Magic Lantern Is Back(www.magiclantern.fm)

500 points | 165 commentspage 3

dannyfritz07 9/3/2025|

I just got my T2i out a few months ago and the first thing I did was check for new magic lantern versions. haha. Really cool to see this project is still living.

iLoveOncall 9/3/2025||

I've been waiting for Magic Lantern for my 6D Mark II for years now, checking the homepage every 6 months or so for an update, so this is great news!

names_r_hard 9/3/2025||

6D2 is a nice cam, and one I happen to own. This cam is under active development. Locally I have ~FHD raw video working.

syrgian 9/3/2025||

Same boat. I have a 6D Mark II since 7 years ago now, and I misguidedly was counting on ML to be released within 3 years of my purchase. But luckily, it's still a fantastic camera.

christiangenco 9/3/2025||

Looks like there's still no support for the M50. I hope with the revitalized development it's on the roadmap!

WalterSchulz 9/3/2025|

Nothing published. But just few hours ago I was asked to test its raw video capture mode ...

Brajeshwar 9/3/2025||

This is not about the key logging spyware Magic Lantern. I thought this would be an interesting read with whatever is happening around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(spyware)

cassonmars 9/3/2025||

From a security mindset, I was thinking this had made a return: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(spyware)

I was pleasantly surprised to find out this was something very different.

Mistletoe 9/3/2025|

I thought it was Magic Leap, the AR scam company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Leap

> As of December 2024, the Magic Leap One is no longer supported or working, becoming end of life and abruptly losing functionality when cloud access was ended. This happened whilst encouraging users to buy a newer model.

Ah, that’s about how I thought that would end up.

Cthulhu_ 9/3/2025||

Its demise seems to have completely passed me by; I read about its enormous funding and unrealistic expectations, then a v1 came out which was mediocre/disappointing, then... nothing. Apple's thing overshadowed it, but that too has passed - unless they're going to announce a new model at a fraction of the price soon, supposedly their UI redesigns follow its concepts so it's not buried yet.

freeqaz 9/3/2025||

I was trying to understand what this project is. It's some sort of open firmware for Canon camera that you put on the flash card (SD). The home page has info: https://www.magiclantern.fm/

names_r_hard 9/3/2025||

Hi - I'm the current lead dev.

It's not firmware, which is a nice bonus, no risk of a bad rom flash damaging your camera (only our software!).

We load as normal software from the SD card. The cam is running a variant of uITRON: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITRON_project

ioma8 9/3/2025||

Yes its truly noteworthy project. They exploited Canon cameras by first managing to blink red charging LED. Then they used the LED blinks to transmit the firmware out. Then they built custom firmware which boots right from SD (thus no posibility to break the camera). The Magic Lantern firmware for example allows many basic cameras to do RAW 4K video recording (with unlimited length) - feature which is not even in the high-end models. But it has much more features to tinker with.

names_r_hard 9/3/2025||

There's a fun step you're missing - it's not firmware. We toggle on (presumably) engineering functionality already present in Canon code, which allows for loading a file from card as an ARM binary.

We're a normal program, running on their OS, DryOS, a variant of uITRON.

This has the benefit that we never flash the OS, removing a source of risk.

arnaudsm 9/3/2025||

I absolutely love Magic Lantern, and I wish similar initiatives existed on Sony and Nikon! I was forced to upgrade my Sony camera purely because of software limitations.

Firmwares should be open-source by law. Especially when products are discontinued.

AbraKdabra 9/3/2025||

Very happy to see ML return, used it in my T2i for 10 years at least, this year I bought a R6 Mark II so no need but I'd be very happy to see it someday with support for ML. Congratulations on the return!

thot_experiment 9/3/2025|

CHDK and Magic Lantern are fantastic, I really wish there was a Nikon equivalent.

names_r_hard 9/3/2025|

There is, but it's more limited: https://www.dslrbodies.com/cameras/general-nikon-camera-info...

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