Canon DSLR Hack Allows It To Shoot RAW Video 171
When the Canon 50D DSLR camera was released back in 2008, it could take nice pictures, but it had no support for video recording. Now, through an enterprising hack by members of the Magic Lantern forums, the 50D can capture RAW video. From the article:
"The tech inside the 50D looks like it borrows a lot more from its higher-end siblings, like the 5D Mark II, and it’s possible we may actually get better RAW video quality out of the 50D than we do out of any of the non-CF Canon cameras. ... The camera doesn’t have playback or audio recording as it was never designed to shoot video, but this isn’t too different from the RAW recording on the other Canon DSLRs at the moment."
Re:im confused here (Score:5, Interesting)
No, not really. This is a camera, designed for stills. It has the capacity to capture video (unlocked by this hack) but no ability to capture audio, or playback the video, meaning it's not really a functional video camera. That is, while it has the technical capacity to capture video, it has none of the supporting features that make the ability to capture video useful.
It's like plugging your headphones into your microphone jack and talking through them. Yeah, they have the technical capability to record sound, but the rest of the device isn't designed to make that capability useful.
Re:Let's DMCA the pants of this guy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Canon's actually pretty cool about the use of custom firmware [diyphotography.net]. Plus projects like CHDK and Magic Lantern (and the thing that hacked the 300D into something fancier) have been around for quite a few years, and Canon hasn't tried squashing them.
(Although apparently their hacker-friendly nature most definitely stops [canonrumors.com] when it comes to the EOS-1 line.)
Re:im confused here (Score:2, Interesting)
Making non-free software is unethical.
No it isn't. EOC.