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Comment by ZiiS | Hacker News Reader

This news is probably my excuse to buy my forth EOS; the first three were 100% only because of Magic Lantern. Can't understand why manufacturers make this hard as it sells hardware.

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> Can't understand why manufacturers make this hard as it sells hardware.

Because a lot of features that cost a lot of money are only software limitations. With many of the cheaper cameras the max shutter speed and video capabilities are limited by software to make the distinction with the more expensive cameras bigger. So they do sell hardware - but opening up the software will make their higher-end offerings less compelling.

Magic Lantern is fantastic software that makes EOS cameras even better, but I understand why manufacturers make it hard:

Camera manufacturers live and die on their reputation for making tools that deliver for the professional users of those tools. On a modern camera, the firmware and software needs to 100% Just Work and completely get out of the photographer's way, and a photographer needs to be able to grab a (camera) body out of the locker and know exactly what it's going to do for given settings.

The more cameras out there running customized firmware, the more likely someone misses a shot because "shutter priority is different on this specific 5d4" or similar.

I'm sure Canon is quietly pleased that Magic Lantern has kept up the resale value of their older bodies. I'm happy that Magic Lantern exists-- I no longer need an external intervalometer! It does make sense, though, that camera manufacturers don't deliberately ship cameras as openly-programmable computational photography tools.

You have an interesting point about consistency and I'd like to provide a counterargument. While control consistency is very important, the actual image you get from a camera varies significantly between models as the manufacturers change tone curves, colour models, etc. JPGs from the camera are basically arbitrary and RAWs are not much better. The manufacturers don't provide many guarantees, it's just up to you and downstream software to figure out what looks good. Funny that so much thought goes into designing the feel of a camera yet the photo output is basically undefined...

Also another thing, Magic Lantern adds optional features which are arbitrarily(?) not present on some models. Perhaps Canon doesn't think you're "pro enough" (e.g. spent enough money) so they don't switch on focus peeking or whatever on your model.

If you want JPGs to look different, you can change them in the camera, and RAW files are just that: raw. They will vary between cameras slightly because the cameras have different sensors. Editing RAWs from 5d3 vs. 5d4 vs. 6d (my only experience) is not very different. Ultimately, the workflow that matters is a photographer capturing the image and getting the output to the studio quickly, in high quality. Event photographers often tether via ethernet or USB and the studio can post-process the RAW in minutes (or even seconds). The part of this that is most sensitive and hardest to recover from error is the photographer capturing the image, which is why consistency and usability of camera controls is so important.

IIRC none of the EOS DSLRs had focus peaking from the factory, you need Magic Lantern -- Canon didn't program it at all.

My point about JPGs is they will look different between cameras anyway because of software differences, with the "same" settings, so they're already inconsistent from the user perspective. Editing RAW is not necessarily different but from what I've heard that's because RAW editing software busts its ass to try to correct for all manner of arbitrary differences between camera models. It's in spite of camera design that we have consistency, not really because of.

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