suggestion for 5D Mark Free
 

I haven't seen this suggested for Hudson's firmware project but to be able to start/stop recording via the shutter button instead of the SET button would be a huge improvement in ergonomics and especially for shoulder rig users, who with this feature, can use a cheap ebay wired shutter release attached to the rig's hand grip so they can start and stop REC without lifting their arm up to reach for the the SET button.

This is one that might be difficult due to the way that Canon has hardcoded the event handling into a giant switch statement, rather than traversing a datastructure created at runtime.

But, I have an idea how to do it by writing a wrapper around the lv_task() that filters the events going into the real task. This would allow it to ignore plugging in a cable to the composite video output (to keep the LCD on), and perhaps swap the button assignments. I also want to be able to override the Picture Style button in Live-view mode to bring up my own menu. Does anyone use Picture Styles anyway?

I don't think I have much use for picture styles. One thing that might be a big help is a way to limit the iso/gain to around iso1000 so that the camera doesn't crank up so much noise. I wouldn't mind auto-iso if it didn't go way too far with the noise.

With manual exposure control and gain control on the audio, this camera will be getting much more useful.

Well of course, a camera is set on one picture style or the other, whether it be standard or otherwise, and it is through access to picture style that I adjust various contrast and color levels. Why would we want to kill that ?

I want to be able to use my custom picture styles developed on the PC, but I generally don't have a need to adjust them on the camera.

That said, I'm doing a road, location-scouting trip this weekend. I might just play with the picture styles in camera for kicks. Mostly, I plan to take RAW stills from which I can play with the Picture Styles on the PC for use on a future shoot.

I don't think there is much need for the picture style to accessible via a dedicated button. It will always be accessible via the menu. And you can make it even easier accessed by putting it under "My Menu"

Tramm: How difficult would this be?

now that we have full control of aperture/shutter/ISO, and given that in the video world, it is typical to adjust the aperture and gain before adjusting shutter speed, it would be great if the dials can be remapped to adjust aperture and ISO instead of aperture and shutter.. Thanks!

Tramm, you are a genius man. Hope you can do the work around on this one. Very awkward to press the set button where it is.

Tramm, Am I wrong in asumming that your "Mark Free" will have to sit on each CF card that we use, if so how big would the file size be?

You are correct that it will need to be on each card; opening the card slot reboots the camera. RIght now it is about 1.7 MB, but almost all of that is alignment padding and cruft left over from the existing flasher utility that I'm overwriting. I believe the size in the firmware header can be reduced, meaning that it will be about 16-64 KB. This will need to be done anyway to remove any Canon code from the firmware prior to public distribution of it.

But on a 16 GB card, would you even notice 1 MB?

Workflow
 

Tramm,

So what would be the appropriate workflow?
I have taken to putting in my CF card, immediately formatting it and then start recording.
With your Mark Free there on the card, I definitely don't want to format the card, so now what I'm thinking I'll have to do is:
Format the card(s) in the camera before the shoot;
Take the cards back to my computer and load up your firmware update onto each;
Then upon inserting each card, reload your Mark Free.
Is this correct?

Thanks for all you're doing!

My usual workflow involves two or more cards on the set. After shooting a few takes, the card is replaced with a fresh one, the "exposed" card goes to the rough-cut editor who moves all of the image and movie files off the card to the laptop's drive, starts the mpegstreamclip conversion to AIC and can review any key takes. While the move is happening, more shooting can be going on with the second card.

Since the source files are moved off the card, it is effectively empty except for the firmware file still in the root directory. You shouldn't need to format the CF each time; I would be worried about accidentally deleting from the just-used card. In my workflow the camera never deletes anything -- only the editor at the computer can do that.

Eventually we'll have the AUTOBOOT.BIN file working, in which case the camera will automatically load the custom firmware from the card on every bootup. Until then it is necessary to select "Firmware upgrade" after each reboot.

Thanks Tramm.

I thought I read somewhere that one "should" format the card each time it was put in.
Maybe that was just to get the most data available to the card.

I'm mostly a one-man-band, so I don't have a person or a laptop to offload my footage. So to that end, I currently have two 4GB and two 8GB cards.

I'll be good with the workflow you suggest: shoot, offload the cards, back up data, delete footage from cards, repeat.

Thanks again!

Some people here prefer to never delete content from the card with the computer. They only remove content with an in-camera format. The reason they do this is to make triple-sure that they don't tank the card.

Me? I've deleted files with a PC and a card reader with no problems.

That's how I do it. Not sure it matters too much for photos, but for video, I'd think having a fragmented card could introduce issues at some point (more buffering, dropped frames), even though I've never heard of that.