Canon 50D records RAW videos on Magic Lantern firmware

A photographer has hacked into his Canon EOS 50D to make the camera record high-quality RAW videos at almost full HD resolution.

Magic Lantern consists of a team of hackers who allows Canon cameras to record RAW videos. Their history is pretty long and they have recently enabled the 5D Mark III to capture full HD RAW videos at 24fps.

Furthermore, the Canon 5D Mark III and 5D Mark II can record 2K RAW DNG videos at 14 frames per second for about 28 times. This is all possible thanks to Magic Lantern’s hacked firmware.

The Magic Lantern hacked firmware is more powerful than first thought, since it allows the Canon EOS 50D to record RAW videos at 1592 x 720 resolution without frame skipping.

Now the Canon 50D is capable of recording RAW videos, courtesy of Magic Lantern firmware

Well, an EOSHD forum user has decided to look into this firmware and he has discovered that a four-and-a-half years old DSLR, EOS 50D, is capable of capturing RAW videos, too.

This is a feat that plenty of today’s cameras cannot accomplish, therefore it should be regarded as a major achievement, since Julian Huijbregts has opened the door to an enormous amount of creative possibilities.

The Canon 50D features a 15.1-megapixel image sensor, 3-inch LCD screen, ISO up to 12,800, continuous shooting mode of up to 6.3fps, and 9 cross-type autofocus points among others.

Canon’s EOS DSLR has had the power in it all along

The Canon 50D is no longer being sold by the manufacturer, but there are plenty of these cameras being sold on the internet on eBay or at third-party resellers on Amazon, where buyers can also find the device in “new” condition at the right prices.

In order to demonstrate the capabilities of the hacked firmware, Julian has released a beautiful video, as well as the genuine DNG files. It is said that the camera has had this feature built-in since the beginning, but the technical difficulties forced Canon to disable it.

Even higher-resolution RAW videos can be recorded at the cost of frame skipping

Anyway, Magic Lantern’s firmware is capable of unlocking RAW video support in the Canon 50D, since Julian has revealed that the camera can record RAW videos at 1592 x 702 resolution at 24fps.

The hacker has confirmed that, at this resolution, there is no frame skipping when recording on a SanDisk 32GB SD card at 95MB/s. However, he has achieved even higher resolutions, including 1592 x 840 and 1592 x 1062 with frame skipping after 50 frames and 480 frames respectively.

Huijbregts claims that the maximum width is 1592, while your chosen height depends on frame skipping limitations. The firmware is still in alpha stage, meaning that this situation is worth watching since it could provide even better results.